Coby:
The consolidation and regulation of utilities started, I believe, in the teens and twenties of this century as a result of there being a hodge-podge of companies...all in competition with one another, and having over-lapping service areas. It was confusing and also deemed inefficient. In their zeal for new customers, in the San Francisco area, companies would make come-on offers that were never fulfilled, denigrate their competition, and sometimes sabotage them. Interconnections were inefficient or non-existent.
With regulation, the companies were inclined to maximize their returns by having a larger overhead (6% of $10mm is nicer than 6% of $1mm <G>) and consequently maintained a larger workforce than a "private" corp. would have. This also gave them a bigger political base in the community. It wasn't all bad, however, as having a surplus of middle-management was useful in times of emergency.
But the Bells were lacking in providing the newest technologies. In the 60's Pacific Bell was just starting a plan to install fiber-optic cable in the S.F. financial district (and they were way ahead of the curve on that) while they were still building some central offices with step switches...at a time when everyone at all familiar with the industry knew that electronic switching (ESS) was what they should have been putting in (ESS was two generations ahead of the old step switches).
So there were some good things, and some bad things, but people did get reasonably good service...in fact it was (is) the best in the world, over-all.
Best regards, Merritt |
