358 NATIONAL CABLE & TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSN.,
INC. v. GULF POWER CO. Opinion of Thomas, J.
gress contemplated the existence of such attachments. Before 1996, the parties agree that the FCC did not possess any general authority to define "just and reasonable" rates for attachments pursuant to § 224(b)(1); rates for all attachments were set pursuant to the formula contained in § 224(d).8 And if Congress in 1996 intended to transform § 224(b)(1) into a provision empowering the FCC to define "just and reasonable" rates for attachments, it did so in an odd manner: The 1996 amendments to the Act did not change a single word in the relevant statutory provision, and the legislative history contains nary a word indicating that Congress intended to take this step.9
Congress may have believed that attachments were always used to provide cable service and/or telecommunications service and then taken great care to ensure that specified rate methodologies covered all attachments providing each of these services and both of these services.10 In
"pole attachments," as that term is defined in the Act, that would appear to fall outside of the Act's two specified rate methodologies would be any attachments used to provide only cable service and an additional type of service other than telecommunications service.
8 For this reason, the Court's reference to "the FCC's customary discretion in calculating a 'just and reasonable' rate for commingled services" is rather misleading. Ante, at 339 (emphasis added). Prior to 1996, the FCC clearly did not enjoy "discretion" in calculating "just and reasonable" rates for any regulated attachments.
9 See H. R. Rep. No. 104-204, pp. 220-221 (1996).
10 While no reference is made in either the text of the Act or the legislative history to attachments providing any services beyond cable service and telecommunications service, the broader Telecommunications Act of 1996 does define such a third category of services: "information services." The statute defines "information service" as "the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring . . . , or making available information via telecommunications." 110 Stat. 59, 47 U. S. C. § 153(20) (1994 ed., Supp. V) (emphasis added). Given this definition, amicus curiae Earthlink, Inc., argues that "it is logically, technically, and legally impossible for an information service that is offered to the public for a fee to exist without an underlying telecommunications service. Quite simply, the only way that an information service can reach the public is over a telecommunications
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