Ma Bill
In the old days, AT&T (Ma Bell) dominated the U.S. telco market. After the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 there was real competition, and AT&T almost
entirely collapsed under its own monopolistic weight. The act, though far from
perfect, ushered in new companies and new services. With VoIP (once we can get
it to work) and the upcoming iPhone, we are on the verge of another revolution
-- and Microsoft wants its fair share. The company this week wrangled together
eight telcos and developers to support the
Microsoft
Connected Services Sandbox, a framework to help various services and tools
work together, creating "managed network mash-ups." So far, other
Web services vendors (like a little outfit called Google) have yet to sign up.
Posted by Doug Barney on December 06, 2006