I spent this past week in telecommunications hell, as the California rains shut down my Verizon phone and DSL line for the third time this month; this time for almost the entire week. It surprisingly made me long for the monopoly that once was AT&T.

Those of us old enough to remember phone service prior to the Justice Department’s dismantling of Ma Bell in the early 1980s remember high prices, bad service, and a lack of technological innovation (tone pulse is the only thing I can remember.)  Why — at least where we lived — you couldn’t even own your phone.

But it worked.

I can’t recall it ever not working, even through the far worse weather northern New Jersey offered.

In the aftermath of communism, I lived many years in Eastern Europe — and dealt with a more monstrous telecommunication monopoly than AT&T — and even then I can’t remember being without telephone service for more than a few hours.

Maybe monopolies aren’t so bad?

Speaking of the rains, we’ve had six straight days of it. I’m beginning to feel like a character in a Marquez novel.

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