While we're talking telephones, I recently re-read the 1982 "Modification of Final Judgement" that broke up the Bell System into separate local and long distance companies, changing the landscape of US telecom forever.
Aside from the huge impact of case itself, the opinion is a fascinating history, especially for the significant role Bell Labs played in shaping Judge Greene's rulings.
Long, but richly repays a careful reading. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/552/131/1525975/
With good timing, I've managed to work for four different research labs that trace their roots to the Bell System:
- Bell Telephone Laboratories (got in just before the divestiture, as a summer student in college)
- Bellcore (the part of BTL that went to the RBOCs), as a summer student in grad school)
- AT&T Bell Labs (the part of BTL that went to AT&T), my first job after finishing grad school
- AT&T Labs (after AT&T broke itself up into "AT&T" for services and "Lucent" for manufacturing).
@mattblaze Cool. Nice list; I've been at Ericsson for decades. Bellcore/Telcordia standards has been big in my job. And Bells of course important as customers. And more.
