Ma Bell got another wakeup call. Ten years after the breakup of telecommunications giant AT&T, four of its offspring Baby Bells went to court to overthrow restrictions on long-distance competition, in which AT&T dominates.
The suit challenges the original consent decree that broke up AT&T.
It would allow one telephone company to provide all services if the consumer wished, possibly resulting in a simplified bill. “Just like Ma Bell once did,” complained an executive for one small telecommunications company.
And Bell Atlantic Corp. last week became the first phone company to win Federal Communications Commission approval to offer video programming over its communications network. The landmark decision allows the company to compete with cable television in the battle to bring video services into the home.
The Philadelphia-based phone company reached agreement in 1992 with FutureVision of America Corp. to carry up to 60 channels of cable TV and other video programming to homes in Toms River, an affluent suburb between New York and Philadelphia.
