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SCOTUS Rules Incumbent Telcos Must Share Network Access At Cost
schwit1 writes with news, as reported by Bloomberg, which will likely have bearing on (like it or not) regulation of peering among Internet carriers: "Established local telephone companies including AT&T Inc. must share disputed parts of their networks with competitors at cost, the US Supreme Court ruled. The unanimous ruling backs the position taken by the Federal Communications Commission in a fight stemming from the 1996 law that injected competition into the local telephone business. The law requires so-called incumbent local carriers, whose ranks also include Verizon Communications Inc. and CenturyLink Inc., to share their facilities with rivals."
Verizon was handed an infrastructure paid for by years of taxes and government granted monopolies, if they can't make a profit with that kind of setup then they deserve to lose.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You missed the key term "regulated" meaning the government would determine what they could charge. It would be like they have done with electricity deregulation. I live in Texas and here is how it was done here. The local government mandated monopoly (Houston Lighting & Power) was split into two companies. One became the owner of the infrastructure and was named CenterPoint Energy. The other became the independent seller of electricity to end users Reliant Energy. Reliant Energy must purchase electricity from power brokers and CenterPoint delivers the power to Reliant's customers. CenterPoint charges Reliant a fee for using it's lines. CenterPoint is regulated by ERCOT. Reliant is free to charge the customer whatever it likes but it now must compete with other electricity providers for the privilege. For cable companies it would be like splitting Comcast into two companies. One would own the infrastructure and be regulated and the other would simply sell programming packages and service. I also advocate this model for Telco and Cellular.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
As an actual telecom attorney, I'd just like to clarify that this ruling applies very narrowly to the use of entrance facilities (wires running into telco offices) for the purpose of interconnection. The dispute centered on an order from the FCC that excluded these facilities from regulation under one part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that requires unbundled access to network elements that are necessary for competing service providers and would impair their ability to provide service if they were denied access. A separate section of the Act requires telcos to provide cost-based access to network facilities for the purpose of interconnection. AT&T claimed that the order meant that they did not have to provide access to entrance facilities under either statutory provision. A competing provider, took them to court over it, the FCC filed a brief stating that AT&T was required to provide the facilities for the purpose of interconnection, and the Supreme Court endorsed the FCC view. That's it. This opinion does not expand the rights of competitors to unbundled access to incumbent networks in any general sense.