428
Opinion of Breyer, J.
quiring incumbents to sell to potential retail competitors at wholesale rates, and by requiring the sharing, or "un-bundling," of certain facilities. Supra, at 416; see 47 U. S. C. §§ 251(c)(2)-(4), 253(a) (1994 ed., Supp. II). The Act expresses this last-mentioned sharing requirement in general terms, reflecting congressional uncertainty about the extent to which compelled use of an incumbent's facilities will prove necessary to avoid waste. Will wireless technology or cable television lines, for example, permit the efficient provision of local telephone service without the use of existing telephone lines that now run house to house?
Despite the empirical uncertainties, the basic congressional objective is reasonably clear. The unbundling requirement seeks to facilitate the introduction of competition where practical, i. e., without inordinate waste. Supra, at 416-417. And although the provision describing which elements must be unbundled does not explicitly refer to the analogous "essential facilities" doctrine (an antitrust doctrine that this Court has never adopted), the Act, in my view, does impose related limits upon the FCC's power to compel un-bundling. In particular, I believe that, given the Act's basic purpose, it requires a convincing explanation of why facilities should be shared (or "unbundled") where a new entrant could compete effectively without the facility, or where practical alternatives to that facility are available. § 251(d)(2); see generally Areeda, Essential Facilities: An Epithet in Need of Limiting Principles, 58 Antitrust L. J. 841, 852-853 (1989).
As the majority points out, the Act's language itself suggests some such limits. Ante, at 387-392. The fact that compulsory sharing can have significant administrative and social costs inconsistent with the Act's purposes suggests the same. Even the simplest kind of compelled sharing, say, requiring a railroad to share bridges, tunnels, or track, means that someone must oversee the terms and conditions of that sharing. Moreover, a sharing requirement may diminish the original owner's incentive to keep up or to improve the prop-
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