The Telecommunications Act of 1996 didn’t foster competitors amongst ILECs as the bill had hoped. Instead, of ILECs encroaching on one another, the other occurred – mergers. Before the 1996 Act was handed, the largest four ILECs owned less than half of all the strains in the country while, 5 years later, the most important 4 native telephone companies owned about 85% of all the strains in the nation. Looking back 5 years after the bill was handed, the Consumers Union reported that wire to wire competitors, the rationale that sold the bill, had not succeeded as legislators had hoped.
