[Bush2000]

The gov't didn't buy Bell it's copper. They did tax it though.

It's not as if we had a choice of an alternate supplier now, did we?

[Bogey78O]

Actually you don't need a phone. AT&T did lose turf to other companies in the past. River Region Phone Co was one such local case.

[Bogey78O]

But so you'll know the alternatie was to have either the gov't lay the cable and nationalize it or have a million different companies lay their own cable and we'd look like Beirut with a billion pole mounts.