Noticed yesterday that the US government has moved to block the merger of AT&T (my retirement benefits provider) and T Mobile. When I heard the news I flashed back to that day back in the early 80s when I heard that the Feds were trying to break up the Bell Telephone System that was comprised of 23 Baby Bells and the Long Lines company that employed me. On January 1, 1984 AT&T divested.A lot has changed since then in the telecom industry - I think for the better. I think that the divesting of the Bell System produced a lot of innovation - of course some of the innovation was all about how these Baby Bells could regionally consolidate and how Southwestern Bell could buy the ailing AT&T and make it a lower case (i.e. at&t) operation. So what do you think? Would we be in better shape if telecom was still an upper case monopoly?
I don't know.
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