by Peter Huber, Michael Kellogg, and John Thorne
...The Telecommunications Act of 1996: Special Report (Huber et al.) was the first of these treatises to appear and is designed to supplement the three authors' earlier books: Federal Telecommunications Law (1992, and its Supplement 1995), and Federal Broadband Law (1995), though it can readily be used as a stand-alone guide. The four analytic chapters (one each on telephony, broadcasting, cable and video services, and obscenity and violence provisions) take the same discursive approach as the earlier books and occupy 120 pages. They differ from the Handbook in two regards: they are extensively annotated (much like law review articles), and they provide far more coverage of the contested obscenity and violence provisions now under court review. Appendices offer two statutory supplements: the 96 Act itself, and the joint explanatory statement of the congressional conference committee that reported the act out for final votes. Though it lacks an overall index, the table of contents for this volume is sufficiently detailed to serve the same purpose. The strength here is the depth and breadth of the text material, by far the most extensive (the print is smaller so there is more per page) of the three general treatises....