Summary and Conclusions

I have argued that the key telecommunications policy issues from an engineering perspective are those associated with the local exchange portion of our nation's telecommunications infrastructure. I have further argued that the five most important issues associated with that portion of the network are

jurisdiction,
local competition and unbundling,
access pricing and
maintenance of universal service,
deregulation, and
deployment of
broadband facilities in the subscriber access portion of the network.

Finally, I have offered some observations on each of these issues that I hope will stimulate discussion if not open debate.