Cbeyond Communications, LLC v. Sheahan

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff, Cbeyond, provides telephone and broadband telecommunications service to small and medium-sized business customers in Illinois. It endeavors to send data through telephone lines with maximum efficiency. The principal defendant, a local exchange carrier that the parties mainly refer to as AT & T Illinois, provides telecommunications service similar to Cbeyond’s but on a much larger scale. The two firms’ networks are interconnected; federal law entitles a new entrant (Cbeyond entered the Illinois market in 2005) to connect with existing local exchange…