Real answers · The family’s gifts to the world
When was the phone monopoly broken up?
The real answer
The national telephone monopoly was broken up under an antitrust decree a federal court entered on August 24, 1982. In 1996 Congress replaced the decree’s restrictions with the Communications Act’s (47 U.S.C. § 152 note).
The house’s version
Seen here: the direct line, ours, straight to the House. It took another family’s genius to invent it, and ours to see what it was for. The company built on it has since been broken up, and the phones made after were a joke, but the line was never cut. The family still writes its laws through it, and someone in the House still picks up. The calls are collect.
A parody, from Boys will be trusts.
For your convenience: a man in a bright shirt explains what we would rather not