Abstract:
The AOL and Time Warner merger ties the knot to the infrastructure of the old economy with the content and candidness of the new-fangled economy. In the months from the time when the merger was declared we have seen our telecommunications industry altered. Global consolidation and entry of foreign competitors into U.S. markets is forcing American companies to develop and compete in a global market. Vivendi and Terra Networks are by now vigorously involved in American telecommunications and Deutsche Telecom and Nippon Telephone and Telegraph on their way; we require being certain that our authoritarian polices do not put American companies at a viable inconvenience in the global marketplace.
As the telecommunications marketplace becomes more and more global, apprehensions over monopolistic power over the industry should weaken. About a year back the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) created the term no-opoly to illustrate the broadband marketplace, as the market was in such an untimely stage that monopolistic policies were not the appropriate structure for the industry. At present the astuteness of their hands-off approach is stand out in the broadband numbers.
