“Rubber-stamping these mergers is an embarrassing milestone in this nation because it puts an end to any real hope of head-to-head telephone competition.”
“This is an earth-shattering reversal of competition policy from the agency that 21 years ago broke up the Bell monopoly and today is coddling the dominant Bell companies who seek to re-monopolize each of their regions,”
“There's no question that there was an enormous exaggeration of the benefits of the new fee agreement that hid substantial rate increases at a time when the [long-distance] companies themselves are getting significant cost savings.”
“What they're doing is combining local telephone monopolies from the Rio Grande all the way to the Great Lakes plus California. These are markets that have not been opened to competition.”
“The prices are soaring. With the end of final government oversight of cable rates, the prices will continue to soar, because most consumers do not have a choice. There's only one cable company in their community.”