The Deal of the Century: The Breakup of AT&T

by Steve Coll

During the 1970s, as he had risen through AT&T’s management ranks to the elite corps around Charlie Brown, Hugel had been frustrated by his company’s seeming inability to shake off its past. For example, Hugel believed that Bell had wasted an opportunity in the late 1960s and early 1970s to “trade off” politically the possibility of unlimited phone equipment competition for the right to preserve its national network. But instead of accepting equipment competition, deButts had pursued his PCA strategy. “The old telephone people didn’t recognize terminal equipment for what it was—not an integral part of the network,” Hugel said later. “There was the PCA argument, and the studies about harm to the network were legitimate, but that really wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees.”