"Together with the acquisition of AT&T by SBC, the U.S. fixed market has now been completely reshaped," says Julian Hewett, chief analyst of analyst firm Ovum. "With the wonderful perspective of hindsight, the competitive industry structure imposed by the enforced break-up of AT&T in 1984 can be seen as a failure. This break-up split off of the regional telephone companies. . . from the long-distance operator [AT&T]. Everything has changed: in those days, all the profit was in long-distance; today, the profit is in local access. The power has moved back to the Baby Bells, and the separation of local access and long-distance has disappeared."