Dialing F‐U‐T‐U‐R‐E at the Phone Company

Regulated industries such as the telephone industry are generally less competitive than those in the manufacturing sector, due to restricted entry and uniform rate setting. Recently, peripheral competition with AT & T has emerged in areas such as microwave transmission. Telephone companies however, have exclusive markets and interface with competition only at territorial boundaries in the form of inter‐connecting lines. AT &T is a de jure monopoly controlling approximately 85 percent of the U.S. telephone revenues; GTE, its largest competitor, has only 8 percent while independent companies cover the remaining 7 percent.