FCC Rule Ending Landline Wholesale Rate Requirements Is Upheld

The Federal Communications Commission was within its authority when it stopped enforcing statutory provisions requiring major “incumbent” providers of “plain old telephone service” to unbundle network capabilities and make them available to smaller “insurgent” rivals at wholesale rates, the D.C. Circuit ruled.

“Far from the market behemoths the incumbents were in the late 90s, they look more like the sick men of the voice transmission market,” Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote for the court. “What earthly economic reason would justify requiring them to provide their copper wire services to competitors at a subsidized price?”

The ruling by the U.S. Court ...