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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (451034)	1/26/2009 2:14:48 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1586535

Ma Bell en.wikipedia.org "Government sanctioned monopolization In 1934, the government set AT&T up as a regulated monopoly to be under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission,[6] in the Communications Act of 1934. As a result, by 1940 the Bell System effectively owned most telephone service in the United States, from local and long-distance service to the telephone itself. With control of the phone system, Bell could effectively prohibit its customers from connecting to the system without leasing fees phones not made or sold by Bell companies. For example, if a customer desired a type of phone not leased by the local Bell monopoly, one had to purchase the phone at cost, give it to the phone company, then pay a 're-wiring' charge and a monthly lease fee in order to use it. An oft-heard remark at the time was "Ma Bell has you by the calls".Government sanctioned monopolization.............. ----------------------------------------------- "The 1984 Bell System divestiture that brought an end to the affiliation branded as the Bell System was the result of a lawsuit alleging illegal practices by the Bell System companies to stifle competition in the telecommunications industry; the lawsuit was brought against it by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). That lawsuit was filed in 1974, and was settled on January 8, 1982, displacing the former restrictions that AT&T and the DOJ had agreed to in 1956 based on a previous anti-trust lawsuit filed by the DOJ in 1949 that alleged that AT&T and its Bell System operating companies were using its near monopoly in telecommunications to attempt to establish allegedly unfair advantage in related technologies, especially the fledgling computer industry.