The Crescendo of Convergence: Regulating Telecommunications
![handle is hein.journals/albnyst6 and id is 123 raw text is: THE CRESCENDO OF CONVERGENCE:
REGULATING TELECOMMUNICATIONS*
Scott Morris**
I want to thank the sponsors of this conference for the invitation
to speak here. I would also like to thank Bob' for the definition of
convergence.2 I was giving some thought to that term last night,
and because it has been so long since I have really practiced law, I
completely forgot to bother looking the word up in a dictionary like
a good attorney should. Instead, I decided I am not sure we are
dealing with convergence here at all. Admittedly, I cannot come
up with a better term. It may be cacophony. It may be crescendo.
But it seems to me that there is no single point to which all com-
munications services are actually converging. Rather, there are
many points, and those many points are themselves expanding.
The image in my mind is that of the crescendo of a July 4th fire-
works show when the shells burst and each shell explodes into a
flower of light. They all begin to overlap and you see a very pretty,
but very complex, pattern of different colors all overlapping with
one another. To relate that to what is going on in communica-
tions, you can envision a world in which many different technolo-
* The following article is based on a transcription of a presentation made at a
symposium at Albany Law School. Symposium, The State Role in
Telecommunications Regulation (April 21, 1995).
** Senior Vice President for External Affairs, McCaw Cellular
Communications, Inc., a subsidiary of AT&T Corp. B.A., Stanford University.
J.D., Hastings College of Law.
1 Robert A. Heverly, The State Role in Telecommunications Regulation: An
Introduction, 6 AI. L.J. ScI. & TECH. 1 (1996).
2 Convergence is a trend that currently exists in the telecommunications
industry. MICHAEL K. KELLOGG ET AL., FEDERAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS LAw § 1.8
(1992). This is to say, [t]he lines between media formerly segregated by mode of
transmission (radio vs. landline) and function (telephone, cable, broadcast,
computer) are quickly disappearing. We are moving rapidly toward a myriad of
mixed media (radio/landline), integrated, digital, broadband (video) networks, all
interconnecting seamlessly to one another. Id. § 1.8, at 53. An example of this
convergence is cellular telephony, which combine radio, telephone and computers
into one network, and fiber-optic systems, which merge radio, telephone lines,
and electronics. Id. § 1.8, at 53, 55. This trend... [also includes) video dialtone
applications by telephone service providers, agreements allowing cable operators
to provide, telephone service to subscribers .... and local exchange carriers
seeking to enter the long distance market. Heverly, supra note 1, at 4.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/albnyst6&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Crescendo of Convergence: Regulating Telecommunications
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