The Bell system ceased being a national monopoly, but the baby bells
> retained their regional dominance. The "competition" was a failure, as
> the incumbent phone companies drove competitors out of business
> through various shady practices from predatory pricing to
> uncooperative responses to line orders. Maybe you have competition,
> but in the metropolitan areas I've lived the only choices for
> wire-line phone service are the incumbent baby-bells, which, as you
> may have noticed, have consolidated almost to the pre-divestiture > state.
However, traditional wire-line voice telephony technology is no longer the only option for voice telephony (and many might suggest it's no longer the preferred option). While there may be a single dominant provider for wire-line service in most areas, there are multiple wireless voice providers, and cable companies are providing either PSTN or VoIP telephany. Wall Street analysts continue to mark the erosion of wireline voice customers against all the "baby Bells", which they would not do if there were not robust competition for voice service.
Michael Chance