Opinion ID: 186282
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unbundling under the Telecommunications Act

Text: 3 SBC's petition concerns its obligations as an incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) under the Telecommunications Act. ILECs are companies that own the local wires that connect telephone subscribers' phones to local phone company exchanges. ILECs also own the local exchanges. Those exchanges centrally route calls, using switches, among the local phone wires and the trunks that connect various exchanges, obviating the need for each phone to be connected to one other. To prevent ILECs from monopolizing these facilities, the Telecommunications Act (the Act), as amended in 1996, requires ILECs to allow competing carriers, known as competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), to use their networks, a practice known as unbundling. In particular, the Act requires ILECs to allow CLECs to lease unbundled network elements (UNEs) so that CLECs can offer service in competition with ILECs. See 47 U.S.C. § 251(c)(3). 4 The task of determining those network elements that must be unbundled is delegated to the FCC. In determining whether a network element should be unbundled, the Act requires the FCC to consider at a minimum whether access to such network elements as are proprietary in nature is necessary and whether the failure to provide access to such network elements would impair the ability of the telecommunications carrier seeking access to provide the services that it seeks to offer. Id. § 251(d)(2). The FCC has issued a series of orders addressing the scope of ILECs' obligation to unbundle their network elements. 1 5 Network element[s] that must be unbundled include the functions[] and capabilities provided by ILECs' network facilities. Id. § 153(29). One such capability is the service of transporting telephone calls on an ILEC's network; it seems fairly clear that this service is therefore a network element. See S.W. Bell Tel. Co. v. FCC, 199 F.3d 996, 997 (8th Cir.1999) (per curiam). Such transportation is accomplished using transport lines that connect the exchanges and switches in the network. ILECs' networks transport calls either by dedicating those transport facilities to a single carrier, which are referred to as dedicated transport facilities, or by allowing several carriers to share the facilities, referred to as shared transport facilities. SBC's petition for review involves its obligation to provide CLECs with unbundled access to its shared transport facilities.