While this piece is an opinion, there is a great deal of fact in it regarding the Telecommunications business.

If you're too lazy to read the Telecomunications Act of 1996 (like any sane person), you can read Mr. Huber's (Mr. Huber, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is a Washington lawyer who represents Bell companies and other telecom concerns.) piece. It contains an educational chronology about how these businesses came to be what they are today.

In his world, this was all caused by regulation. I would argue that books are jiggered even further to evade taxation. If the market had actually been free after the Bell System break-up, the world would have been a different place.