Verizon, Bellsouth, SBC, and Qwest are 4 of the major reasons that our economy is in it's current situation.

Now although, there was never enough business to fundamentally support over 400 different CLEC's and DLEC's that came about after the 1996 Telecom ACT, there should have been enough to support more than what are making it now.

The RBOC's continually stalled, obfuscated, and overcharged in supplying services to these companies, that they were supposed to provide to by law.

They have put a strangle hold on the telecom industry, and didn't bring any new innovation to the consumer until they began to lose market share to the upstart CLEC's. So they made it as hard as possible to a new company to do business. During this time the market capitalization of the CLEC's have dwindled from highs of over 250 billion dollars to now less than 50 Billion for all of them combined. Meanwhile just the market caps of Verizon and SBC are still over 200 Billion Combined.

The RBOC's concerted effort has had a trickle down effect throughout our economy. Their efforts blocked the business models of competitors. Competitors were unable to gain new revenues rapidly enough. Desperately needed capital markets then dried up for the CLEC's. CLEC's were unable to pay Vendors without capital. CLEC's began laying off employees. Vendors unable to bring in monies for equipment sold because equipment was financed. Vendors laid off their employees. People began filing bankruptcy. People losing jobs could no longer afford new cars, hense the downturn in new car sales. More problems in the retail sector with less spending in the country, and so on and so on.

I myself, work in the telecom field.