A Slippery Slope: The Long Road to the Breakup of AT&T

(Hardback)

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A comprehensive examination of the events that led to the Bell System breakup. . . . Argues that divestiture was the culmination of a long process of change in telecommunications policy that began several decades ago. Associates new technologies, economic pressure, and social and political developments as the driving stimulus inducing a change that was a process of gradual evolution rather than programmed revolution in national telecommunications policies. Journal of Economic Literature This book presents, for the first time, a complete history of the events that led to the breakup of the Bell System on January 1, 1984. Henck and Strassburg, each of whom has a lifetime of experience in the telecommunications field, correct the popular misconception that the divestiture of AT&T was an isolated event which by itself brought about the confusion and occasional chaos besetting the average telephone user. Rather, they demonstrate, it was the culmination of a process of change in telecommunications policy that began several decades ago.

Author Bio

FRED W. HENCK is Consulting Editor of Telecommunications Reports. BERNARD STRASSBURG served for ten years as Chief of the Common Carrier Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to that he was associate bureau chief as well as head of the Commission's Office of Stellite Communications.