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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Supposed monopolies: AT&T
Message-ID: <1106@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 01:21:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1106
Posted: Mon Aug  5 01:21:22 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 01:30:20 EDT
References: <9563@ucbvax.ARPA>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 38

In article <9563@ucbvax.ARPA> fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin) writes:

>True enough, from 1877 to 1894, Ma Bell did indeed exercise a virtual
>monopoly over the telephone industry.  But once its patents expired,
>independent companies multiplied like rabbits, with the result that Bell
>initiated twenty-seven patent infringement lawsuits against them in
>1894 and 1895.

>These independent companies, no fools they, reliazed that mutual
>cooperation was crucial if any were to survive, and organized a national
>association in 1897 to establish long distance serivce between their
>cities.  (Note that this is exactly the sort of thing that supposedly
>can't happen without coercion).

Isn't the threat of being forceably put out of business coercion?

>  In spite of AT&T's superior
>capital position, it faced intense competition and began losing
>control of the industry.  In 1902, there were *9100* independent
>telephone systems, and by 1907 there were *22000*.  That same
>year, AT&T had 3.1 million phones in service, while the independents had 3
>million.

>What halted this trend was the passage of the Mann-Elkins Act of 1910,
>lobbied for by AT&T (and, in all fairness, by others as well), which
>placed telephones under the jurisdiction of the ICC.  Bye-bye rate
>wars.  Telephones were perceived as a public necessity, and AT&T
>chairman Theodore Vail embarked on a massive public relations campaign
>on the necessity of centralized regulation of the phone system, using
>the standard "public necessity" arguments.  In 1914 Mr. Vail proclaimed
>the virtues of regulation:

   [quotation omitted]

Bringing us again to the $64 question: what is going to prevent this from
happening in Libertaria?

C Wingate