Re: Realtime/embedded project to help with employment.

["Warren W. Gay VE3WWG" <ve3wwg@cogeco.ca>]

"Marin David Condic" <nobody@noplace.com> wrote in message news:3F3F8C38.2040801@noplace.com...
> Exactly 180deg backwards. The government *removed* its protection of the
> monopoly and allowed others to compete. ATT did not have a monopoly
> because they cornered the market. They had a monopoly because the
> government *said* they did and forbid competitors from entering into the
> business.

I believe this oversimplifies what actually happened, although
I'll admit I am short of hard facts.

There was a shared infrastructure to be considered. Someone had
to break the strangle-hold on that shared infrastructure that
they had, IIRC.

Another example (from Canada eh), was that our
Bell Telephone at one time would not permit a competitor's
phone to be pluged into a Bell line (you could only use
a Bell supplied phone, and rented at that -- buying a phone
came later).

For competition on the telephone handset to occur, the courts
had to declare that Bell had to permit other manufactured
sets to be plugged into the line, provided that they met
certain standard specs (IIRC, modems were beginning to
bring this issue to the forefront as well). I believe
something similar occured in the US.

Of course Bell still threatened the
customer (even today?) that if the telephone set causes a
line problem, that you may get billed for the repairs of
their line(s) to your home (of course this isn't the case
if you have a Bell phone). So they strongly suggest that
you should buy your telephone equipment from them.

> Remember, a monopoly is against the law and the only way ATT could have
> what they did have was with the permission, regulation and protection of
> the government.
>
> MDC

IIRC, they had a monopoly in the sense that the circuits
all/mostly belonged to them. Something had to happen to
decentralize the ownership/responsibility there. In that
sense, I maintain the monopoly was _then_ broken.
-- 
Warren W. Gay VE3WWG
http://home.cogeco.ca/~ve3wwg