[palmer]

The breakup of Ma Bell led directly (in less than 10 years) to the rise of the cell phone and the internet, and the ability of everyone to communicate with anyone the world over for a tiny fraction of what it cost only a few years ago.

The Ma Bell monopoly was directly and completely responsible for the transistor that made this all this stuff possible.

I think ctdonath2 you may be on the wrong website.

I think IncPen needs to study history a bit more, particularly the advances and ideas even under the monopoly which allowed the explosion of better and cheaper services. The desktop OS was a similar monopoly albeit mainly with government and academic players. The upstarts nibbled away at that until it was destroyed and replaced with better and cheaper. But it's easy to forget the enormous contributions of the Microsoft monopoly.

[IncPen]

The Ma Bell monopoly was directly and completely responsible for the transistor that made this all this stuff possible.

Yes, 40 years previously. And then silicon chips replaced them. But because the entirety of Ma Bell's business was built on land lines, there was no incentive to innovate. It was other companies that drove the cell and internet revolutions, not Bell. Who even has a land line today?

But it's easy to forget the enormous contributions of the Microsoft monopoly.

If by Microsoft you're referring to enormous contributions like 'swiss-cheese security, marketing schemes that lead to dead-end upgrade paths, hostage-ware, theft of technology and design (the entire Microsoft empire was built on the theft of Gary Kildall's CP/M), and products like the Zune... well, you got me there...

Take your history lectures elsewhere.