Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 21:22:45 -0400 (EDT) From: jack <jack@germanium.xtalwind.net> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why anti-trust law? Message-ID: <20010809211158.T46275-100000@germanium.xtalwind.net> In-Reply-To: <15219.2554.597252.164723@guru.mired.org>
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Today Mike Meyer wrote:
> As for AT&T - the government set it up as a monopoly because they
> decided universal, interoperable phone service would be a good
> idea. The government mandated price structure had long distance and
> business users subsidizing low-end residential users to achieve that
> goal. A lot of people complain that the breakup caused a lot of
> headaches - which it did - and was thus a bad thing. I doubt that we'd
> be able to buy long distance at 2 cents/minute today if we had to buy
> it from AT&T, which makes the breakup a good thing.
Before the breakup only devices provided by `the phone company'
could be connected to the PTN. Every month, year after year, you
paid for that same phone. For an individual their rates for an
answering machine were out of the question.
Remember acoustic modems? 150, or the luxurious 300, baud. :)
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