SBC, AT&T say Bell breakup doesn't work | CNET News.com

The rules of the telecom game have been rewritten by technology's rapid advance. Consolidation in the industry makes sense, as long as space exists for new technologies and new companies to have a run at customers. As I've maintained for years, the only viable telecom companies in the nation's "public interest" are those that own networks. Many of the rules and restrictions established in the 1984 breakup of the Bell System and in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 no longer apply, primarily because the cable companies along with the local telcos have deployed so much digital broadband technology. It's broadband that makes so much competition possible in the wireline business as well as in the wireless arena. Hooray for digital broadband!