[dredmorbius]

A fascinating bit of innovative, entrepreneureal, hacking, technological, telephonic, monopolistic, and criminal history.

Independent inventor convicted and gaoled by AT&T for "misdemeanor attachment", the crime of attaching non-AT&T equipment to AT&T's phone network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_L._Shaw

More on this in the first bit of "The Inventor and the Thief" on Snap Judgement:

https://snapjudgment.org/episode/the-inventor-and-the-thief-...

Directly-connected modems were an obvious threat to AT&T as this would enable high-bandwidth packet-based distribution over AT&T's network, including ultimately what we know as VOIP. AT&T fought packet-switched networks from the start:

Paul Baran: The one hurdle packet switching faced was AT&T. They fought it tooth and nail at the beginning. They tried all sorts of things to stop it. They pretty much had a monopoly in all communications. And somebody from outside saying that there’s a better way to do it of course doesn’t make sense.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/07/internet200807