The telecom collapse may exceed the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s, with perhaps as much as US $700 billion out of the $900 billion invested in the sector never to be recovered. To this amount add the evaporation of $2 trillion in market capitalization as stocks plummeted. The results: almost one-third of a million people in the industry have lost their jobs in one year, and dozens of leading firms have filed for bankruptcy protection.
Is it time for government to step in? Absolutely not, according to Mark Langley, an analyst with Needham & Co., New York City. The U.S. Congress and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC)should stop thinking they can facilitate competition. Industry should be allowed to cure itself. If government maintains a hands-off policy and the benefits of deregulation--competition in the local loop, lower prices, better services, increased demand, and more--materialize, the industry will become healthy once again.
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