Welcome

This site serves as the home for a report covering the anti-competitive misdeeds of the post breakup Baby Bells. The monopoly Bell System did not disappear after the break up it simply morphed into the Bell Cartel. The report documents the damage done by policy that allows the cartel to remain in power. The report seeks to address the needs of decision makers at competitive telecom companies, as well as, the lawyers and consultants that support them. The report will prove essential for anyone that has an economic stake in the future of the trillion dollar global telecommunications industry, as well as, the trillion dollar global information technology sector increasingly dependent on the Internet for growth.
Broken Trust Report

'Antitrust developments in the 70's and 80's shaped telecom competition as we know it. I look forward to following the issues this time around in Daniel Berninger's report' Thomas Krattenmaker, Partner, Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovis and Popeo (former, Director of Research FCC)
Advisory Board

The current business landscape parallels nearly exactly the business conditions that gave rise to antitrust complaints and the breakup of AT&T in the 70's and 80's. Competitive telecom CEO's like Brad Evans at Cavalier Telephone face nearly the same challenges Bill McGowan encountered in 1974, including; recession, closure of capital markets after tech investment boom, an incumbent company reluctant to comply with regulatory openings to competition, and peers headed for restructuring or bankruptcy.

The Bell companies have revived many of the techniques AT&T leverage to defend and expand its monopoly. In particular, the Bell companies claim as AT&T did that pervasive regulation and pricing established through the tariff process makes them immune to antitrust complaints.

AT&T spent $360 million to protect its monopoly and the Bell companies could certainly afford to do the same, but, ultimately, the courts forced a settlement that broke up AT&T and unleashed 16 years of dramatic growth in telecommunications, as well as, made the birth of the commerical Internet possible.

The magnitude of the current stakes dwarf those in 1974 when a handful of companies invested several hundred million dollars in attempt to compete with the AT&T monopoly. This time around, the number of companies involved runs into the hundreds and the investment at risk exceeds several hundred billion dollars.

Stay tuned!
News

Antidote Discussion Group

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Getting beyond monopoly in telecom!

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