532
Opinion of the Court
as a single, combined element when so requested, because we identify local loops as a single element in this proceeding." First Report and Order ¶ 295. The "combination" provided for in Rules 315(b)-(f), on the other hand, refers to a mechanical connection of physical elements within an incumbent's network, or the connection of a competitive carrier's element with the incumbent's network "in a manner that would allow a requesting carrier to offer the telecommunications service." Id., ¶ 294, n. 620.
The additional combination rules are best understood as meant to ensure that the statutory duty to provide unbundled elements gets a practical result. A separate rate for an unbundled element is not much good if an incumbent refuses to lease the element except in combination with others that competing carriers have no need of; or if the incumbents refuse to allow the leased elements to be combined with a competitor's own equipment. And this is just what was happening before the FCC devised its combination rules. Incumbents, according to the FCC's findings, were refusing to give competitors' technicians access to their physical plants to make necessary connections. In re Implementation of the Local Competition Provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 15 FCC Rcd. 3696, 3910,
¶ 482 (1999) (Third Report and Order), petitions for review pending sub nom. United States Telecom Assn. v. FCC, Nos. 00-1015, etc. (CADC).
The challenged additional combination rules, issued under § 251(c)(3), include two that are substantive and two that are procedural, the latter having no independent significance here. Rule 315(c) requires an incumbent to "perform the functions necessary to combine unbundled network elements in any manner, even if those elements are not ordinarily combined" in the incumbent's own network, so long as the combination is "[t]echnically feasible" and "[w]ould not impair the ability of other carriers to obtain access to unbundled network elements or to interconnect" with the
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