Editing Kingsbury Commitment (section)

==History==
[[File:Bell System advertisement in Western Electric v1no1 News March 1912 promoting universal service.jpg|thumb|1912 Bell System advertisement promoting universal service<ref>Western Electric News, Volume 1 (1) p.25 (March 1912).</ref>]]

In 1907, [[Theodore N. Vail]] became president of AT&T for the second time. Immediately, he steered the company into a new direction, in terms of vision, company organization, and technology. He envisioned telephone service as a public utility, and the future of the American telephone industry as a unified system of companies under the lead of his company. This required technical standards understood and accepted by all players in the industry. He opened the market for the [[Western Electric Company]], its manufacturing unit which the company had previously restricted to sell products only to the Bell System companies, so that independent operators could buy compatible apparatus. He organized a distinct research division within Western Electric to focus on basic research and development. AT&T had bought Bell-associated companies and organized them into new hierarchies. AT&T had also acquired many of the independents, and bought control of [[Western Union]], giving it a monopolistic position in both telephone and telegraph communication. These efforts and Vail's vision were communicated to the public by marketing campaigns under the slogan ''One System — One Policy — Universal Service''. 

AT&T increasingly became a vertically integrated conglomerate. The government had been increasingly worried that AT&T and the other Bell companies were monopolizing the industry. A key strategy by the [[Bell System]] was to refuse to connect its [[Long-distance calling|long-distance network]]—technologically, by far the finest and most extensive in the nation—with independent carriers. Without the prospect of long-distance services, the market position of many independent operators became untenable. AT&T's strategies prompted complaints and attracted the attention of the [[United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division|Justice Department]].