Date of Award

1997

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Business Administration

Department

Business

First Advisor

Daniel W. Kemper

Second Advisor

Joseph Silverio

Third Advisor

Jan Kniffen

Abstract

Telecommunications has gone through various stages of development since its conception in the late l 800's. The most current event and the basis for this thesis, is the legislation that passed Congress titled the ''Telecommunications Act of 1996". It is the purpose of this document to research the impact of this legislation to the user and the businesses involved in this industry.

There were three main areas of focus for this research. The first area of study pertained to the current local and long distance companies in the telecommunications industry. The second area related to the users of the telecommunications products and what impact this change could have on them. And finally, the article addressed how this law would expand competition and bring in other industries not normally associated with telecommunications.

To undertake this challenge, seventy-eight articles were obtained relating to these three categories. These articles were then sorted with the data classified into the three areas of investigation. This data was then analyzed lo eliminate biases that could impact the decision process to either substantiate or refute the hypothesis. It was hypothesized that deregulation of the telecommunications industry would not create opportunities for companies to expand into the national long distance business.

Results of the analysis showed that the competition will be the strongest in the local access arena, and that this is already taking place through mergers and the entry of both utilities and cable television companies into telecommunications. These companies already have a consumer market in a particular region of the country and plan to expand their product lines to include telecommunications. Most of the mergers have been between local access providers merging with other local access providers to concentrate on that business.

Based on the study, the hypothesis was supported that alt least initially !he focus will be in the local access markets. The existing long distance companies will have to compete with these providers in regions but not on a national basis. What can also be concluded from this research is that the telecommunications act will in fact create more competition and expand the type of products that will be produced in this new industry.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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