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SCOTUS To Hear Small ISPs' Case Against AT&T
snydeq writes "The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear an antitrust case that alleges AT&T squeezed out small ISPs by charging too much for wholesale access to its phone network. The case, originally brought to US District Court in 2003, had been appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. But AT&T requested the case be heard by the Supreme Court on the grounds that prior conflicting appeals court decisions in this area should be resolved at that level. As part of the case, the Supreme Court will likely also ascertain whether AT&T could be held to violate antitrust law without setting its retail prices below its own cost."
In the US the phone lines are consistently referred to as "the public network" in FCC rules and regulations. I owned an ISP in Michigan and yes the telcos did squeeze out the small guys. SBC offered to sell me DSL lines at 37.99 per month when they were selling them at 39.99 per month. For that measly 2.00 per month per customer I was expected to provide tech support, billing and collection services and accept all of the bad debt risk. At that point I decided to get out of the ISP business and concentrate of other things. Pity that one large company can put 6,000 small ISPs out of business when their infrastructure was given to them by the people (think of the right of way behind you house that they use for nothing.