Baby Bell Lawsuit Is Allowed to Proceed

A federal appeals court Monday said an antitrust lawsuit against several of the nation's largest telecommunication providers over whether they conspired to exclude competitors from their geographic markets should be allowed to go forward. In an opinion issued Monday, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a prior lower court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit against a group of Baby Bells, including Verizon Communications, BellSouth, Qwest Communications and SBC Communications. The lawsuit alleged the telecommunications companies, which control more than 90% of local telephone service in the U.S., conspired not to compete against one another in their respective geographic markets for local telephone and high-speed Internet services and to prevent competitors from entering those markets. The complaint says the alleged conspiracy has driven a number of competing local exchange carriers out of business, restrained competition for local telephone and high-speed Internet services and forced consumers to pay higher rates than they would have in a competitive environment. (Where's Judge Green when you need him?)
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, AUTHOR: Chad Bray chad.bray@dowjones.com ]
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