Cite as: 535 U. S. 467 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
claim of waiver when they raised it in opposition to the petition for certiorari, and we reject it again today. See Stevens v. Department of Treasury, 500 U. S. 1, 8 (1991).
B
The Eighth Circuit found the four additional combination rules at odds with the plain language of the final sentence of 47 U. S. C. § 251(c)(3), which we quote more fully:
"[E]ach incumbent local exchange carrier has . . .
. . . . . "[t]he duty to provide, to any requesting telecommunications carrier for the provision of a telecommunications service, nondiscriminatory access to network elements on an unbundled basis at any technically feasible point on rates, terms, and conditions that are just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory . . . . An incumbent local exchange carrier shall provide such unbundled network elements in a manner that allows requesting carriers to combine such elements in order to provide such telecommunications service."
"Bundling" and "combination" are related but distinct concepts. Bundling is about lease pricing. To provide a network element "on an unbundled basis" is to lease the element, however described, to a requesting carrier at a stated price specific to that element. Iowa Utilities Bd., supra, at 394. The FCC's regulations identify in advance a certain number of elements for separate pricing, 47 CFR § 51.319 (1997), but the regulations do not limit the elements subject to specific rates. A separately priced element need not be the simplest possible configuration of equipment or function, and a predesignated unbundled element might actually comprise items that could be considered separate elements themselves. For example, "if the states require incumbent LECs to provision subloop elements [which together constitute a local loop], incumbent LECs must still provision a local loop
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