The move shows how much AT&T has changed from the days when it was a regulated monopoly, relied upon by shareholders to produce steady income.
We've seen all around the world huge price spikes when you deregulate and all you have in place is a regulated monopoly".
Many of them began working for Lucent's corporate predecessors, Western Electric and AT&T, in an era when telephone service was a regulated monopoly and the cost of comprehensive employee benefits was built into state-approved rates.
But the culture has changed as they moved from being a regulated monopoly to competing in the workplace, from shedding the Baby Bells and now competing with them and from merging two years ago with TCI.
Among the reasons for limited liability cited by courts are that it produces lower rates and protects utilities from catastrophic losses, and, as the Texas Supreme Court put it, "a utility is a regulated monopoly that cannot pick and choose its customers or vary its rates to reflect differential damage exposures".
In its heyday, Bell Labs was funded by a fixed portion of the earnings from the nationwide telephone service, which until 1984 was a regulated monopoly.
Even though Railtrack is a private-sector company these days, it is still a regulated monopoly, so the level of its future profits will be determined at least in part by the government.
Many people involved in the process describe a feeling of being between worlds -- the market for raw wholesale energy has been deregulated, but the delivery to the individual home is still a regulated monopoly.
At the time Intelsat began taking shape, only AT&T, which was still a regulated monopoly, had managed to launch a communications satellite successfully.
Its wholesale operation will continue to be treated as a regulated monopoly, selling access to its network.
