In United States

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

law, the Modification of Final Judgment (MFJ) is the August 1982 consent decree concerning the

American Telephone & Telegraph Company AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

(AT&T) and its subsidiaries. The terms required the

Bell System divestiture The breakup of the Bell System was mandated on January 8, 1982, by an agreed consent decree providing that AT&T Corporation would, as had been initially proposed by AT&T, relinquish control of the Bell Operating Companies, which had provided loc ...

– removing local telephone service from AT&T control and putting business restrictions on the divested local telephone companies – in exchange for removing other longstanding restrictions on what businesses AT&T could control. The decree replaced the entirety of the previous final judgment of January 24, 1956 in the case ''United States of America v. Western Electric Company, Incorporated, and American Telephone and Telegraph Company'',Modification of Final Judgement
(archived scan) in ''United States of America v. Western Electric Company, Incorporated, and American Telephone and Telegraph Company''. United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action No. 82-0192, filed August 24, 1982. Retrieved 2019-01-29. also known as ''United States v. Western Electric Co.'' which had been transferred to the

United States District Court for the District of Columbia The United States District Court for the District of Columbia (in case citations, D.D.C.) is a federal district court in the District of Columbia. It also occasionally handles (jointly with the United States District Court for the District ...

and is referred to in the MFJ as the ''Western Electric'' case, Copy of full opinion accompanying the Modification of Final Judgment. and consolidated with the existing '' United States v. AT&T'' filed on November 20, 1974, which is referred to in the MFJ as the ''AT&T'' action or ''AT&T'' case. The decree was made with Harold H. Greene as presiding judge.

References

{{Telecommunications 1982 in technology 1982 in United States case law Bell System United States antitrust case law United States communications regulation case law