Telecommunications Until the 1980s in the United States, the term "telephone company" was synonymous with American Telephone & Telegraph. AT&T controlled nearly all aspects of the telephone business. Its regional subsidiaries, known as "Baby Bells," were regulated monopolies, holding exclusive rights to operate in specific areas. The Federal Communications Commission regulated rates on long-distance calls between states, while state regulators had to approve rates for local and in-state long-distance calls.

Government regulation was justified on the theory that telephone companies, like electric utilities, were natural monopolies. Competition, which was assumed to require stringing multiple wires across the countryside, was seen as wasteful and inefficient. That thinking changed beginning around the 1970s, as sweeping technological developments promised rapid advances in telecommunications. Independent companies asserted that they could, indeed, compete with AT&T. But they said the telephone monopoly effectively shut them out by refusing to allow them to interconnect with its massive network. Telecommunications deregulation came in two sweeping stages. In 1984, a 76