The AT&T Breakup

In the case of MCI Communications Corp. v. American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the federal courts held that "by denying MCI adequate interconnection with its local telephone network, AT&T denied MCI access to an essential facility and violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

Penelope A. Prevolous describes the ruling in the AT&T case:

The court identified four elements necessary to establish liability under the essential facilities doctrine:

(1) control of the essential facility by a monopolist;

(2) a competitor's inability practically or reasonably to duplicate the essential facility;

(3) denial of use of the facility to a competitor; and

(4) that it be feasible to provide access to the facility (or the absence of a legitimate business reason for denying access).

The court required that AT&T provide access to its phone networks to competing long-distance carriers at a reasonable price because connection to those networks was essential in order to operate in the downstream market of long distance phone service.