ABSTRACT
The two decades following the 1956 Consent Decree witnessed a revolution in the telecommunications marketplace. AT&T’s hallowed status as virtually the only provider of telephone equipment and service-a role long subject to only superficial regulation-slowly began to erode. By the late 1950s, advances in technology (some developed, ironically, at Bell Labs) had created alternative ways to deliver telephone services. At the same time, regulators were providing unprecedented opportunities for new companies to enter the telephone equipment and services industries.
