re not going to cover it all here, the history of tele- communications is a fascinating story. In the beginning, with multiple local telephone companies competing, you may have had three separate telephone instruments on your desk to call people who subscribed to one of the three different services. AT&T (American Telephone & Telegraph) was formed in 1885 to provide long distance service to the local telephone ser- vice provider known as Bell. In 1900 AT&T became Bell's parent company through a stock purchase. AT&T came to be known as Ma Bell and AT&T owned telephone companies were known as the Bell System. The Telecommunications Act of 1934 was adopted in order to regulate the AT&T monopoly over telephone service. It created the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and granted them the authority to review mergers and acquisitions between telephone companies and the power to regulate interstate tele- phone services. Intrastate telephone service was left up to the state utility com- missions which ultimately led to the creation of monopolies for local telephone service. In some areas of the U.S., the local mo- nopoly was not part of the Bell System, but an Independent Telephone Company such as was GTE or one of many smaller "Mom and Pop" telephone companies that still exist, particu- larly in rural areas. The Telecom Handbook - 299 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE AT&T had already cornered the long distance and local mar- ket when the 1934 act took effect. During the 1930's it seemed to make sense that these companies remain monopolies for the pro- tection of consumers, keeping prices in check. Then the telecommunications industry started to develop and claims of unfair competition against AT&T began. Dick Kuehn, a well-known telecommunications consultant, describes this time in his column in Business Communications Review Magazine (www.bcr.com): "Back in 1956, an obscure company named Hush-A- Phone began manufacturing a plastic cup-like device that clipped onto a telephone mouthpiece to block extra- neous noise. Hush-A-