Talk America, Petitioner v. Michigan Bell Telephone Company Dba AT&T Michigan (564 U.S. 50)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 9, 2011 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 564 U.S. 50 · 131 S. Ct. 2254
- Decided
- June 9, 2011
- Term
- October Term 2010
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Thomas
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court. In these cases, we consider whether an incumbent provider of local telephone service must make certain transmission facilities available to competitors at cost-based rates. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission), as amicus curiae contends that its regulations require the incumbent provider to do so if the facilities are to be used for interconnection: to link the incumbent provider’s telephone network with the competitor’s network for the mutual exchange of traffic. We defer to the Commission’s views and reverse the judgment below. I The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act), 110 Stat. 56, imposed a number of duties on incumbent providers of local telephone service in order to facilitate market entry by competitors. AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S. 366, 371 (1999). The incumbent local exchange carriers (LECs) owned the local exchange networks: the physical equipment necessary to receive, properly route, and deliver phone calls among customers. Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 535 U. S. 467, 490 (2002). Before the 1996 Act, a new, competitive LEC could not compete with an incumbent carrier without basically replicating the incumbent’s entire existing network. Ibid. The 1996 Act addressed that barrier to market entry by requiring incumbent LECs to share their networks with competitive LECs…
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