The technological advances happened under that monopoly. Parasites later took it and made a race to the bottom.
The technological advances didn't start happening until the monopoly was broken up. When did phones become dirt cheap? After the monopoly was broken up. When could you make cheap long distance calls? After the monopoly was broken up. When were cell phones invented? After the monopoly was broken up.
What are you babbling about? You think you didn't have to sign a contract with Ma Bell?
How you turned it into a who made the first cell phone is amusing
dope
The Cellular Solution
Something better — cellular telephone service — had been conceived in 1947 by D.H. Ring at Bell Labs, but the idea was not ready for prime time. The system comprised multiple low-power transmitters spread throughout a city in a hexagonal grid, with automatic call handoff from one hexagon to another and reuse of frequencies within a city. The technology to implement it didn't exist, and the frequencies needed were not available. The cellular concept lay fallow until the 1960s, when Richard Frenkiel and Joel Engel of Bell Labs applied computers and electronics to make it work.
AT&T turned their work into a proposal to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in December 1971. After years of hearings, the FCC approved the overall concept, but licensed two competing systems in each city.
In 1978, AT&T conducted FCC-authorized field trials in Chicago and Newark, N.J. Four years later, the FCC granted commercial licenses to an AT&T subsidiary, Advanced Mobile Phone Service Inc. (AMPS). AMPS was then divided among the local companies as part of the planning for divestiture. Illinois Bell opened the first commercial cellular system in October 1983. AT&T re-entered the cellular business by acquiring McCaw Cellular in 1994, the same year that President Clinton awarded Frenkiel and Engel the National Medal of Technology.
Today, AT&T Wireless (AWS) operates one of the largest digital wireless networks in North America. With more than 17 million subscribers, including partnerships and affiliates, and revenues exceeding $10 billion, AT&T Wireless is committed to being among the first to deliver the next generation of wireless products and services. AWS offers customers high-quality wireless communications services, whether mobile or fixed, voice or data, to businesses or consumers, in the United States and internationally.
AT&T Labs - Innovation - Technology Timeline - First Mobile Telephone Call| AT&T Labs| AT&T