U.S. Telecom Infrastructure Crisis

Analysis & commentary on America's troubled transition from analog telephone service to digital advanced telecommunications and associated infrastructure deficits.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

No antitrust issue in ISP suit vs. AT&T, U.S. Supreme Court rules

Reuters reports the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against several Internet Service Providers who brought an antitrust suit against AT&T in 2003 claiming the big telco's pricing policies on DSL service constituted uncompetitive market conduct.

The ISPs alleged AT&T and its predecessor, SBC Communications, maintained unreasonably high wholesale access charges to ISPs to deliberately thwart them from competing with SBC/AT&T for Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) customers as permitted under the line sharing provisions of the federal Telecommunications Reform Act of 1996. Ma Bell then lowballed prices on her own DSL offerings, making it impossible for the ISPs to compete on price, the ISP plaintiffs complained.
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest

No comments:

Post a Comment

Newer Post Older Post Home
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Follow on X

Follow @EldoTelecom
Subscribe in a reader

About this blog

My photo
Fred Pilot
United States
In the early 1990s as digital, Internet protocol-based telecommunications emerged, it became clear that fiber optic technology would replace copper telephone lines of the analog pre-Internet era. But the transition from copper to fiber that should have been largely completed by the start of the second decade of the 21st century has been painfully slow and incremental. That has brought about a crisis of deficient telecommunications landline infrastructure in most of the nation. Public policymakers dither and engage in wishful thinking that wireless and satellite technologies will solve the problem. The crisis deepened in 2020 with the emergence of pandemic contagion and public health measures that increased the need for robust and affordable IP-based telecommunications to support virtual work, education and telemedicine. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a crisis as a “decisive moment,” “an unstable or crucial time or state of affairs in which a decisive change is impending,” and “a situation that has reached a critical phase.” The state of American telecommunications infrastructure and policy is precisely at that point.
View my complete profile

Order my eBook

Order my eBook U.S. Telecom Infrastructure Crisis: America’s Botched Modernization of Copper to Fiber -- And the Path Forward from Bookbaby (AZW, EPUB, PDF formats) 

I am available to speak on this topic. Contact me using the contact form below.


Regulatory and public policy consulting services

Offering research and public policy consulting services on advanced telecommunications infrastructure. Contact me using the Contact Form below.

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Copyright 2006-2025 Frederick L. Pilot. Powered by Blogger.