Abstract

     Thomas Carter invented the “Carterfone”–an acoustic coupling device that enabled the connection of a telephone handset to a radio transceiver. AT&T, the dominant telephone company at the time, advised its customers that the Carterfone was a prohibited “interconnecting device” under FCC Tariff No. 132, which essentially made it unlawful for telephone subscribers to connect their own equipment to AT&T’s telephone network. Carter brought suit against AT&T in federal court, alleging that AT&T’s warnings to its customers constituted a violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Carter’s suit ultimately culminated in the FCC’s landmark Carterfone decision. In Carterfone, we held that “application of [FCC Tariff No. 132] to bar the Carterfone in the future would be unreasonable and unduly discriminatory . . . and that the provisions prohibiting the use of customer-provided interconnecting devices should accordingly be stricken.” This result, originally set in motion by Thomas Carter’s unprecedented challenge to the telephone monopoly, paved the way for a period of profound technological innovation in the telephone equipment industry and to the Internet beyond.