The Oyez Project: Economic Activity Issues - Federal Public Utilities Regulation, Telephone Company

AT&T v. Iowa Utilities Board

The 1996 Telecommunications Act (Act) fundamentally altered local telephone markets by ending the monopolies traditionally given to local exchange carriers (LECs) by states and subjecting LECs to a host of duties meant to facilitate market entry. Among these was the imposition of an obligation on incumbent LECs to share their networks with competitors. Following the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) issuance of regulations implementing the Act's guidelines, AT&T challenged their constitutionality on behalf of itself and other existing phone service providers.

MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co.

No details yet.

Norfolk Redev. & Housing Auth. v. C. & P. Tel.

No details yet.

Verizon Communications v. FCC

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 entitles new companies seeking to enter local telephone service markets to lease elements of the incumbent carriers' local exchange networks and directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to prescribe methods for state utility commissions to use in setting rates for the sharing of those elements. The FCC provided for the rates to be set based upon the forward-looking economic cost of an element as the sum of the total element long-run incremental cost of the element (TELRIC) and a reasonable allocation of forward-looking common costs incurred in providing a group of elements that cannot be attributed directly to individual elements and specified that the TELRIC should be measured based on the use of the most efficient telecommunications technology currently available and the lowest cost network configuration. FCC regulations also contain combination rules, requiring an incumbent to perform the functions necessary to combine network elements for an entrant, unless the combination is not technically feasible. In five separate cases, a range of parties challenged the FCC regulations. Ultimately, the Court of Appeals held that the use of the TELRIC methodology was foreclosed because the Act plainly required rates based on the actual cost of providing the network element and invalidated certain combination rules.