>>5639137
This is what happened.
"The breakup of the Bell System was mandated on January 8, 1982, by an agreed consent decree providing that AT&T Corporation would, as had been initially proposed by AT&T, relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies that had provided local telephone service in the United States and Canada up until that point.[1] This effectively took the monopoly that was the Bell System and split it into entirely separate companies that would continue to provide telephone service. AT&T would continue to be a provider of long distance service, while the now-independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs) would provide local service, and would no longer be directly supplied with equipment from AT&T subsidiary Western Electric." per Wiki
Those of us that went thru it referred to it this way. The entire phone system changed massively and not for the best. The phone utilities used to be easy to work with.
Not the mess they are now.
And the litigation went on too long.
We saw it as way too intrusive of the government. Maybe it worked out for the best now. But it was not looked on favorably then.