and even from developing enhanced information services. The long-distance and manufacturing line-of-business restrictions remained in place for twelve years, much to the consternation of the di- vested Bell companies. To begin with, they created an enormous amount of legal wrangling over the complexities in defining and delineating the mar- ket boundaries of services the Bell companies could offer under the decree.8 More important, the decree established a vertically fragmented and ineffi- cient structure for the telecommunications sector, which is now disappear- ing. No other country has attempted to balkanize its telecommunications sector in the manner of the decree, separating "local" markets from "long- distance" markets.' When the Internet began growing rapidly in the mid- 1990s, the Bell companies could not participate in this new medium, even though a call to an Internet service provider (ISP) is generally a local call. A local call to an ISP triggers communications that eventually become "long distance," thereby running afoul of the line-of-business prohibition on the divested local Bell companies. Similar problems occurred in the enforcement of the manufacturing line-of-business restriction. Given the rate of technological change in elec- tronics and communications in the 1980s and 1990s, one would have expected the major telecom carriers to engage in a variety of joint ventures with equipment suppliers to develop, test, and implement new technolo- Opening Telecom Markets: The 1996 Telecommunications Act gies. However, the decree prohibited the divested Bell companies from entering such endeavors. The decree was more lenient on joint ventures involving software, but the dividing line between software and hardware was changing and created substantial room for disputes that had to be taken to the court enforcing the decree. 10 After more than a decade of legal wrangling, the Bell companies and their adversaries sought relief from Congress, which struck a compromise between the Bell companies and the long-d