Telecommunications Act of 1996

This Order implements sections of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (``1996 Act''). The Order establishes rules conforming the Commission's rules to statutory mandates that became effective upon enactment of the 1996 Act. Although all rules promulgated pursuant to this Order are ``final,'' the Commission recognizes that some rules, apart from those implementing the explicit language of the 1996 Act, should be viewed as ``interim'' rules subject to revision in the near future based on comments and information received in an associated Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (``NPRM'') that has been released concurrently with this Order and published in this issue of the Federal Register. This Order implements rules related to the 1996 Act's cable reform provisions, including the definition of effective competition, the cable rate complaint process, the sunset of cable programming service tier regulation, small cable operators, uniform rate requirements, subscriber notice of service and rate changes, technical standards, cable system buy out restrictions, program access, the definitions of cable system and cable service, operator refusals to carry indecent programming, and prior year losses. The intended effect of this action is to implement provisions of the 1996 Act that revised the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992.