Before the 1980s long distance calls from AT&T landlines were very expensive. The FCC forced AT&T to allow competitors to use their infrastructure at a reasona

Before the 1980s long distance calls from AT&T landlines were very expensive. The FCC forced AT&T to allow competitors to use their infrastructure at a reasonable price. MCI and Sprint entered and the cost of long distance calls fell pretty quickly. Sadly, this may partially explain our terrible and expensive cell phone service. In many countries, the first competition to the national phone carrier were mobile services so the early mobile entrants were competing against massively inflated prices for long distance calling and quickly built high quality alternatives.