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To: SMALL FRY who wrote (89047)	3/17/2000 3:21:00 PM
From: Ryan Mak	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 120523

SF this news should move COVD ... U.S. court strikes down FCC rules on office-sharing WASHINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - A U.S. Appeals Court on Friday struck down key portions of federal rules that had helped upstart local telephone companies compete by giving them greater access to use the central switching offices of dominant carriers. Under Federal Communications Commission rules, carriers, like NorthPoint Communications Group Inc. (NasdaqNM:NPNT - news), Covad Communications Group Inc. (NasdaqNM:COVD - news) and Rhythms Net Connections Inc. (NasdaqNM:RTHM - news), gained greater ability to put their own equipment in the offices of major carriers like Bell Atlantic Corp. (NYSE:BEL - news), GTE Corp. (NYSE:GTE - news) and SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC - news) By connecting their own equipment to the copper wires owned by the major carriers, the companies were able to offer high-speed Internet or data service without rebuilding the entire local phone network. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the FCC had exceeded the 1996 Telecommunications Act's requirements for allowing so-called collocation and ordered the agency to reconsider its rules. The FCC acted after upstart carriers complained that major carriers were overcharging for use of space in central offices, imposing burdensome limitations and, in some cases, denying collocation requests completely. But the court found the FCC had not justified some of its rules. The rules required major carriers, for example, to allow competitive carriers to locate any equipment in a central office that could be used for providing telecommunications service, even if the upstart used the equipment mainly for some other purpose. ``The current rules under the Collocation Order make no sense in light of what the statute itself says,' the court said.