companies provided local and long distance service over wires. It did not make much sense to have many

companies building multiple wiring systems across towns and the entire country. AT&T lost its monopoly on

long distance service when the technology for providing phone service changed from wires to microwave and

satellite transmission, so that multiple firms could use the same transmission mechanism. The same thing

happened to local service, especially in recent years, with the growth in cellular phone systems.

The combination of improvements in production technologies and a general sense that the markets could

provide services adequately led to a wave of deregulation, starting in the late 1970s and continuing into the

1990s. This wave eliminated or reduced government restrictions on the firms that could enter, the prices that

they could charge, and the quantities that many industries could produce, including telecommunications,

airlines, trucking, banking, and electricity.
{"file_type": ".pdf", "source_file": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_hash": "830b81f41611ac67a490444dbb5d6aed292224606965b06965b914443c93331a", "moddate": "2022-12-07T14:23:05-06:00", "uploaded_via": "batch_uploader", "creator": "PDFMiner", "upload_timestamp": "2026-02-07T15:24:38.309401", "batch_upload": true, "title": "Principles of Microeconomics 3e", "source": "downloads\\business\\economics\\Microeconomics3e.pdf", "total_pages": 597, "file_name": "Microeconomics3e.pdf", "file_size_mb": 26.99, "producer": "Prince 14.2 (www.princexml.com)", "creationdate": "2022-12-07T14:15:44-06:00"}