Both that argument and America's rules stopping local operators merging with long-distance operators look harder to justify given today's turmoil and the rapid pace of technological change.
That task grew more difficult in May, when news broke that federal prosecutors were looking into allegations that MCI, since 1994 and be-fore merging into WorldCom, had be-gun illegally disguising long-distance calls as local ones to avoid paying the Bells millions of dollars in access fees--and continues to do so.