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Court Upholds Telecom Pricing Method: SBC Communications Corp. lost its bid to overturn a method federal regulators use to set rates that local telephone companies charge competitors for access to their telecommunications networks. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Federal Communications Commission can use an industrywide average to calculate the price that SBC and other local phone companies can charge competitors for access to telephone switching facilities. That access is needed to link callers to long-distance networks and was mandated to foster competition to local phone companies, which traditionally have provided the sole access to the long-distance network. SBC argued that using an industrywide average in setting the rates was illegal and an abuse of the FCC’s authority.