Editorial: Ensuring fairness for all phone firms

Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000 | 9:41 a.m.

In 1996 Congress passed legislation that allowed local phone companies to get involved in long-distance service -- as long as they opened up their local markets to competitors. U S West, one of the top regional phone companies in the nation, and Ameritech reached a deal in 1998 with long-distance provider Qwest to sell Qwest's services to its local customers. But federal regulators stopped the agreement, noting that competition in local phone service hadn't developed yet.

U S West appealed the decision (Ameritech did not), arguing that it wasn't actually providing phone service, it simply was "selling" another firm's services. But this was semantics on U S West's part, because the firm was getting paid by Qwest to do this. Fortunately on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the federal regulators' decision, blocking U S West's bid to skirt the federal law's intent of maintaining a level playing field for telecommunications companies.