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40 Years After Carterphone Ended AT&T Equipment Monopoly

Posted by timothy on from the decision-rings-true dept.

fm6 writes "Wednesday was the 40th anniversary of the Carterfone Decision which brought to an end AT&T's monopoly on telephone terminal equipment. Ars Technica has an opinionated but informative backgrounder on this landmark, which pretty much created the telecommunications world as we currently know it."

10 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. we're the phone company by jacquesm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't care. We don't have to...

    Now if only they would get rid of all those dial up lines for internet access in rural areas.

    It's really amazing that phone companies still don't have mandatory minimal access levels for net access outside major metropolitan areas.

    It's getting better, but oh so slow. And in those areas where there is little or no competition 28.8 is still the standard.

    --
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    1. Re:we're the phone company by Yez70 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They should establish basic service for everyone. You or I consider broadband as basic service and we all pay the Universal Service Fee on our bills. That money is meant to provide basic service to everyone, particularly in the rural areas. We paid for those lines to be built and we are still paying to keep them maintained. The phone companies, on the other hand, are doing their absolute best to NOT spend the money as they are supposed to spend it. Instead they quote numbers like it costs us $13,000 per phone line per year to get service to people who live in the woods. I don't know about you, but if I was being given $13 grand a year per household to get people phone service, I'd happily erect a cellular tower to cover 50 people and give them wireless broadband. It's time we abandon wireline service, especially in rural areas and force the telcos to refocus their efforts on updated technologies.

    2. Re:we're the phone company by 54mc · · Score: 5, Funny

      And if you want to eat the bread made from the wheat grown in my fields, you'll run an OC 12 line to my farmhouse.

      --
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  2. Why? by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    You don't know how to sign you name?

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  3. From AT&T to at&t (Colbert explains) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Colbert explains how the old AT&T re-grouped/formed.

    (Is it really that bad? All Baby Bells are back together?)

  4. how carter won by trb · · Score: 5, Informative
    If I recall, this is how Carter won that suit. AT&T always claimed that they were concerned that if competitors connected their hardware to the AT&T network that they might damage the network with badly coupled electrical loads, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringer_equivalence_number

    Carterphone had a device where the handset sat in the cradle of their device, it worked in a similar manner to the later acoustically coupled modems, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_coupler

    So there was no electrical connection (coupling) between the Carter device and the phone. The device had a cradle that the handset sat in, coupling the mic and the speaker. The AT&T lawyers said, well, your device is touching our handset. So Carter lifted the handset an inch out of the coupler, and said, is this too close? The AT&T lawyer said yes. So Carter carried his device across the room and said is this too close? The lawyer said no. Then Carter moved closer and closer, and AT&T's defense crumbled.

    1. Re:how carter won by wljones · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The Carterphone case was covered in my college telecommunications course. Dr. Baker made two points not mentioned in Slashdot. First, Tom Carter knew he did not have the resources to fight Ma Bell (AT&T for the nickname challenged). He asked the oil drilling industry for help, and received all he needed. The Carterphone was critical to the drilling business. Second, Dr. Baker stated that AT&T had a history of fighting the wrong lawsuits for the wrong reasons. Had they simply allowed acoustic coupling with no electronic attachment, the Carterphone would have satisfied customer needs, and the attached equipment monopoly would still exist. AT&T fought it, lost heavily, made unwelcome enemies, and left themselves open to the later lawsuit which destroyed their communications monopoly.

  5. Re:It's a good thing... by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The breakup was wrong and politically motivated.

    Politically motivated perhaps, but it was still the right thing to do. One has only to look at costs before and after the monopoly to realize that AT&T was one more example of a state-granted monopoly that charged its customers far more than they would have paid in a free market.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  6. Phone cops by michaelmalak · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I was going to post a link to a YouTube where Johnny Fever jumped behind a sofa to hide from the Phone Cops -- to illustrate to the youngun's how it was once illegal to have personally-owned phones that weren't leased from AT&T. It was to illustrate how society had changed.

    But the YouTube link I found on Google says "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation". So now we have Video Cops instead of Phone Cops.

    We can't even talk about monopolies of the past due to monopolies of the present.

  7. Re:It's a good thing... by khallow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sorry, *no one* can convince me otherwise, ever.

    Welp. All I can say, is if you can look at the diseased state of the old AT&T monopoly and think it's better than the amazing things that have happened due to that breakup with both the telecommunications industry and the internet, then you are stupid. As they say, you can't fix stupid.

    Here's how I see it, my brother has been employed most of his adult life by Spectralink, a company that makes communication systems for workplaces at the building and campus-level. That job and that business only existed because AT&T's monopoly had been taken apart. My family uses cell phones talk to each other any time and any place civilized. The end of the AT&T monopoly (and the corresponding destruction of the state monopolies in Europe) paved the way for this technology to exist. I connect now to the internet through services that wouldn't have existed in an AT&T monopoly. That's the bald truth. AT&T held us back. It along with the rest of the telecommunication industry helps us now.

    Maybe you were an employee. All I can say is that it's not fair to impose a monopoly on everyone else just so AT&T employees can be well paid.