
Mobile Standards ◾ 187
Western Electric purportedly acted in, from their perspective, the best
interests of the public.
Ultimately, what this really meant was that they operated in the best
interests of themselves, which meant that the government aorded pro-
tections to the monopolies, shielding them from competitive incursions,
while at the same time protecting them from the possibility of govern-
ment ownership.
By late 1966, things began to change and the atmosphere began to take
on an ambience of true public ownership of the communications system.
In particular, the FCC began to understand that a new age of computing
was dawning, a