FCC Holds The Phone On Line Sharing, Telcos Flip Out
from the short-lived-victory dept
Back in March, the courts said too bad to an FCC ruling that kept line sharing in place. Michael Powell had been pushing to get rid of line sharing anyway, and lost when his fellow commissioners tried to come up with a compromise solution that pleased no one. Still, after seeing the aftermath of the “no more line sharing” world, Powell started to reconsider and through maybe they should hold things steady a little longer. Yesterday, the FCC announced they were extending line sharing rules until something better was worked out. As you might imagine, this has (once again) upset just about everyone. Still, the angriest of the bunch are the telcos who just had the gift that the courts had wrapped so nicely for them in March taken away. They didn’t waste any time asking the court to toss out the latest FCC ruling and give them back the freedom to price gouge while driving all of their competitors (and customers) to non-copper-based solutions such as cable, wireless and VoIP.
