goldstein@DEREP.DEC (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) (12/21/85)
Re V5I71, there was an article in _telecommunications_ lately which discussed several lawsuits between telcos and customers who got service from other areas. GTE in Plano TX sued Avco for getting service from Southern Bell, and of course lost. This has nothing to do with monopoly. GTE's suit was specious because Avco got service from Southern Bell _within_ Southern Bell's serving area. They used radio (FCC jurisdiction) to connect a building in Plano with the Southern Bell site. Thus, as far as the FCC was concerned, Avco got its service legit from Southern Bell and ran a legit radio. The fact that the radio's other end was in GTE territory meant nothing, since they weren't even requesting any telephone service in that location. There were other cases before that. In one case, a church campus with facilities on both sides of the NC/SC border got service from Southern Bell in SC, and had PBX stations in NC. The mom and pop telco sued, but lost, since the law specifies that franchises apply to point of interconnection, not wherever the customer happens to run h is own facilities to, behind a PBX. The building I'm sitting in has trunks in one town and extensions in another. It's quite common (remote line units). Telcos sometimes complain about it, but they're well beyond their rights. Legally, there's a single point where any telco service is provided (the demarc), and what the customer does behind that is none of the telco's business, provided they meet registration rules for the demarc.