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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


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