Politics, AT&T Merger To Shape Telecom Agenda In U.S. Congress

U.S. Congress Is Punting On USF, Spectrum, And Retransmission Policies

By Tom Smith, Editor, The Independent Telecom Report

Political partisanship and the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile will both shape and dominate the telecommunications policy agenda in the U.S. Congress for the rest of this year. After last year’s Congressional elections, many political analysts predicted that a divided Congress – in which Republicans dominated the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats dominated the U.S. Senate – would be deadlocked on most policy issues. As we reach the six month-mark in the life of the current Congress, gridlock does not describe the legislative environment. Dysfunction might be a better description. (Click here to read more of Tom Smith's Analysis in this week's Independent Telecom Report Special Edition.