> How did breaking up the telephone companies work out? "company" Also, extremely well. After the MFJ in United States v. AT&T, several new long-distance car

> How did breaking up the telephone companies work out? "company" Also, extremely well. After the MFJ in United States v. AT&T, several new long-distance carriers entered into the market using existing rights-of-way leading to an enormous decrease in long-distance telecomms costs. Several of these new long distance comapnies competed aggressively under the MFJ bidding to provide U.S. government telecommunications services ranging from data networks (notably several generations of NSFNET backbone services, network access point Internet exchanges, and numerous research networks). The loss of the monopoly right to carry international traffic dropped the price of a circuit between the USA and a foreign country through the floor, such that the U.S. grew into the center of the hub-and-spoke model of the global Internet, which still brings benefits to the USA. The loss of the monopoly access to local circuits lead to a proliferation of specialized carriers targetting radio and television distribution. The regional Bell operating companies were forbidden to insist on being the sole supplier of end-user telecommunications equipment ranging from telephones to answering machines to modems (both for computers and for fax machines). The end of the equipment monopoly led to an explosion of innovation in data telecomms equipment. The regional bell operating companies still faced no direct competition for most of their services, and while the consumer costs of long distance fell through the floor, the consumer costs of local connectivity rose. With this cash flow the RBOCs have been re-consolidating, and this has markedly eroded the advantages the U.S. telecomms market had as other large economies have terminated the incumbent monopolies in their markets; with the evolution of the almost-a-duopoly market and predictable attempts to consolidate all the local carriage options in many markets in the U.S., it is likely that U.S. telecomms users will face ever-increasing fees for far-from-globally-competitive levels of service. It's a brake being put on the whole U.S. economy for the benefit of the parties with direct interests in the former monopoly's descendants. > Google and Facebook would consider relocation to another country I doubt either would ever abandon the U.S. market entirely. On the other hand, I'm sure that the telecomms monopolists would very much like to extend their local telecommunications monopolies (especially with the demise of network neutrality) into advertising and other areas where they are not serious market players. Using their captured pet regulator, the FCC, to help them achieve that is a pretty obvious goal.