Seth Gainer

“The FCC’s introduction of competition in the long-distance market has been and will be shown to be contrary to the best interests of millions of Americans,” Judge Richey wrote in his December 1982 opinion dismissing the entire case. “Every action complained of in this case could have or should have been handled by the appropriate regulatory bodies . . . The court believes that the antitrust laws were never intended to destroy an essential public utility such as we have here.”
― Steve Coll, The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T

“DeButts did not shy away from this challenge, but he nonetheless felt ambivalent about it. “The service motivation has been bred in the bones of telephone people over the course of a hundred years,” he said in one speech. “To supplant that motivation with a market motivation might make us a no less profitable business and a no less effective one, though by different standards. But we would be a different business surely, and I for one cannot help but feel that we would be the poorer for it, and so would the public we serve.”
― Steve Coll

“But I couldn’t help think, when I heard Mr. Connell talking, about the time I wrote a political platform for a political candidate, who can remain nameless. It wasn’t long, after we got through with the platform in that negotiation, when someone said, ‘That’s a fine platform.’ I said, and I meant it, ‘Yes, it touches on every subject that is important to the people of this state, and it avoids every issue.”
― Steve Coll, The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T

“But what is the choice? The choice is keep the Bell System as an integrated enterprise with regulations that will strain it, or satisfy the national consensus, which says that in order for the Bell System to be free, it must be much smaller. And that was the decision that was made . . . I told Your Honor last January that this case raised a truly fundamental issue. It is a broad, profound, philosophical, almost legal issue. What is the relationship between a public utility and the antitrust laws? How do you put those two things together? What are the obligations? And Your Honor has expressed it yourself: ‘Hey, you are just a big corporation, go out and make money, quit pretending that you are really concerned with the public interest.’ That tone. You know, the company . . . It may be hard for a lot of people to believe it, but for a hundred years this company has been based on the notion of public service. A lot of Bell System people cried this morning, and not because they are not going to make any more money . . . We can live with this as a money-making institution. The problem is, what does it do to the public? What does it do to the concept of universal service? And the message that has been coming out from Congress, and from this court, is, ‘That is none of your business. The market protects the public interest. You are being arrogant in thinking you even have a responsibility to consider it.”
― Steve Coll, The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T