ABSTRACT
To understand the crisis and the needs for communications policy research, it may be helpful briefly to review a timeline of technological innovations in communications. Policy research requires a thorough understanding of the changing character of the electronic storage, switching, and transmission technologies. Communication and information technologies and services may enhance the quality and extend the availability of educational services. Technological change has made obsolete the 1934 Communications Act which established the Federal Communications Commission and the basic principles of telecommunications and spectrum regulation in the United States. With enhanced information and entertainment services in telecommunications, state and federal regulators are forced to confront content limitations in telephony and other media. The transition are from separate industries of telecommunications, computing, broadcasting, and publishing into an integrated digital network need to draw on more than the fields of policy, economics, and technologically focused research.
