WorldCom Supports FCC Request for Stay of Anticompetitive
Court Ruling
The following statement should be attributed to Michael
H. Salsbury, General Counsel of WorldCom, Inc.:
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August 31, 2000 WorldCom (NASDAQ: WCOM), "The prompt
reinstatement of the FCC’s pricing guidelines is critical if consumers are
to finally have a choice of local phone carriers as promised by the
Telecom Act more than four years ago. The 8th Circuit’s decisions continue
to stall local competition by discouraging carriers from making the
investments needed to serve local markets. The 8th Circuit got it wrong
four years ago — as the Supreme Court ruled – and they got it wrong again
last month.”
Background: WorldCom today urged the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in
St. Louis to grant the FCC’s request that it stay a recent ruling that
threatens further delay in the development of local telephone service
competition for residential and small business customers. On July 18th,
the 8th Circuit Court ruled against the FCC’s forward-looking methodology
for determining how monopoly local carriers should charge competitive
local carriers to use the public telephone network – a key component of
the Commission’s implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.
This was the second major challenge by the 8th Circuit Court to local
competition. Early last year, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a previous
8th Circuit Court ruling against the FCC’s authority to issue local
competition rules.
WorldCom’s filing in support of the FCC was made jointly with AT&T,
Sprint and Comptel.
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