It's been thirty years since the passage the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the last significant revision to the Communications Act of 1934. Given the dramatic technological and marketplace changes in the communications and media landscape since 1996, it not surprising there's now discussion about updating the statute.
Leaders in both the Senate and House have suggested it may be time to consider rewriting our nation's basic communications law. In December 2025, Senator Ted Cruz, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation said, “given the rapid pace of evolution in technology and telecommunications, it's a wonder that the legal regime governing these issues, and the Commission’s role in regulating them, has largely not been updated since 1996." Therefore, he declared, "a statutory update might be worthwhile."
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