Quote:
Originally Posted by Ethersync
You are talking about the company that INVENTED THE FUCKING TELEPHONE 
Of course they had the market cornered. Because IT DID NOT EXIST before they created it. Once their patent expired hundreds of companies started competing with them. Our government put the competitors out of business and basically made AT&T the monopoly everyone talks about... |
AT&T was running 15 years before the patent expired. Before the patent expired they already had deals with cities/states directly. Once it expired and all the competition opened up, they simply started buying them up, expanding its power - which is exactly what happened. The were already able to control the market, prices, influence it, etc.. before the Gov came in. Once the gov stepped up with anti-trust action after at&t's abuse first, they both agreed to some stupid deal setup by at&t, over royalties/rights or some crap. The monopoly power was already formed.. your normal phone company didn't have that power, they did.