> Really part of another era, where AT&T sunk billions into the labs just for pure research. If only corporations could be a far seeing today. I think it's onl

> Really part of another era, where AT&T sunk billions into the labs just for pure research. If only corporations could be a far seeing today. I think it's only fair to mention that AT&T's motives here weren't entirely selfless: the value of much of their research was really only realized by the public as a result of a 1956 consent decree. Before that, it was largely locked behind patents; the consent decree forced them to license their research without royalties (and forbade them from competing in non-telecommuncations domains).