Just as Dorothy stuffed straw into the Scarecrow, a 1996 law designed to foster telecommunications competition instead enabled most of the
Baby Bells and the extant AT&T to reassemble.
It will also see BellSouth return to its roots, as it and a number of other operators ( dubbed the
Baby Bells ( were spun off from AT&T in the 1980s.
Each year brought the same promises of how VoIP would revolutionize the delivery of phone service, replacing expensive and cumbersome traditional phone service delivered by the "
Baby Bells" with a cheap alternative.
These adorable
baby bells hold the perfect amount of spreadable butter for one person to enjoy.
If you want to hear some plain talk about the frenzied competition between the
Baby Bells and the cable providers to market bundled services, seek out Randy Luther, vice president of construction technology for Centex Homes in Dallas.
The same can be said for all of the
Baby Bells and related telecom companies.
Despite being called
Baby Bells from their inception, the telecommunications companies created from the breakup of AT&T retained several major hallmarks of a hidebound, old-economy sector that includes a large capital-heavy infrastructures and a huge unionized workforces active in multiple states.
But after months of talks with local broadcasters and the networks, the plan remains in limbo, a new competitor has launched a similar service, and it's starting to look like the
Baby Bells are going to get into the pay TV business before local broadcasters get their act together.
While officials at this big giant lumbered along, its competitors, including the
Baby Bells that were forcefully spun off in the mid 1980s, took risks and implemented programs that allowed them to leap ahead.
"The
Baby Bells are synonymous with 'market power.'"
But the
Baby Bells soon became adept at blocking competitors' access-to their lines.
At top speed, Korea's broadband connections over very high-bit digital subscriber lines (VDSL) are on average four times faster than the fastest broadband connections that the likes of Comcast, Time Warner or the
Baby Bells provide in the U.S.