High Court Rejects Challenges to Regional Bells’ Info Services

WASHINGTON —  The nation’s regional telephone companies Monday got the U.S. Supreme Court’s go-ahead to continue offering information services such as home shopping and stock reports.

The court, without comment, rejected consumer and information group arguments that the seven Baby Bells should not have been allowed into the lucrative market.

Those groups say the regional Bells’ ownership of the phone lines will give them a monopolistic advantage over competitors.

Since late 1991, the Baby Bells have been allowed to transmit information such as traffic and stock reports, electronic yellow pages and medical records.

U.S. District Judge Harold Greene reluctantly let them enter the market that year, saying he believed it would harm competition but that he had no choice because an appeals court ruled that the size of the growing market and regulatory safeguards would prevent the Bells from taking over.

Bradley Stillman of the Consumer Federation of America, one of the plaintiffs, said he was disappointed by Monday’s decision.

It is up to the Federal Communications Commission and state regulators to make sure the companies do not take unfair advantage of their ownership of the phone lines, Stillman said. John Thorne, attorney for Bell Atlantic Corp., said: “There have been dire predictions about every market we’ve entered, and we haven’t harmed competition in any of them.”