e Act made many changes in Title 47 of the U.S. Code, which had originally been enacted as the Communications Act of 1934. Some of these changes concerned broadcasting: The number of stations that a single company could own was greatly increased, leading to tremendous consoli- dation of broadcast radio. The Communications Decency Act would have criminalized Internet transmission of material "indecent to minors" had it not been overturned by the Supreme Court. Most cable television prices were deregulated. And most television sets were required to be equipped with a "v-chip," a feature enabling parents to block reception of programming tagged with signals indicating various types of content. The impact on local telephone service was profound. Prior to its passage, a few states had already legalized local telephone competition: TCG and MFS, for instance, were already offering local service to businesses in New York and Mas- sachusetts. But the Act required states to give certification to any and all com- petitive local exchange carriers that met basic qualifications. It set broad guidelines for competition, requiring incumbent LECs to provide unbundled network elements (UNEs) at cost-based rates. Of course the Act required con- siderable work on the part of the FCC to implement the detailed rules. It gave very short deadlines, essentially putting the FCC into high gear for the year, as regulations were pounded out. But the very compromise that made the Act's final passage happen turned out to be its greatest weakness. The Telecom Act was, and is, a masterpiece of self-contradiction. To achieve a compromise acceptable to ILECs, IXCs, and potential CLECs alike, it contained many intentional ambiguities. The net result was a nearly permanent state of litigation, plenty of work for Washing- ton's lawyers, but confusion for the businesses that had to operate within the The Long Distance Business Declined The Bell companies turned out to be the real winners. The Telecom Act required them to give up their local monopolies