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This was the STUPIDEST move in TELCO history-the ONLY "monopoly" that functioned well and folks the were NOT qualified made the decision!The Judges should have been strung up by their thumbs!
 
Dec 31 1983

There is another spin to this that isn't so sad.
- Helped revitalize the computer industry as the Unix operating system was ready to emerge and allow for a true open operating environment that made it easier to share information between different platforms.
- AT&T was able to spread their wings into other areas and help spark start up companies.
- The "internet boom" may have been delayed for quite a while without the break-up.
 
I'd suspect without the breakup of AT&T and also the opening of competition in Europe (which was what drove the development of GSM and subsequently the real cellphone revolution) you'd have had stale old monopolies driving both of those sectors without much innovation.

In a way AT&T / Bell was a great organisation (as were some of its counterparts elsewhere) but I think we tend to look back on those days through heavily nostalgia tinted glasses too. The services may have been high quality (at least in the denser populated areas) but they were extremely expensive. I mean, if you look back to the 1970s and 80s things like international calling and even long-distance calling were ludicrously expensive.

I would strongly suspect what would have happened without those breakups would have been the delay or failure to thrive of the internet. You'd have had some Bell System Networks counterpart that would have been managed by AT&T in the US and you'd have had similar in Europe. I mean, look at how PTT/France Telecom developed a privately managed network system called Minitel back in the late 70s and into the 1980s. It was innovative, but only within its own walled garden.

I would argue that the biggest downsides in the US system at the moment isn't the advent of competition, but rather the failure of regulators in recent years. The FCC needs a lot more teeth to prevent the growth of monopolies, particularly in areas like internet access, and that has not been done. If anything it's been a lot more aggressively pursued in the EU over the last decade or so, with the US starting to really allow regulatory systems to be swamped by powerful business lobbies.

Without effective regulation, in an imperfect market, you will always have huge distortions and risks of monopoly and oligopoly and that makes for bad capitalism and unfortunately, that's what I'm seeing in the US with the lack of choice in a lot of markets when it comes to things like high speed ISPs.

Monopolists aren't benevolent or operating in your interests. They're not public bodies. They just have you over a barrel and need to be regulated and competition needs to be kept strong.
 
My phone bills didn't drop

with the breakup of AT&T. We got circles from MCI, etc., etc. and within a year they were right back up.
I say the whole thing was a money grab by wall street, etc. AT&T stock was among the most valued then. Sellers sold it high, then bought Ameritech, etc. shares for much less. Everything began to decline after 1982. Sears stock, which used to rise, then split, doubling your shares, then rise, split agian. Their employees were also able to retire comfortably because of that if they had bought enough stock in addition to matched profit sharing. The middle class also began declining then. Do the math, follow the money. Sure you can make money if you know how to play the markets, but many of us were too young with too little to invest then, and we are now young seniors and part of that new poverty segment because 401k's and retirement saving had to be tapped too early afer the 2008 crash and last recession.
 
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