T-MOBILE WANTS TO BUY SPRINT

  T-Mobile and Sprint are the little guys in the cable business. You probably already know that AT&T and Verizon are the big boys, with lots of muscle. Verizon Communications was founded in 2000 by two blockbuster firms: Bell Atlantic Corp and GTE Corp.

  The American Telephone and Telegraph company was named by Alexander Graham Bell.

  Descendants of founding members, and a vast number of stockholders owned AT&T and every Bell telephone system, until 1982.

  That was when the Supreme Court ruled that this monopoly contravened the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1880.  Heretofore, “Ma Bell” could arbitrarily raise rates when the notion struck her, which was often.

  Henceforth, the many Bell operating companies had to split into competing entities.  AT&T could vie for the “long distance,” telephone business, for which competitors soon emerged. The cost to make long distance calls declined.

  If the purchase of Sprint by T-Mobile is allowed, there will be one less competitor in the marketplace and the price for internet service will increase substantially and inexorably. 

  Prior to 1901, great corporations, led by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil  Company, were well on their way to owning everything.  Yes, every thing.   

  Once Rockefeller drove competitors out of business by offering ridiculously cheap oil in chosen areas, he immediately socked it to the public in those areas by applying outrageously high prices.  He was also famous for being at one time the Richest Person in the World and for giving dimes to tykes.

  In 1901, America had a boisterous, War Hero President.  One of the things for which Theodore Roosevelt is famous is his vigorous application of the Sherman Anti-Trust act.  Using it, “Teddy” broke the backs of the big monopoly plutocrats.   Just one of the many reasons his image appears with other great Presidents on Mount Rushmore.

-  Phil Richardson, Storyteller and Observer of the Human Condition