if you don't know your history you end up repeating it... -- MFJ and Judge Green

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

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
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