The Lines Unleashed

The Telecommunications Act changes all the rules when it comes to providing WAN services

Salvatore Salamone, News Editor

Once upon a time, there were WANs connecting mainframe computers. Then there were LANs connecting PCs and servers. Then LANs began to talk over WANs.

In the following pages, we show how even these distinctions are becoming meaningless. The new WAN is a flexible animal that carries client and server traffic at many rates and in many forms. Wit h that flexibility will come a much more complicated, but ultimately more efficient, cost picture.

But all this technological change is matched by a regulatory sea change of tsunami proportions. You'll be buying new services for new purposes not only at new price levels but potentially from a very different mix of vendors.

An Act of Congress

If you simply went by the general press coverage, you'd think that the 280-page Telecommunications Act that Congress passed earlier this year was aimed at keeping obscene material out of the hands of children. But there's more to the story. The Telecommunications Act rewrites laws that have been in place for nearly 62 years. Most pointedly, the act removes some of the major restrictions placed on AT&T and the regional Bell companies in 1984 under the orders of Judge Harold Greene (who presided over the U.S. government's antitrust action against AT&T).

The act frees long-distance carriers to offer local service. In addition, the act allows regional Bells to offer long-distance service outside of their territories. And others, such as cable-TV operators, are now free to offer telecommunications services.

Theoretically, the competition from all this activity should drive down prices. But nothing will happen immediately. Th at's because the bill doesn't simply say, "Open the floodgates." Instead, the bill orders the Federal Communications Commission to write regulations (using a formal process called rulemaking ) that allow this competition to happen. All told, the bill calls for 58 different rulemakings.

Typically, the rulemaking process takes about a year, but it might take longer if the carriers file appeals. Also, the FCC has already said it doesn't have the staff--or the money to hire more staff--to handle such a process (the current year's FCC budget is $175 million; the minimum budget required to handle the process would be $185 million, according to FCC Chairman Reed Hundt).

What does it all mean to you? For now, business as usual. But by the end of the year, you may have many more options when selecting a WAN service to connect your sites and your users.