...see, 'coz in just about every other way, they're Pure Evil Monopoly. It's probably the entire phone industry -- I'm currently doing business with the one company (Sprint) who hasn't massively pissed me off. SBC is the chamber of horrors for all things in California, starting with wanting to reneg on the naming of Pac Bell park (rule #1 of sports venues: don't name the damned thing after a company -- you can call it "Foo Venue, Sponsored by Evilcorp", but nothing else...).

And of course, the only reason SBC's doing this is because it knows, having been in the peer-to-peer business for somewhat more than a century, that that's where the real money is. Edison envisioned (enauraled? ...but he was deaf...) the telephone as a system by which symphony orchestras could be piped from a central location into the citizen's parlor. Teen gossip over Britney and Justin...I fear the consider his response to that.... But truth: it's what sells.

Conflictedly: Beaujoulais to SBC!