n the 1990s; had dial-up data calls been treated as "access," it is likely that the consumer Internet would never have developed as it did. The Baby Bells would be born with a new set of rules to guide them. It should be noted, though, that this system of access charges was not created as part of divestiture per se, merely a concurrent change in the way interstate rates were structured. Had divestiture never occurred, similar rules would likely have been implemented, even if the access charges had largely remained within the Bell System family. Birth of the Baby Bells The AT&T divestiture took place effective January 1, 1984. This not only marked a change in stock ownership, but it also resulted in a change to the architecture of the telephone network itself. The primary distinction between the RBOCs and AT&T was competition. The monopoly that AT&T's Bell Sys- tem had held during the mid-twentieth century stemmed from a recognition of the "natural monopoly." Almost every aspect of the telephone network had shown, in those days, natural monopoly aspects. (It was hard to argue that ter- minal equipment was a natural monopoly; Bell's justification for monopoly was more along the lines of its being a cash cow.) But by the time MCI was author- ized, the natural monopoly in long distance was demonstrably weakened. (AT&T's residual market power was, however, noted by the FCC, which con- tinued to regulated it as "dominant" for several years after divestiture, until its market share had declined substantially.) Long distance companies still depended on the local exchange carriers; those still seemed to be a natural monopoly. So the RBOCs were given that business, and confined to it by strict limitations on their activities. For their first several years, they were not even allowed to have unregulated businesses totaling more than 10% of their total revenues. Stopping at the LATA Boundary When the MFJ was originally announced, the spun-off Bell companies were to be prohibited from "interexchange" service. This was an over