AT&T, Inc. Message Board
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When a monopoly dies.
I remember the days when AT&T would not allow us to have push button phones or phones with a variety of color. The technology and color was available..they just didn't want us to have a choice. I'm talking about phones where you push the button and the phone did the rotary dial for you. Not the true push button phones of today. OLD tech today, real old. But at the time they were a monopoly and not about to let the consumers have any choice.
The minute they faced competition out came colors and push button dialing. They knew all along what we wanted, they just weren't about to let us have it! Not as long as they ran the show. They were in a position to withhold technology from the users, as well as style! Their short sightedness was their doom.
I cheered the day that AT&T was broken up, it was a major victory for the coming telecomunications revotution. AT&T had become an innovation killing beaurocratic nightmarish company.
Now the once mighty AT&T is selling off even more and is doing a 5 to 1 reverse stock split in anticipation of even harder times ahead. After their abuse of the monopoly they owned....this stock move just gives me a big warm smile.
The mighty mopoly has fallen on hard times.-
The only monopolies today are the RBOC's. They are choking off local competition by exorbitantly pricing network access to resellers. In addition, they have really done almost nothing to introduce broadband access (DSL) but have been successful in driving away their competition in that area. Why don't you address the problems of 2002 instead of those of pre 1984? You're just a tad behind the times.
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The commentary would be more interesting if you'd focus on the four (three?) remaining RBOCs, who inherited what turned out to be the most economically significant part of the Bell System monopoly.
The issue today is high speed access, not pink Princess Telephones with built-in night-lites.
Between RCN and my local phone company, I still can't even guess in what decade high speed access will be available in our neighborhood.- 2 Replies to scn2k
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"The issue today is high speed access, not pink Princess Telephones with built-in night-lites."
The big selling point of the Pink Princess was the non-skid bottom not the night light. Get your information right. :>) -
The issue today is the same issue it always was, if you can't give people what they want you go out of business.
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