Rivals Protest AT&T Rate Shift

AT&T has moved to effectively raise the price on some of its dedicated data and voice lines for businesses, prompting complaints from groups representing cellphone carriers to ATM owners which say the market is uncompetitive.

The telecom giant notified customers earlier this month that it would no longer offer extended contracts -- and the discounts that come with them -- to companies using these high-capacity connections, known as "special access lines." Sprint and other telecommunications companies that buy the connections claimed the move was anticompetitive, and complained to the Federal Communications Commission. Once the FCC receives official notice of the change from AT&T, the agency will have 15 days to respond or the changes will automatically take effect. The agency can still suspend the changes after they have taken effect. Rising prices of high capacity connections could impact a broad array of businesses from financial institutions, manufacturers and retailers that use these lines to connect ATMs, gas pumps and warehouse inventories.