Bell System Shutdown Notice?

[WEBellSystemChristian]

I was wondering if anyone knew when Western Electric was notified that Bell System was being shut down. I noticed that Western Electric equipment immediately started getting cheaper around 1979, with dial gears and casings being made out of plastic. You can usually find mid-fifties chassis attached to 1979 and 1980 plastics, which was probably to get rid of as much stock as possible. I doubt that WE would have made previously heavy-duty parts out of cheap plastic under the Bell System's watchful eye.

[unbeldi]

Most of the plastic parts were actually more durable, with less wear, than the metal parts and they performed better, more quietly.  The path from metal parts to polymers was well along much earlier and happened across the entire industry, across all industries as we know.  Yes, they were cheaper, probably for most parts, but cheaper does not mean worse necessarily, and cost is a relative variable w/r/t perspective.

The Bell System was not "shut down", that would be a gross misrepresentation. It was a continual transformation with new technologies, but on the business end, the change of company ownership was a long process in the making. But the process of corporate break up is well documented.

[G-Man]

It was called Divestiture and AT&T had been fighting it just about every decade since the Kingsbury Commitment in 1913 with the Department of Justice, which settled an antitrust investigation. The last major action prior to Divestiture in 1983 was the Consent Decree of 1956.
Western Electric, owned by AT&T, was part of the Bell System and the regulators were constantly attacking them for selling equipment the captive Bell Operating Companies at a greater cost than other manufacturers were willing to sell the same equipment for, so they were continual  trying to keep their prices in line.
As Unbeldi has pointed out, some of the newer materials were better than those previously used. Things continually evolve as demonstrated with the continuing evolution of telephone housings, first wood followed by metals, Bakelite, and finally plastics.