US Court Upholds FCC Ruling To Lift Large Phone Co Price Caps

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday upheld a Federal Communications Commission decision to lift some regulations on prices that large phone companies charge other businesses for connections to the Internet. The ruling puts the debate about fairness of the "special access" market squarely in the lap of the FCC. It is a loss for large companies that are members of an ad hoc telecom-users coalition that pay for those access lines when they wire up their buildings. The decision also comes as competitor phone companies like Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and U.S. Cellular are clamoring for more regulation in the business-to-business access market.