Cite as: 535 U. S. 467 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
incumbent's network. The companion Rule 315(d) likewise requires the incumbent to do the combining between the network elements it leases and a requesting carrier's own elements, so long as technically feasible.42
The rules are challenged alternatively as inconsistent with statutory plain language and as unreasonable interpretations. The plain language in question is the sentence that "[a]n incumbent local exchange carrier shall provide such un-bundled network elements in a manner that allows requesting carriers to combine such elements in order to provide such telecommunications service." 47 U. S. C. § 251(c)(3). The Eighth Circuit read this as unambiguously excusing incumbents from any obligation to combine provided elements, 219 F. 3d, at 759. The ruling has a familiar ring, for this is the same reason that the Court of Appeals invalidated these rules in 1997 along with Rule 315(b), as being inconsistent with a plain limit on incumbents' obligation under § 251(c)(3) to provide elements "on an unbundled basis." 120 F. 3d, at 813.
But the language is not that plain. Of course, it is true that the statute would not be violated literally by an incumbent that provided elements so that a requesting carrier could combine them, and thereafter sat on its hands while any combining was done. But whether it is plain that the incumbents have a right to sit is a question of context as much as grammar. If Congress had treated incumbents and entrants as equals, it probably would be plain enough that the incumbents' obligations stopped at furnishing an element that could be combined. The Act, however, proceeds on the understanding that incumbent monopolists and contending competitors are unequal, cf. § 251(c) ("Additional obligations of incumbent local exchange carriers"), and within the actual statutory confines it is not self-evident that in obligating
42 Under Rules 315(e)-(f), an incumbent that denies a requested combination has the burden to prove technical infeasibility or to show how the combination would impede others' access.
533
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