US West Communications v. MFS Intelenet, Inc.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996(Act) is designed to foster competition in local and long distance telephone markets. The local competition provisions of the Act require incumbent local exchange carriers (defined in 47 U.S.C. § 251 (h)(1)) to allow other local exchange carriers access to the incumbent carrier’s networks or services to enable them to compete in providing local telephone services: (1) incumbent carriers must interconnect their networks with new entrants “at any technically feasible point,” and the interconnection must be “at least equal in quality” to the interconnection the incumbent carrier provides for itself, 47 U.S.C. § 251 (c)(2); (2) incumbents must provide nondiscriminatory, unbundled access to network elements 2 in a manner that allows new entrants to combine the elements to provide telecommunications services, see 47 U.S.C. § 251 (c)(3); and (3) incumbents must offer for resale, at wholesale rates, any telecommunications service an incumbent offers at retail, and permit new entrants to resell those services to end-users. See 47 U.S.C. § 251 (c)(4). The Act prohibits incumbent carriers from imposing unreasonable or discriminatory conditions or limitations…