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[US] SBC targeted in antitrust lawsuit

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25-07-2003 3:32pm

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dahamsta

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SBC targeted in antitrust lawsuit
By Jim Hu
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 24, 2003, 1:33 PM PT

Four Internet service providers have filed an antitrust suit against SBC Communications, alleging that the Baby Bell unfairly inflated wholesale prices for high-speed Internet access.
The suit, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Central California, claims that the rate SBC charged the companies for digital subscriber line (DSL) service was too expensive for them to resell profitably. Linkline Communications, Inreach Internet, Om Networks and Red Shift Internet Services are seeking $40 million in damages and a discontinuation of alleged "price squeezing" from SBC, according to the court filing.

Attorneys for the California ISPs say San Antonio-based SBC must discontinue its pricing system in order to give smaller companies a chance to compete for DSL subscribers.

"Otherwise, (small ISPs) are doomed in the DSL business in long run, and SBC will acquire a complete monopoly of it," Maxwell Blecher of law firm Blecher & Collins said.

An SBC representative said the lawsuit is "nothing more than a re-hash of issues" raised two years ago by the California Internet Service Providers Association in a dispute, now amicably settled, that went before the Public Utilities Commission. "This (California) lawsuit's without merit," the representative said.

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