Reply #10: Correct, but not quite complete [View All]

[Touchdown]

MCI did sue because of AT&T's (Bell System) monopoly, but so did IBM and Sprint.

See, when AT&T bought NCR (National Cash Register), they were poised to enter into the personal computer market, which they made no secrets about. IBM complained that a monopoly like the phone company would have an undue advantage over their PC counterparts. AT&T then found out that they made shitty computers, and lost a lot of money on that debacle.

Here's something that's lost in the ruling. AT&T volunteered to break up the company. Taking Western Electric (Eventually Lucent/Avaya and now owned by French Firm Alcatel), Long Distance, NCR, and Bell Labs with them, and leaving the local carriers to form themselves. Judge Green (the presiding judge who is credited for breaking the Bells up) just accepted their terms and pounded the gavel. MCI and IBM were happy enough to drop the suits.

15 years at the LD (Now SBC owned lower case at&t) company. I've heard a lot of stories from my older co-workers who were around in 1984. It's a complicated case that things get lost to history.

ITT was never AT&T or even IT ampersand T(EDIT- take that back. It did start out with an "&"). That is the company with a shady history of nazi ties and other nefarious activities. Not that AT&T hasn't been a brutal monster in it's 100 year history, such as forcing smaller ma/pa phone companies in the teens & twenties to sell to them because of squeezing them out. It's just never been affiliated with ITT. GTE was really the only one big enough to claim their own pockets of territory and stand up against AT&T, but now they're part of Verizon.