At & T Monopolies

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Monopolies Introduction to Business Fairmont State University Prepared by Student Prepared for Donna J. Stumpo, M.B.A December 3, 2007 When many people hear the word monopoly they think of the common board game that tons of people have played threw out there lifetime, but it is far more than just that. A Monopoly is defined by Webster’s dictionary as being a persistent situation where there is only one provider of a product or service in a particular market. It can also be defined as a individual or firm that can explicitly force competitors out of business by slashing prices, buying up and hoarding supplies, bribery or intimidation. One of the most recent cases of monopolies would be the Microsoft strangle…show more content…
AT &T in the early 20th century had a stronghold on the telephone services in America. The government actually protected AT & T for the determination they had to make telephone service so readily available in America. In the early 1980’s AT & T began to be attacked by critics saying it was such a big monopolistic organization consumers were striped of choosing another long distance provider. This case was brought to the United States Supreme Court in 1983. The court said AT &T was to break apart into seven little companies known as Baby Bells; a couple different ones that have transformed from AT & T are Southwest Bell and Bell Atlantic. If this ruling did not happen AT & T could charge whatever they wanted; ten cents a minute could be two dollars a minute etc. These monopolies don’t have to come up with new products or produce innovative designs in the market place because they know no one will be able to challenge the firms or…show more content…
A great example of this would be the cable company providing cable television and a substitute to the cable company would be the satellite dish, and depending on where you live would provide the same quality and at a lower cost. Monopolies fear substitute companies because of the market share they take away, in recent years monopolies have tried to improve their image threw customer service. It is far more difficult for many sellers to charge a higher price than its competition because it would be trouble-free for buyers to obtain from other sellers instead. This results in a problem for the smaller companies trying to make a move into the bigger
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