U.S. Telecommunications Act of 1996

(Summarized from Newton's Telecom Dictionary) A federal bill signed into law on Feb. 8, 1996 "to promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure lower prices and higher quality services for American telecommunications consumers and encourage rapid deployment of new telecommunications technologies." The Act is widely reputed to be among the worst pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. There were 3 key requirements/objectives related to the ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers): 1) required local service providers in the 100 largest MSAs (Metropolitan Service Area) to implement Local Number Portability by the end of 1998, 2) allowed local RBOCs (Regional Bell Operating Company) into long distance once they had met certain conditions about allowing competition in their local monopoly areas, and 3) forced the local phone companies to rent their local copper loops to new telecommunications carriers (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers). President Clinton signed the Telecom Act of 1996 into law using the same pen President Dwight D. Eisenhower used in 1957 to authorize the interstate highways. "We will help create an open marketplace where competition and innovation can move quick as light," Clinton said. The telecom boom began, tons of new CLECs were born and billions of dollars were invested in the telecom sector. By mid-2001 the whole telecom boom had pretty much went bust.
Congress is considering a major overhaul of the 1996 Act.
See Wikipedia for a description of the 7 titles and more info (worth a quick read, it's not that long):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996