The Telecom Act at 20

With the Telecommunications Act of 1996 marking its 20th Anniversary today -- Feb. 8 -- the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy will hold a media breakfast tomorrow (Feb. 9) to commemorate that anniversary.

The Act was the first major overhaul of communications regulations since the 1934 Act.

The breakfast will host a panel featuring some voices of experience--officials who were involved in drafting the legislation.

They will also posit what a Telecom Act of 2017 might look like. House Republicans collected string, and comment, on a revamp, but in an election year that is unlikely to get much traction.

Weighing in at the event: Ralph Everett, Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy; Rick Boucher, honorary co-chair, Internet Innovation Alliance, and former chair of the House Communications Subcommittee; Harold Furchtgott-Roth former FCC commissioner and current director of the Center for Economics of the Internet, Hudson Institute; Larry Irving, co-chair of the Internet Innovation Alliance and former head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration; and John Mayo, economics professor, Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, and executive director, Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.