The 100 is an exaggeration, but splitting the Bell System was still done rather stupidly as the status quo of them slowly being defanged in their grip over customers (eg long distance fees, answering machines, third party phones) while they still invested ungodly amounts of money into the US infrastructure would've probably served us better in the internet age than smashing the thing apart until they all just bought each other again. We'd probably actually have nationwide FTTH at this point.