Fractured phone system consolidating once again

0 Comments | USA TODAY, May, 2006 | by Leslie Cauley

AT&T's relationship with the federal government has been a century in the making. The company was founded in 1885 and over the next century became the nation's de facto phone monopoly. At its peak in the early 1980s, it employed 1 million people.

In 1984, the Bell Telephone System was broken up by a court decree. AT&T's local operating companies -- there were 22 in all -- were grouped into seven "Baby Bells" and spun off as separate companies. Each had monopoly control over local phone service in a specific region of the country.

The parent company, AT&T -- originally called the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. -- was also spun off. Its business was exclusively long-distance service.

Since then, Ma Bell has been largely reconstituted. Today's AT&T is an...