Is AT&T a Monopoly in the Making?
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
SBC, which started out as a Regional Bell Operating Company named "Southwestern Bell", bought the old AT&T at firesale prices back in 2005 and assumed its corporate livery.
SBC and Southwestern Bell before it, never made a secret of thinking that the 1983 Bell System breakup was a mistake, and has spent the last 28 years trying to put the Bell System monopoly back into place.
So, yes, AT&T is a monopoly in the making.
The original AT&T, before SBC takeover, failed to implement number portability by the late 2004 deadline that all other wireless companies hit. They also "botched" a CRM system upgrade.
Charlie Sheen might have gotten it done better, it's hard to say. If he can listen to "the little people" telling him that problems are imminent, then maybe he could have averted AT&T's downfall.
(AT&T old and what has spawned out from there.)
It seems to imply that Bell Atlantic et all merged to become Verizon around 2000.
Bell Atlantic merged with NYNEX in 1997.
In 1999 Vodafone merged with Airtouch to become Vodafone Airtouch in the US.
Vodafone-Airtouch in that same year went after PrimeCo and merged with it.
Verizon Communications is actually the result of the Bell Atlantic and GTE merger of 2000 (signed 1998).
GTE was not a Bell. Neither was Contel which was acquired by GTE in 1991 (so they should both be on the same level).
Verizon Wireless is a joint venture signed in 1999 and begun real operations 2000 between then Bell Mobile. and Vodafone-Airtouch-Primeco.
Finally in 2005, Verizon Wireless bought MCI.
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Looking back on things, the chart really only shows named succession. It doesn't attempt at all to do what you're expect---place companies on a family tree.
Also, you forgot the part where shortly after SBC bought AT&T, the "new" AT&T bought Cingular, a partnership between Bell South and the former AT&T. Oh, and the part where before buying AT&T, SBC also bought Ameritech, the parent company of the Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin "Baby" Bells, and Pacific Telesis, the parent company of Pacbell and Nevada Bell.
...and what of the other "Baby" Bells? Well, Bell Atlantic and NYNEX combined to form a company you may have heard of: Verizon!
(source...and a fun read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Bell_Operating_Company...)
The spin on this will be fascinating to see if it plays out as the a lot of jobs are expected to be eliminated as part of a merger.
In that paper, I argued that antitrust law as applied today totally misses the point: the issue shouldn't be whether a company, otherwise satisfying the elements of a monopoly, is harming competitors, but whether a company is actually harming consumers. Put another way: who is complaining about the alleged anticompetitive tactics: competitors, or consumers?
If one studies all the big antitrust cases of the 20th century -- from Alcoa, to DuPont, to Microsoft -- a curious trend emerges: it was always those companies' competitors who took issue with seemingly anticompetitive tactics of the big evil "trusts," and rarely -- if ever -- was it the consumers themselves.
A great example of this is Microsoft in the 1990s: do any of you -- aside from our realm of early adopter computer savvy tech types -- genuinely remember any everyday computer users actually complaining that Windows came preinstalled with IE instead of Netscape? Were consumers actually harmed, were they actually suffering? No: the only "people" who had an issue with MS bundling IE with Windows -- frankly, a brilliant strategy -- were Microsoft's competitors, and not, in fact, MS's customers.
So my take on this ATT & T-mobile merger is simple: the investigation should not focus on whether ATT/T-mobile is a monopoly from competitors' points of view, but whether it is anticompetitive to the point of actually harming consumers, e.g., with higher prices, etc.
Frankly, a good example of a company that really deserves a DOJ investigation is Apple -- IFF customers start to actually complain, and not not just Apple's competitors' start to complain.
Put more simply: a DOJ investigation into whether a company is a monopoly should be based upon whether consumers -- not competitors -- are actually being harmed by the allegedly anticompetitive tactics of a "monopoly."
After all, a company could not become a monopoly without customers' support in the first place. So clearly they have done something right that customers appreciate.
A "monopoly" that is not causing harm to consumers, either directly or indirectly, is not necessarily so terrible a thing. In fact, as with Apple, it is often the case that consumers enjoy a net benefit from such a company.
EDIT: You know what I'll do? I'll say screw the paradigm, and start looking into VOIP, and other alternatives, and encouraging everybody else to do it so economies of scale work out.
Sprint & Verizon are going to have to hook up next.
They're saying that all T-Mobile 3G devices would need to be replaced as well ( http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9M3LNPO0 ) which means that my Nexus One is a $550 paperweight, since it won't be useful on any US carrier. I won't even be able to resell it to recoup some of the cost.
Wireless data is not something you want locked up by one company.
Or is there other near-term transmission protocols that you expect to be viable?
No. We still have Verizon and Sprint. We may get a duopoly in 5-10 years, but for now, AT&T is not a monopoly.
Not if you're on GSM. Not everyone wants to consider investing in SIM-less devices that only work in the US.
If Eisenhower was scared of this cabal the FCC/FTC will fold like a house of cards.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."