Supreme Court to Hear Local-Access Case

The Supreme Court agreed to review a lower court decision that struck down landmark federal rules designed to pry open the $100-billion local phone market. But the high court said it will not hear the case until the fall, creating uncertainty until a decision is made late this year or in early 1999. Little competition has arisen for local phone service since the rules were set aside by a federal appeals court in St. Louis last year. After the 1996 Telecommunications Act was passed, the Federal Communications Commission set rules dictating how much the regional Bell companies could charge competitors for access to local phone networks. But the St. Louis court found that the act gave state regulators, not the FCC, power to set prices.