(1) buying cable companies, to gain direct, physical access to consumers; (2) providing customers with bundled service, which would let AT&T claim a larger share of their communications wallet than its rivals could; (3) executing the moves fast enough to generate revenue growth that would offset the decline in long-distance revenues; and (4) relying on regulatory implementation of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was supposed to block local telecoms from competing in long distance until they opened their networks fully to long-distance carriers.
