Yup. With a little bit of help from the FCC mind you.
It isn't that some of the baby Bells are just as big, they have all been reconsolidated back into one company again.
This post was edited by Benedict Arnold at December 30, 2016 6:12 AM MST
Since the Reagan administration, the attitude towards anti-trust enforcement in the US government is to only discourage corporate consolidation in cases where consumer harm can be definitely proven.
In the telecommuncations domain, changes in technology have ensured a great deal of competition, so consumer harm is very difficult to establish.
The government need not establish fear to discourage many things as it has done in the past. Why now such a high criteria? Is logic working itself into government?
@O-uknow -- I suspect mainly because after Buckley v. Valeo, the Rich and Corporate purchased the US government and influenced lawmakers to reinterpret policy to their preferences.
Personally, I would like the government to discourage oligopoly for its own sake. Oligopolies tend to limit consumer choice, discourage innovation, and suppress competition, even if the oligopolic "winners" don't use their market power to directly drive up consumer prices.
They are all back to AT&T ownership except what now is Verizon and a couple of companies with Bell in their name but are and never were wholly owned by AT&T. Today's AT&T is really the old Southwest Bell Telco which has bought up the other baby Bells.
This post was edited by Thriftymaid at December 30, 2016 1:50 PM MST
OldSchoolTheSKOSlives 