For example, it is a federal crime to compete with the U.S. Postal Service in the delivery of first class mail. In all probability, if competitive entry were permitted, mail could be posted for delivery within hours rather than days in large metropolitan areas. Furthermore, the prices of some services, including most first class mail, probably would go down, while the quality of service would go up. But because a powerful union would lose influence and union members with limited skills would become unemployable at their current salaries, it seems highly improbable that Congress ever will free the market for first class mail. The Baby Bells and cable TV companies derive their monopolies from their ownership of local wiring systems in conjunction with practical and legal obstacles to the construction of competing networks.
Prices are high, and the quality of service often is mediocre.
Recently the cable TV monopolies have come under competitive attack from the DISH network and other satellite TV providers. Excellent television service now is available to customers appropriately situated to install a dish, but there remains but one supplier of the local telephone dial tone. If consumers can substitute other products for the supposedly monopolized product, there is in fact no monopoly. For example, the sole marketer of Tylenol is not a monopolist, because Tylenol is merely one of many pain remedies. Neither goal can be accomplished in a competitive environment.