The US Government has regulated telecommunications for nigh a century now. AT&T had cleverly figured out that the right way to avoid scrutiny for their monopoly

The US Government has regulated telecommunications for nigh a century now. AT&T had cleverly figured out that the right way to avoid scrutiny for their monopoly was initially to provide a very good service and start a two-way relationship with the government. I'll clarify two things here. First: this actually had a net-positive effect on telephone communications in the US. Regulators were initially more informed, and Vail was able to grow AT&T by making legitimate concessions and demonstrating universal access and service. Second, we know in hindsight that this was also the start of a practice of regulatory capture, but regardless, that the history of regulating telecommunications has often-times been beneficial even when the regulators were biased.