Telephone Monopoly

Archive Report

Antitrust Action in Telephone Industry

Objectives of the Government's Antitrust Suit

Filing of an antitrust suit against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and its wholly-owned manufacturing subsidiary, the Western Electric Company, has directed attention to the nation's largest private monopoly and to questions of rate regulation that ultimately concern every telephone user in the United States. The telephone monopoly covers the manufacture of telephone equipment as well as provision of telephone service. The Department of Justice asserts that absence of effective competition in the manufacturing branch of the industry tends to defeat public regulation of telephone rates. When the antitrust suit was filed last month,1 Attorney General Clark said its chief purpose was “to restore competition in the manufacture and sale of telephone equipment now ...

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