Metroliner telephone article 4098

Floyd L. Davidson

I would suggest you read the previously mentioned references and you'll that your comments are not correct. The Bell System certainly did vary its services in response to various businesses and customer needs.

Another source is "Telephone" by John Brooks.

Do you a citation for this?

Before the court case, the Bell System had been audited and audited by the FCC, state agencies, and others over and over again and always came up clean. In "The Story of Telecommunications" by Oslin, the author points out various deficiencies in Green's handling of the case.

Your comments suggest a focus on direct costs. In this capital intensive automated environment, direct costs were very slow while capital costs were very high. The incremental cost of a person making a phone call or using their call waiting is miniscule, a tiny fraction of a cent of electricity. But the capital cost is quite high.

Once gain, Bell's revenues and costs were strictly controlled by the FCC and its policies. Note that the FCC wasn't even aware of the anti-trust until after it was filed and that the suit directly contradicted on FCC policies.

AT&T did not "lose" the lawsuit, they entered into another consent decree.

Also note that the very similar lawsuit against IBM lost--IBM took it all the way to trial and won. I submit the Bell System, had it followed the IBM approach, would have prevailed as well.

There were specific formulas used to allocate long distance tolls between companies.

All of AT&T's expenses were legitimately part of its expense base for rate making purposes. Once again, the company was audited to rest over the years.

No, the lawsuit was because AT&T was too big, and "too big" was the sole issue. Not efficiency. Not saving money. Not better service. (See Brooks, "Telephone").

That's correct. I feel the pre-divesture Bell System was an excellent company. But after 1980, as the lawsuit wound its way through, the company changed.