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if you don't know your history you end up repeating it... -- MFJ and Judge Green
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 18:00:12 -0400
Date: Sat, 9 Apr 1994 00:00:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Bob Keller <rjk () telcomlaw com On Wed, 6 Apr 1994, Michael D. Sullivan wrote: On Wed, 6 Apr 1994, stephen granata wrote: There has been talk in Congress of transferring administration of the MFJ from the Court to the FCC. It seems that Judge Greene's unique role in telecommunication policy has come to pass. This most recent development should put to rest any doubts about the propriety of stripping the Court's jurisdiction, and giving it to an "expert" regulatory agency. Some have long been critical of the fact that a federal judge has had more comprehensive power over many aspects of the nation's telecommunications policy than the agency created by Congress to oversee telecommunications. Each decision the judge renders brings this home. We may indeed have arrived at the point where it is desirable for the legislature to change the lay of the land in this particular area. But to be fair to Judge Greene, he is only doing his job. He didn't _ask_ for the MFJ. That was the creation of an consent agreement between a Justice Department that had bit off more than it could chew and an AT&T that was all too happy to resolve a major antitrust lawsuit. While one might argue with decisions Greene arrives at in any particular case, the extent of his entrenchment in the fabric of the telecommunications industry is a function of due the agreement entered into by the parties. IMO, it is a bit of poetic justice that the good judge's ruling is adverse to AT&T's attempt to acquire BOC facilities. I have always suspected that back when the consent decree was being hammered out, the AT&T part of the Bell System (what was then AT&T Long Lines) thought it was getting a hell of a deal in the divestiture. It was unloading the local exchange carriers with their extensive capital costs and heavy regulation, and keeping the lean, mean, competitive, long distance business. Now, more than a decade later, things look a bit different. Today the local exchnage industry is whole lot sexier than LD or equipment vending. And as business ventures, the RBOCs have far outperfomred AT&T. If my suspicion about Long Lines' thinking in 1982 is correct, then it is ironic that AT&T has had to watch the meteoric success of the RBOCs from the sidelines because of its own agreement with the government. -- Bob Keller Robert J. Keller, P.C. Internet: rjk () telcomlaw com ---------- Federal Telecommunications Law Telephone: +1 301.229.5208 KY3R 4200 Wisconsin Ave NW #106-261 Facsimile: +1 301.229.6875 Washington, DC 20016-2143 USA CompuServe UID: 76100.3333
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- if you don't know your history you end up repeating it... -- MFJ and Judge Green David Farber (Apr 09)