January 8, 1982: The Breakup of the Bell System

January 8, 1982: The American Telephone & Telegraph Company agrees to settle the federal government's antitrust case against it, by divesting itself into 22 subdivisions, taking effect on January 2, 1984.

I used to say that "The Phone Company" was the one monopoly that everyone liked, and Ronald Reagan, the President at the time, a conservative Republican whom you would think would support it, broke it up. The truth is, though, the case of United States v. AT&T was filed all the way back in the Administration of Gerald Ford, and it was probably being at least considered a few months earlier, under Richard Nixon.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suspected that AT&T was using monopoly profits from its Western Electric subsidiary to subsidize the costs of its network, which was contrary to U.S. antitrust law. The case was filed by the the U.S. Department of Justice on November 20, 1974.

The case was fought over until it was settled on January 8, 1982, by the means of a consent decree between AT&T and the DOJ. It broke "Ma Bell" up into several "Baby Bells," including NYNEX (for New York and New England), Bell Atlantic (for the Middle Atlantic States, including New Jersey), BellSouth, Ameritech for the Midwest, Southwestern Bell and Pacific Bell.

(I remember a news reporter covering a story of Italian-Americans trying to get official recognition that the telephone was invented not in 1876 by Scots-Canadian Alexander Graham Bell, but in 1871 by Italian political figure and scientist Antonio Meucci. The reporter said, instead of "Ma Bell," we should use the name "Papa Meucci." But Meucci's device didn't get the patent, because it didn't meet the qualifications that Bell's device did.)

This led to competition for phone users' service, but it also led to frequent contacts, sales calls -- the phone companies using the phone to harass their would-be customers. It also led to the founding of challenging companies, such as MCI and Sprint. However, in the long run, that led to better development of mobile phones, which eventually combined with computers to create the "smartphones" we have today.

So the breakup of the Bell System was bad in the short term, but good in the long run. Eventually, AT&T did regain much of what it lost, and it got big again. All of which made more people than before think that the logo they adopted in 1984 resembled the Death Star from Star Wars.

"That's no moon... "

The logo they switched to in 2016 isn't much better.

During the 1996 Presidential campaign, politically-themed comedian Mark Russell had one of his periodic TV specials on CBS. One of the Republican candidates was Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr., a.k.a. Steve Forbes, son of the founder of Forbes magazine, a business-themed periodical. Russell had this line: "It's a very sexy magazine. This month's centerfold is Ma Bell." Since Russell was already 63 years old, his audience got the joke, and laughed. Although Steve Forbes is still running the magazine in 2022, it's been so long since "Ma Bell" was broken up, half the country wouldn't get the joke today.

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January 8, 1982 was a Friday. Baseball was out of season. The NFL was between rounds of the Playoffs. There was 1 game in the NBA: The Colorado Rockies beat the St. Louis Blues, 7-1 at the McNichols Arena in Denver. Bob MacMillan scored 4 goals. It was a rare good moment for the Rockies, who moved to the Meadowlands before the next season, and became the New Jersey Devils.

And there were 6 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 110-100 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey.

* The Boston Celtics beat their arch-rivals, the Philadelphia 76ers, 96-90 at the Boston Garden.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 119-113 at the Chicago Stadium. Magic Johnson scored 32 points in defeat.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 90-88 at the Milwaukee Exposition, Convention Center and Arena, or "The MECCA." Since 2014, it has been named the UW-Panther Arena.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Indiana Pacers, 108-102 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City.

* And the Denver Nuggets beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 124-121 at the Portland Memorial Coliseum. Alex English led all scorers on the night with 35 points.