ATT maintained exhorbitant long distance pricing which made computer networking prohibitively expensive for everyone but very expensive mainframe users like IBM

ATT maintained exhorbitant long distance pricing which made computer networking prohibitively expensive for everyone but very expensive mainframe users like IBM. ARPA was required to develop the ARPANET because only a defense agency could bypass the legislative prohibitions that enabled ATT to keep private enterprises from using their lines without permission. ATT spent decades choking out innovation because their monopoly hold meant their was little incentive for them to improve the product so they didn’t. They sat on lots of innovations that didn’t see the light of day until they were forced into competition. This was the main driver for that monopoly revocation.