Tele-Revolution: Telephone Competition At The Speed Of Light, A History of the Creation of a Competitive Local Telephone Industry, 1984-2000

by Richard G. Tomlinson's

Richard Tomlinson's Repsonse to Review

Reviewed By Albert Halprin

Telecommunications is a young industry populated by young people, both at companies and at regulatory commissions. Visitors to this site, therefore, will probably not remember the old Tonight Show hosted by Steve Allen, or Steve’s subsequent nightly comedy show from Hollywood & Vine. Nevertheless, we are all beneficiaries of one of his legacies C the “Brooklyn” bit. Steve Allen figured out early that he could almost always get resounding applause from the audience by mentioning the word “Brooklyn,” so he did it again and again. In one classic show when every pre-written skit bombed, he spent fifteen minutes running through one locale after another in a desperate search for those who would applaud not just Brooklyn, but ultimately, even Des Moines and Omaha.

Tele-Revolution: Telephone Competition At The Speed Of Light reminded me of that show. The author spends an inordinate amount of time listing the names of both companies and individuals to no apparent purpose other than, perhaps, inducing friends and their families to buy the book and/or to have readers – all of whom are virtually certain to be insiders – smile as they see a friend’s name. This is not to say that the book is without interest or merit, but quite frankly, it is hard to imagine someone neither involved with the industry nor friends with someone in the industry investing in this book or being prepared to read through it. While it is subtitled A History of the Creation of a Competitive Local Telephone Industry, 1984-2000, it is much more a description of the early industry players and some of their trials and tribulations than a chronicle of the development of competition itself.

The chief drawback of this book (particularly in terms of its appeal to a general audience) is the lack of a theme or focus. Some of the anecdotes are quite interesting, particularly the description of the ongoing tension between MFS and Teleport. The personnel involved, some of the incidents, and the tone, are well drawn and engaging. However, rather than sticking with either a chronological or thematic narration, Mr. Tomlinson skips back and forth in a manner which provides many nuggets of information, but, ultimately, seems to make no real point.

Not surprisingly for an author who works as a consultant to the CLEC industry, the perspective and slant are entirely anti-incumbent. More surprisingly, for a self-described historian, Mr. Tomlinson starts from the perspective that at the time of the AT&T divestiture, “it seemed impossible that local telephone service could be anything but a monopoly.” He seems to believe that only a few hearty pioneers ever contemplated the development of local competition. It is not clear whether he is unaware that both the Federal Communications Commission and some state commissions formally challenged the MFJ’s “natural monopoly” theory in court, arguing that the details of the divestiture would likely inhibit the development of competition. While the Department of Justice, AT&T, Judge Greene, and some less progressive Commissioners subscribed to the “monopoly” theory, large segments of the incumbent industry, government, and academia, totally rejected what Mr. Tomlinson seems to regard as the unilateral view.

Again and again, the book focuses solely on the CLEC view of issues, which loses much of the potentially engaging material, even when the story that is being told is interesting and informative. For example Mr. Tomlinson is at his best in describing the early development of competition in Illinois and its relationship to the Hinsdale fire and to Ameritech’s desire to achieve early deregulation for itself. It would have been interesting to enhance this story by following-up on the carnage that took place when Ameritech achieved nothing through its concessions and almost all of the senior officials involved with this issue left the company in rapid order.

Another serious flaw is that (perhaps, out of necessity) very little attention is paid to the developments of the past year, or, indeed, since the passage of the Telecommunications Act generally. Universal service is a mention, reciprocal compensation is a paragraph, and line-sharing apparently postdates the book. No discussion of the competitive DSL companies is offered, nor is there but the slightest mention of cable modems, AT&T local strategy, or Internet telephony. While the first 15 years of the development of local competition were overwhelmingly focused on the building of fiber networks and high-capacity facilities to large customers, we have only recently seen the fascinating beginning of meaningful competition in switched services and the infancy of competition for residential customers. I suppose this story will be both much more complex and much more interesting. A body of developments most attentive to the early days of institutional communications companies rather than the implementation of the Telecommunications Act’s local competition provisions is not a “full history of the creation of a competitive local telephone industry from 1984-2000.” The book might better have explicitly focused on the pre-1996 era, since no attempt was made to delve seriously into post-Act developments.

As valuable as it is to target industry histories and individual insiders, I await a more comprehensive analysis of the political and economic issues raised by global competition. We may, however, need a few more years’ perspective to permit that book to be written.

Back to Book Reviews Main Page