The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hands down The Carterphone Decision, which opens up the Bell Telephone network to equipment manufactured and approved from other groups besides Bell Telephone. This decision allows devices such as modems, manufactured by third party companies, to be connected to the telephone network in the 1970's.
On June 26th a landmark decision in telecom history as the Carterphone
Decision is rendered by the FCC. Under this decision, the FCC struck down
existing interstate telephone tariffs prohibiting attachment of connection
to the public telephone system of any equipment or device that was not
supplied by the telephone companies (Bell System). The suit, which began
October 28, 1966 centered on the desire of Carter Electronics of Dallas to
interconnect private mobile radio systems with the nationwide exchange and
message toll telephone network. The Carterphone Decision created the
interconnect industry and allowed manufacturers other than Western Electric
to sell their telephone devices to business nationwide. The telephone
companies still managed a minor victory by convincing the FCC that Bell
System manufactured "interface devices" had to be placed between any
non-telephone company equipment and the public telephone system. These
interface devices were struck down in 1978 when the FCC determined that
any equipment manufactured to FCC regulations could connect to the public
network via industry standard network termination devices (RJ11C, RJ21X,
etc.) In the mid-1980's the former Bell System companies were successfully
sued for the fees paid by customers for these interface devices (which were
determined to be unnecessary) during the ten year period from 1968 to 1978.