ses" where the computers were kept. (Actual computer networking as we know it today had yet to develop.) This was, on the one hand, an opportunity for the Bell System to increase its business; even in the early 1960s, forecasts had data traffic levels eventually eclipsing voice. But it was terribly disruptive as well. Computer technology changed far too rapidly for Bell's slow depreciation schedules, let alone its glacial rate at which it introduced new services. Comput- ers and semiconductors thus threatened the monopoly business model both from outside the network, where they led to demand that could not be easily sated, and from inside, where faster-moving technology threatened to make obsolete billions of dollars of undepreciated electromechanical and tube-based equipment. Federal policy finally began to catch up with technology in the late 1960s, when the FCC made two epic decisions that permanently changed the scene. The Carterfone decision ended the telephone company monopoly on terminal equipment; it led to the competitive availability of a wide range of devices, including modems, answering machines, PBX systems, and cordless phones. The MCI decision started the demonopolization of long distance service. While narrowly tailored, it released a freight train that could not be derailed, leading, eventually, to the inevitable breakup of the Bell System. The pattern of monopoly that took hold in the United States was matched around the world. Many countries viewed the telephone network as a natural function of their existing postal monopolies. Others eventually nationalized pri- vately owned telephone companies. As the monopoly was being dismantled in the United States, other countries followed, often very slowly and cautiously. First their monopolies were privatized; competition was then slowly introduced. The Great Telecom Meltdown A newly competitive market, of course, attracts new entrants, as well as the capital that these new entrants require. AT&T stock had always been a stable, yield-oriented "widows a