They never did remerge to any monopolistic effect. I think you're strongly underestimating the degree to which the Bell System monopoly affected telecommunicat

They never did remerge to any monopolistic effect. I think you're strongly underestimating the degree to which the Bell System monopoly affected telecommunications. You couldn't even plug your own telephone into the wall; you had to give it to them and lease it back from them -- and pay an installation fee along the way, or you did without telephone service. Several of the Baby Bells got huge again, but none of them were in a monopoly position ever again. Many of them never even participated directly in the services market again, like LSI or Lucent. The other piece of the Bell breakup that people always overlook is that the federal directive did not merely break up the corporation. It also mandated that all Bell System patents be made available for use without fee by possible competitors. The result was an explosion of innovation and technological development (including within Bell companies!) and the consequences were massive.