| It's history that goes /way/ back to the circuit-switched phone call days, and monopoly behavior. Here's my take on it: To stop the high-priced no-progress monopoly behavior of the old AT&T in the long-distance telephone market AT&T essentially owned, the US sued AT&T, resulting in a consent decree settlement in 1984 where AT&T divested itself of 70% of its assets in order to retain its then-highly-profitable long distance business and its Western Electric switchgear business [1]. Competition was opened in long distance; prices and eventually profits went to commodity levels. Switchgear too; Western Electric gear was very expensive; competitors such as Nortel [2] and Digital Switch Corp (later DSC) [3] flourished for a while then crashed in 2001 as fiber and competition made long distance so cheap. Meanwhile, the local telcos remained monopolies and thrived, merged, and eventually one of them (SBC) bought out several others and the old AT&T while others became Verizon. But before all that consolidation (and the telecom crash [4]), the local "Bells" (telcos) argued for a return to enter the coveted Long Distance market. They don't have that for regulated landline service, which itself is now dying. Long story short: Beware a monopoly if you're a customer, consolidate to become a monopoly and complain of regulations if you want to control a market. EDIT: Moved to proper position as a reply ----- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel [3] http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/dsc-communi.... [4] http://www.economist.com/node/1234711 |