Why Now?

Deregulation of the telecommunications industry makes "right now" the optimum time to implement Mr. Greco's plan for Wilkes-Barre's  Fiber City. The following links describe the deregulation act in detail. In addition, with an industry growing at an ever-increasing rate, each day we delay is equivalent to delaying 3 months.  

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received a legislative directive from Congress to deregulate the telecommunications industry in 1996. This was the first major change to the telecommunications law in the United States in over 64 years. The Telecommunications Act of 1996, P.L. 98-104-104,110 Stat. 56 (1996). The FCC has reproduced this new federal law in a variety of computer formats such as: (ASC11 Text, Adobe Acrobat and WordPerfect at its web site. 

On January 26, 1999, the United States Supreme Court issued an important decision on the authority of the FCC to regulate access to local telephone markets under the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. The case - AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utils. Bd., U.S., 142 L.Ed.2d 834, 119 S.Ct.721 (U.S. 1999) - held that FCC authority found under the Federal Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C./201(b) gives the FCC power to implement the 1996 Telecommunications Act mandate to encourage entry of competitors into local telephone service markets nationwide and that the FCC's unbundling rule specifying the minimum number of network elements that incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) must make available for lease to new entrants - 47C.F.R./51,319is vacated/. Click here to view the entire Supreme Court decision.