Cite as: 535 U. S. 467 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
As a reviewing Court we are, of course, in no position to assess the precise economic significance of these and other exceptions to the perfectly functioning market that the incumbents' criticism assumes. Instead, it is enough to recognize that the incumbents' assumption may well be incorrect. Inefficiencies built into the scheme may provide incentives and opportunities for competitors to build their own network elements, perhaps for reasons unrelated to pricing (such as the possibility of expansion into data-transmission markets by deploying "broadband" technologies, cf. post, at 552 (Breyer, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), or the desirability of independence from an incumbent's management and maintenance of network elements). In any event, the significance of the incumbents' mistake of fact may be indicated best not by argument here, but by the evidence of actual investment in facilities-based competition since TELRIC went into effect, to be discussed at Part III-B-2- a-(3), infra.23
(2)
Perhaps sensing the futility of an unsupported theoretical attack, the incumbents make the complementary argument that the FCC's choice of TELRIC, whatever might be said about it on its own terms, was unreasonable as a matter of law because other methods of determining cost would have done a better job of inducing competition. Having consid-23 Justice Breyer characterizes these built-in inefficiencies as well as provisions for state-commission discretion as to permitted costs of depreciation and capital, see Part III-B-2-a-(2), infra, as "coincidences" that have favored considerable competitive investment by sheer luck. See post, at 552. He thus shares the assumption of an efficient market made by the incumbents in their argument, and like the incumbents, dismisses departures from the theoretical assumption of a perfectly competitive market as inconsistencies rather than pragmatic recognitions. The FCC is, of course, under no obligation to adopt a ratesetting scheme committed to realizing perfection in economic theory, see First Report and Order
¶ 683 (rejecting pricing premised on a fully "hypothetical least-cost most efficient network").
507
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