More importantly, at the backbone level, the phone system has been run through the same type of SONET fiber optic networks as the internet for the last couple of decades, at least. In most cases the only reasons the two were isolated from one another were: - phone traffic was considered higher priority if an outage occurred (it used to be, but probably not any longer) - regulations on the internet (especially as pertains to giving access to ISPs, such as the cable companies) giving the phone companies incentive to segregate the two as much as possible

Another point regarding the consolidation of the two industries comes in the form of most of the cable companies now delivering home phone service through the internet.