(220 ILCS 5/13-102) (from Ch. 111 2/3, par. 13-102)
    (Section scheduled to be repealed on July 1, 2013)
    Sec. 13-102. Findings. With respect to telecommunications services, as herein defined, the General Assembly finds that:
    (a) universally available and widely affordable telecommunications services are essential to the health, welfare and prosperity of all Illinois citizens;
    (b) federal regulatory and judicial rulings in the 1980s caused a restructuring of the telecommunications industry and opened some aspects of the industry to competitive entry, thereby necessitating revision of State telecommunications regulatory policies and practices;
    (c) revisions in telecommunications regulatory policies and practices in Illinois beginning in the mid-1980s brought the benefits of competition to consumers in many telecommunications markets, but not in local exchange telecommunications service markets;
    (d) the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 established the goal of opening all telecommunications service markets to competition and accords to the states the responsibility to establish and enforce policies necessary to attain that goal;
    (e) it is in the immediate interest of the People of the State of Illinois for the State to exercise its rights within the new framework of federal telecommunications policy to ensure that the economic benefits of competition in all telecommunications service markets are realized as effectively as possible;
    (f) the competitive offering of all telecommunications services will increase innovation and efficiency in the provision of telecommunications services and may lead to reduced prices for consumers, increased investment in communications infrastructure, the creation of new jobs, and the attraction of new businesses to Illinois; and
    (g) protection of the public interest requires changes in the regulation of telecommunications carriers and services to ensure, to the maximum feasible extent, the reasonable and timely development of effective competition in all telecommunications service markets.
(Source: P.A. 90-185, eff. 7-23-97.)