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Re: As Far As I'm Concerned I was born in the 50's. No way in hell would I want the old AT&T back. I figure you probably owned AT&T stock, were very rich so you didn't have to worry about long distance costs or else could make long distance calls on someone else's dime, and lived in an urban or suburban area where AT&T service was fairly reliable. And for whatever reason, you somehow escaped the experience of AT&T billing you for calls you never made and then basically calling you a liar when you tried to get them taken off your bill. Maybe not all those, but probably most of them.
The breakup of AT&T was the best thing that ever happened to America. In fact I daresay that had AT&T not been broken up, the Internet as you know it would not exist, because the old AT&T would never have allowed people to connect modems to their phone lines unless AT&T was renting them out at some astronomical monthly charge. The only thing a customer could own and legally connect was the old acoustic model where you placed the phone handset inside foam cups, and those struggled to hold a 300 baud connection! I can't think of a company I have ever hated more than AT&T, and that's why it so shocked me when SBC bought the AT&T brand from the then-bankrupt original AT&T. Talk about a tarnished brand, at least with many people of my generation.
The only somewhat good thing you can say about them is that there was a time when AT&T labs was on the cutting edge of science. But I guess when you are gouging all your customers with exorbitant long distance charges and monthly phone rental fees (where the phone was paid for in about six months but the rent went on forever), and even charging extra for things like longer line cords or phones in attractive colors rather than basic black, you can afford to fritter some of that away on research and development. Of course they patented everything they developed, so that raked in even more money for them.
There is a reason people fled from AT&T like rats from a sinking ship when they finally had the chance, and actually realized they could (unfortunately, a lot of older people never really understood that they had choices). If you really think we were better off with the old AT&T, I'd get your affairs in order because it sounds like maybe you are pole-vaulting into senility! | |
1 edit | Youre right, AT&T took this country out of the technological stone-age by inventing the transistor, but the internet never wouldve existed down the road. sigh | |
Reviews:
 ·Frontier Communi..
| Don't forget Unix, the laser, and the C programming language.... all three of which are critical underpinnings of the modern internet.
Alas, the days of companies throwing money into R&D like AT&T did with Bell Labs are over. Bell Labs got money for bragging rights as much as for practical technology that could advance AT&T's bottom line. | | |
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