In general, most people think that monopolies in business are a bad idea for customers. It’s hard to argue with that logic in most instances unless it has been previously proven wrong, such as the case was with the breakup of Ma Bell in the 1980′s. Prices ended up skyrocketing and service fell through the floor due to many reasons. Why am I bring this up? I will answer that with my experience yesterday.

After a long day of driving through Wisconsin and trying to place a phone call on my cellular phone, I realized sometimes when “roaming” even though it doesn’t apply to my current plan that I am unable to make a call. I had 5 bars (ALL OF THEM!) and my phone refused to connect so I couldn’t make a call, yet I was able to surf the internet and send text messages. Of course both of those features utilize data.

I am not sure whether it was an isolated issue, but I have had it happen to me in other areas that are “off the grid”. If there was a singular network, or even if different cellular phone companies all used the same towers there could ideally be more coverage for less maintenance and other costs potentially even saving customers money. This is all probably wishful thinking with the amount of intervention that takes place when two large companies even talk about merging.