Diversity or reconcentration : Competition's latent effect

Competitive diversity has long been valued in American culture and telecommunications policy. Certainty, encouraging diversity and competition has been the central theme of government policy for the past decade. Now, spurred by the momentum of the [open quotes]information superhighway[close quotes] and the perceived convergence of cable and telephone technologies, attention has turned to whether the last bastion of monopoly - the local exchange - may soon be added to the list of competitive telecommunications markets.