Data communications over telegraph circuits 1922

I don't agree. The Bell System went through three big anbreastrust cases and a slew of little ones, and it was largely the ideology of the Justice Department rather than any dissatisfaction of consumers.

The first one as I recall was mostly about the Bell System strong-arming independent telephone companies into being taken over. I wasn't around then, but I can imagine customers of those independents welcoming the takeovers because the Bell System would give them better service. There were also some issues about connections between independent companies and the Bell System for long distance calls.

The second one started out as a question of whether the Bell operating companies, and hence their customers, would be better served if the operating companies were free to choose equipment suppliers other than Western Electric. It ended up with the Bell System being forced to withdraw from all lines of business except its core telephone business (with exceptions for government work) and to license its patents to all comers. I don't think there ever were hordes of unhappy customers demanding that Western Electric be deprived of its favored position as manufacturing and supply unit of the system, or that their choices of products in the consumer market were abridged by the presence of Western Electric in that market.

One of the lesser actions came when the Bell System was forced to divest its controlling interest in Western Union. Consider the sad shape the latter company was in before AT&T took over, I can't imagine consumers thinking the divesbreasture was an improvement.

For a long portion of AT&T's lifetime there was a public atbreastude, rightly or wrongly, that big corporations were fine insbreastutions "doing well by doing good."

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jhhaynes at earthlink dot net