Regulatory developments in data

Since its creation in 1934, the Federal Communications Commission has exercised regulatory jurisdiction over all interstate common carrier communications service in the U.S. The Commission has broad powers to review rates and tariffs, determine investment and operating practices, approve new plant installations, and literally shape the entire communications carrier industry, but historically the Commission has failed to exercise these powers vigorously. Instead it, like most government regulatory agencies, has tended to become dominated by the industry it supposedly regulates, and has come to place the status quo high on its list of values to be protected; until recently, that is. Communications carrier services in the U.S. are today provided on a monopoly, or at best, duopoly basis. Each telephone company has a monopoly in providing dial telephone service in its geographic operating area, and although Western Union provides private line services "competitive" with those of the telephone companies, WU's service offerings and rates are identical to those established by the Bell System and copied by all independent (non-Bell) telephone companies as well. Bell's mammoth size (serving over 83 percent of all U.S. telephones) as compared with WU and the independent telephone companies has made the terms "Bell" and "communications carrier industry" virtually synonymous, with effective competition within the industry nonexistent. Thus, decisions regarding introduction of new services and equipment, rates, and tariff regulations have been made by a single firm, with minimal federal and state regulatory control in most cases. The result with respect to data communications has been a sluggish response to user demand for new and improved services (especially felt by data users during the early and mid-60s), restrictive tariffs which impeded the user's ability to obtain maximum benefit