to telephone lines. That decision established the principle that customers could connect any lawful device to the telephone network, even to offer a competing service. In the mid 1970s, emerging long-distance competitors like MCI and Sprint faced the same tactic of denying interconnection, which regulators quashed, followed by a series of efforts by the Bell System phone companies to escalate the costs of interconnection as an indirect means of excluding competition. These battles resulted a large amount of antitrust litigation and ultimately led to the 1982 breakup of the Bell System. In 1982, AT&T and the Justice Department agreed on tentative terms for settlement of antitrust suit filed against AT&T in 1974, under which AT&T divested itself of its local telephone operations, which became known as the "Baby Bells." In return, the Justice Department agreed to lift the restrictions on AT&T activities contained in the 1956 Consent Decree. See also United States Independent Telephone Association Sherman Antitrust Act Telecommunications Act of 1996 Bell System divestiture References John Brooks (1976) Telephone: The First Hundred Years, p 136, Harper & Row . Legal history of the United States United States communications regulation Bell System 1913 in the United States