Cite as: 525 U. S. 366 (1999)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
Congress enacted the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act or Act), Pub. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, against this backdrop. To be sure, the 1996 Act marked a significant change in federal telecommunications policy. Most important, Congress ended the States' longstanding practice of granting and maintaining local exchange monopolies. See 47 U. S. C. § 253(a) (1994 ed., Supp. II). It also required incumbent local exchange carriers to allow their competitors to access their facilities in three different ways. As the majority describes more completely, ante, at 371-373, n. 1, incumbents must: interconnect their networks with requesting carriers' facilities and equipment, § 251(c)(2); provide non-discriminatory access to network elements on an unbundled basis at any technically feasible point, § 251(c)(3); and offer to resell at wholesale rates any telecommunications service that they provide to subscribers who are not telecommunications carriers, § 251(c)(4). The Act sets forth additional obligations applicable to all telecommunications carriers, § 251(a), and all local exchange carriers, § 251(b). To facilitate rapid transition from monopoly to competitive provision of local telephone service, Congress set forth a process to ensure that the incumbent and competing carriers fulfill these obligations in § 252.
Section 252 sets up a preference for negotiated interconnection agreements. § 252(a). To the extent that the incumbent and competing carriers cannot agree, the Act gives the state commissions primary responsibility for mediating and arbitrating agreements. Specifically, Congress directed the state commissions to mediate disputes between carriers during the voluntary negotiation period, § 252(a)(2), and— after the negotiations have run their course—to arbitrate any "open issues," § 252(b)(1). In conducting these arbitrations, state commissions are directed to ensure that open issues are resolved in accordance with the requirements of § 251, "establish . . . rates for interconnection, services, or network elements" according to the standards that Congress
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