The Dark and Tragic Side of the Great Breakup
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Mr. French (June, 1984) 

I have had it up to here with this divestiture crap! I consider myself to be a
very loyal phone phreak who has always hated Ma Bell with a passion. What I 
wouldn t give to have the good old days back, when Bell was the only game in
town!

Now there s this strange entity called AT&T Communications. I still don't know
where it is they're coming from. They're not my local company. They're my
long-distance company that I never asked for. My local company (not AT&T!)
decided to tell my long-distance company that I wanted a special service that
allowed me to make lots of long-distance calls within my state for a discount.
I didn't object at first. But then I saw myself getting charged a minimum fee
every month I didn't use it! Who do I complain to? My local company? AT&T? They
both blamed each other. Finally, AT&T said they'd fix it, but they never did.
Now who do I complain to? The Public Service Commission in my state doesn't
handle national telephone companies only statewide ones. The business office
ladies of my local company are very happy to listen to my complaints and are
even happier to say, "That's AT&T, not us. We re not the same company anymore."

My local operator, for some reason, seems to be a part of AT&T. If I call to
tell her that my house is burning, I fully expect to hear her say that I have
to call my local telephone company and please leave AT&T out of it.

We never should have been allowed to get hooked on the Bell System that's what
spoiled us. Equal access from the beginning would have made sense. To have it
suddenly start now is one big fat pain!

It's the government that's to blame, really they're the ones that have screwed
things up so badly. No one knows from one minute to the next how they're going
to dial a number. First, they say we're going to dial 950-10XX for every
long-distance call. Then they say we're going to skip the 950 part and just
dial 10XX plus the number. Now they're telling us that we're going to have to
subscribe in advance to MCI, Sprint, etc. Meanwhile all of these long-distance
companies are popping up out of nowhere with advertising blitzes that make you
feel like an idiot for not signing up right away. All it's doing is confusing
the hell out of older people and people who aren't too bright as well as those
who just aren't phone phreaks. My parents can't keep up from one minute to the
next and I'm not much better off, despite my knowledge of the system!

The way I see it, this divestiture is going to cause all the smaller companies
to give poorer service and go up on their rates even more. (Soon I won't be
able to afford to call people unless they're long distance local rates just
keep climbing!) Local companies are letting their exchanges fall apart. They
claim they're going to have to raise their rates to pay for maintaining the COs.
Service has gone downhill even worse than it ever was. The whole thing is a
mess.

Think of how easy it used to be. It was you and the phone company. The phone
company provided your phone, fixed your phone, gave you local calls,
long-distance calls, operators, free directory assistance. If you were a phone
phreak, you had to worry about the phone company. Today, a phreak has to worry
about so many different companies it'll make his head swim!

The old days will never come back, I guess. But let's try to remember them this
way: Things were horribly unfair and dictatorial. But at least everything
worked. The phone company took pride in its work instead of shifting the blame
to another phone company. It was easy to complain, easy to get repair service
to your door, easy to figure out if you could afford to make a call. The
instruments lasted forever - in fact, my phones from the forties and fifties are
in much better shape than the new crap I have!

Today things are fair and equal, or getting there. I, for one, can really see
the difference.