The innovation revolution awaits: Expectations of a technological bonanza might have been inflated, but new openings are seen for the entrepreneurial opportunist

One of the bonuses of breaking up the Bell System, proponents of divestiture argued in the early 1980s, would be a plethora of new technologies. With fierce competition, this line of reasoning went, the success of AT&T and its competitors would depend on ability to introduce useful new technologies. As the first year of divestiture drew to a close, a Business Week headline asked: “Did it make sense to break up AT&T?”