Even today there are considerations whether packet switching is really better than circuit switching in particular if reliability is a concern: For circuit swit

Even today there are considerations whether packet switching is really better than circuit switching in particular if reliability is a concern: For circuit switching one can (often) guarantee, say, the bandwidth of the service offered over wire, for packet switching this is between hard and impossible. So while I can accept that for many applications packet switching is the better choice, I can understand AT&T at least with respect to why they still wanted to offer a circuit-switched service.