414
Opinion of Breyer, J.
introduce new competition into the local telephone service markets. Rather, it left each local market in the hands of a single state-regulated local service supplier, such as NYNEX in New York, or Bell Atlantic in Washington, D. C. That circumstance may have reflected the belief, current at the time, that local service competition could prove wasteful, leading to the unwarranted duplication of expensive physical facilities by requiring, say, the unnecessary digging up of city streets to install unneeded wires connecting each house with a series of new but redundant local switches. See, e. g., United States v. Western Elec. Co., 673 F. Supp. 525, 537-538 (DC 1987); P. Huber, M. Kellogg, & J. Thorne, The Geodesic Network II: 1993 Report on Competition in the Telephone Industry, pp. 2.3-2.5 (1992).
At the same time, the decree forbade most such local service suppliers from entering long-distance markets. United States v. American Tel. & Tel. Co., supra, at 186-188. That prohibition, by preventing entry by local firms willing and able to supply long-distance service, risked less long-distance competition. Cf. P. MacAvoy, The Failure of Antitrust and Regulation to Establish Competition in Long-Distance Telephone Services 179-183 (1996). But the decree reflected a countervailing concern. Local firms might enjoy special long-distance advantages not available to purely long-distance companies. See United States v. American Tel. & Tel., supra, at 186-188. Perhaps a local service company would find it unusually easy to attract local customers to its long-distance service; perhaps it could use its control of local service to place its long-distance competitors at a disadvantage. See T. Krattenmaker, Telecommunications Law and Policy 411-412 (2d ed. 1998) (explaining rationale of the decree). And though some argued that any such special advantages were innocent, rather like those enjoyed by a transcontinental airline that dominates a local hub, others claimed they were unfair, like those that had once helped AT&T (through its control of local service) maintain long-distance
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