Opinion ID: 402072
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Arguments of Trans-Lux Corporation

Text: 27 Trans-Lux Corporation, a manufacturer of terminal equipment, intervenes in support of WUT's position. While Trans-Lux's arguments largely restate the claims of WUT, Trans-Lux asserts as an independent ground for rejecting the Detariffing Order the alleged deleterious effect that detariffing will have on Trans-Lux. 28 In the Unbundling Order the Commission stated its tentative conclusion that the provision of terminal equipment is not inextricably related to transmission, can be (and in fact is) offered by entities other than ... common carrier(s) providing transmission and is not what would traditionally be classified as a communications service. 76 F.C.C.2d at 82. This position was confirmed in Second Computer Inquiry, 77 F.C.C.2d at 450-51 (final decision), 84 F.C.C.2d at 65 (as modified on reconsideration), and in the Detariffing Order, 86 F.C.C.2d at 417-18. Trans-Lux offers nothing which casts doubt on the Commission's conclusion that the manufacture and provision of terminal equipment are highly competitive and involve many firms which are not communications carriers. To find in such circumstances that providing terminal equipment is not a communications service is hardly irrational. 29 Trans-Lux's claims amount to little more than an assertion that its business will be damaged by the deregulation of terminal equipment because the IRCs (and perhaps WUT) will offer terminals below cost, rendering Trans-Lux unable to compete. Whatever validity such a claim might have in an antitrust complaint, see generally, Cantor v. Detroit Edison Co., 428 U.S. 579, 96 S.Ct. 3110, 49 L.Ed.2d 1141 (1976), it has no relevance to this proceeding to review regulations of communications services.