[sweeps]

You're right, tina, but this is a problem whenever infrastructure is involved. A true market just can't exist when you're talking about things with extremely high barriers to entry. Telecommunications, utilities, transportation, mail delivery, air travel, things like that.

The FCC tried to bring competition into the telecom industry by using things like unbundling and number portability, but honestly it's all a mess with numerous conflicts of interest.

So that leaves you stuck somewhere between a slow, cumbersome (yet reliable) government-run program and a completely chaotic true market system. SBC and Verizon have found the best way to succeed is to get bigger and bigger and put as much money in politicians' pockets as possible. Based on their latest earnings figures, it seems to be working.