In 1983 there was an antitrust suit filed against what was then AT&T. It claimed that AT&T had formed a monopoly. Local telephone service was subsidized by high priced long distance service. It was unlawful to connect equipment to AT&T line service without their approval. This meant businesses were forced to rent telephone equipment from AT&T which offered telephone equipment made by Western Electric. Judge Greene ruled that AT&T was to break up into 5 regional companies, later called the Baby Bells. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) are responsible for the oversight of all telecommunications in Illinois to foster an open and competitive environment that will provide you with better service and lower prices through more choices. The Baby Bell in the State of Illinois was Illinois Bell which changed its name to Ameritech who later was sold to SBC. In 1996 the Federal Telecom Act was created to enable local telephone companies ‘the Baby Bells’ to compete in the long distance market, and long distance companies ’AT&T’ to compete in the local market. In order to offer long distance service, the

baby bells had to open their markets up to local competition according to criteria set by the FCC.

Competition in the telephone industry is what brought us cordless phones, caller ID, call forwarding, high speed data, or other creature comforts we’ve grown accustomed to.
In August of 2003, SBC was denied the right to offer long distance telephone service in the State of Illinois due to the high frequency of discrepancies in their local telephone service bills to customers and local competitors.

Today there are over 80 telecom providers to choose from for your local and long distance service. Active Telephone & Data has recently become an agent for ‘Talk America’ who J.D. Powers rated # 1 in customer service. We offer local and long distance to both residential and commercial customers at very competitive rates. If you would like to convert your service to Talk America on-line, visit our web site www.activeteledata.com, click on Customer Services, then Talk America or just call us at 847-392-3282.