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Whenver something stupid and terrible happens -- disco
dancers are killed and maimed, or passengers get blown out
of a jet -- some halfwits always take credit.
If psychopathic cowards are so willing to brag about their disgusting acts, then it seems reasonable that sane people, or even politicians, would want to boast when they do something good.
Something good did happen a couple of years ago. The Bell System was broken up.
The local electric monopoly never cared what you plugged into an outlet, or if you hung up a new lamp, or where you bought your appliances. But Ma Bell wouldn't let you plug anything into the system if that device wasn't built, installed and owned by AT&T or its subsidiaries.
You had to pay AT&T to install something as simple as an extension telephone.
Connecting a phone generally requires no more expertise than the ability to hook the yellow wire to the yellow wire, the red to the red and so forth -- a skill that most people master in kindergarten -- but Ma Bell insisted that only her expensive technicians could handle such sophisticated work.
Once you'd been gouged for the installation, you then had to pay $1.50 a month to rent your extension. Ma Bell wouldn't let you buy it. Ma Bell was getting an $18-a-year return on her $40 Divestment. That's 45 percent a year; it's no wonder the old AT&T never missed a dividend.
Even I can now afford to have sets scattered around the house. A ringing phone is merely an annoyance, not a toe-stubbing inconvenience. If that gets to be too much trouble, there are many convenient and affordable options -- the stores are fun of answering machines and cordless telephones.
Those are options that didn't exist -- or else they cost
so much that few people could afford them -- a few years
ago when we supposedly had the best telephone system in
the world.
Of all the new devices that deregulation has allowed us telephone customers to own and operate, I'm happiest with the modem that enables my computer to communicate with other computers.
Isolated and remote, Salida used to be an awful place to run a writing business. Doing research often meant a l50-mile trip to a big library. Getting a manuscript from here to Denver generally took at least two days, unless I paid outrageous express fees to send it on the bus. There simply wasn't any way to move written work to New York, the center of the publishing industry, when that work absolutely, positively had to be there overnight.
Now I can summon virtually any morsel of information without leaving my desk. I can write this Friday column on Wednesday, instead of the preceding Sunday. I can put an article in front of a New York editor almost instantly. Telephone deregulation lets me do this and live wherever I choose.
Big businesses have benefited even more from deregulation: They make 80 percent of all long distance calls, so the competition and lower rates reduce their costs substantially.
We see innovations that range from cellular telephones in fast-track yuppie automobiles to high-speed data transmission by satellite. A lot of exciting things are coming from an industry where your major choice, until quite recently, was whether your chunky desk phone would be basic black or bland beige.
Breaking up AT&T has reduced government regulation, helped businesses large and small, and brought forth a surge of technological innovation.
Republicans say they're in favor of those things, so they should be eager to take the credit for breaking up AT&T -- especially since the break-up came after an agreement between AT&T and Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice.
But, apparently, Republicans didn't do it. Bo Callaway, the state GOP chairman, insists that Rep. Tim Wirth, a Democrat, is the one who broke up AT&T.
So I was ready to praise Tim Wirth. Then I saw a press release from his office. It said that although he'd held a few hearings, he didn't break up AT&T. I got the impression that no Democrat had anything to do with it.
As far as I'm concerned, our telephone system has become immeasurably more convenient and useful since the AT&T break-up. I'd like to give credit where credit is due. Is anyone bold enough to step forward? Or do even terrorists have more courage than Colorado politicians?
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