e pages to tell an unvarnished story without getting lost in the plumbing of an exceptionally complicated industry and company. This book is titled Tough Calls because none of the choices that AT&T made during this period were obvious, except in hindsight. The same might be said of the calls made by the small army of AT&T watchers who kept track of the company's moves. The period follow- ing the passage of the Telecom Act of 1996 was exuberant, chaotic, and, in many ways, ineffable. Looking back, it's amazing how much we all got wrong, whether we were business leaders, professional in- vestors, or the media. This book focuses on mistakes, but it would be wrong to ignore what AT&T and its critics got right. AT&T's critics were correct in calling for more active board engagement in the company's succes- sion planning. They were also correct in questioning some of the com- pany's acquisitions (though not always for the right reason). On the other hand, Bob Allen has seldom been credited with one of the most successful corporate acquisitions of the 1990s: AT&T's purchase of McCaw Cellular. Nor does he get much credit for restruc- turing the company at the precise moment when this would most benefit its equipment manufacturing business, putting that business under an exceptional CEO in the person of Henry Schacht and leaving AT&T with one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry. Mike Armstrong, for his part, made a string of small acquisitions that expanded AT&T's wireless and data businesses. He built a $4 billion outsourcing business from scratch in less than four years. He cashed out of the wireless business at the precise top of the market. He reversed decades of revenue declines in his first two full years at AT&T, and, in fact, it was in the midst of his third year that MCI Introduction 7 WorldCom apparently resorted to accounting tricks to maintain the illusion of competitiveness. When Armstrong saw the industry turn, he was forthright in correcting his earlier forecast, while his competi- tors continue