The Future of Telecommunication Research in the United States

Notes

Text of an address dated November 17, 2006, by A. Michael Noll, Professor Emeritus of Communication, Annenberg School at USC, and Senior Affiliated Research Fellow, CITI; posted by the author on his own site. Six numbered pages ending in a bibliography of his own papers on telecommunication research. No journal, proceedings or publisher imprint appears on the document, and it opens by thanking the audience for the opportunity to address them.. Self-archived by the author at http://noll.uscannenberg.org/PDFpapers/Telecom%20Research%202006.pdf — Noll posts his own papers on his site at noll.uscannenberg.org, which is where this copy comes from. Hosting here is with his agreement, given to Bre Pettis directly on 6 October 2026. The text of a talk responding to the National Research Council report Renewing US Telecommunications Research, edited by Robert Lucky and Jon Eisenberg. Noll accepts the report's diagnosis — that research in American telecommunications is in crisis — and rejects its remedy. He had spent several years working through the papers of William O. Baker, vice president for research at Bell Laboratories from 1955 to 1973, and the talk is built around Baker quotations, including his definition of basic research: “what you're doing when you don't know what you're doing.” He first enlarges the NRC's list of Bell Labs results, adding radio astronomy from Karl Jansky, linear predictive coding of speech from Bishnu Atal and Manfred Schroeder, the electret microphone from Gerhard Sessler and Jim West, and negative feedback from Harry Black. Information theory, pulse code modulation, UNIX and digital art and music are offered as the foundations of the digital era. His diagnosis is structural. The industries that once funded long-term work — AT&T in telecommunication, IBM in computing, RCA in television, GE in electricity, Kodak in photography — were effectively monopolies with the wealth and leadership to invest for the long term; fragmentation in the name of competition made research the victim, and the surviving local telephone companies no longer fund at past levels. On the NRC's recommended Advanced Telecommunications Research Activity he is dismissive: too bureaucratic, vague about where it would sit in government, and liable to produce pork barrels and the politicisation of science. He is equally sceptical of the call for more academic research, holding universities too far from industrial realities, and notes that the United States tends to move only in a crisis — the war, Sputnik — while telecommunications presents none. Points of record: Written as a response to the National Research Council report "Renewing US Telecommunications Research", edited by Robert Lucky and Jon Eisenberg; Adds to the NRC's list of Bell Labs results: radio astronomy (Jansky), linear predictive coding (Atal and Schroeder), the electret microphone (Sessler and West), negative feedback (Black); Quotes Baker's 1967 definition of basic research as "what you're doing when you don't know what you're doing."; Argues the monopolies — AT&T, IBM, RCA, GE, Kodak — had the wealth and leadership for long-term research, and that fragmentation in the name of competition made research the victim; Rejects the NRC's proposed Advanced Telecommunications Research Activity as too bureaucratic and liable to politicise science; Notes the United States historically moves on research only in a crisis (the Second World War, Sputnik), and telecommunications presents no visible crisis. People named: A. Michael Noll (author; Professor Emeritus of Communication, Annenberg School at USC; Senior Affiliated Research Fellow, CITI), William O. Baker (vice president for research at Bell Laboratories 1955–1973 per this document; science advisor to presidents from Eisenhower through Reagan; quoted throughout; died the year before), Robert Lucky (co-editor of the NRC report), Jon Eisenberg (co-editor of the NRC report), Karl Jansky (credited with discovering radio astronomy), Bishnu Atal and Manfred Schroeder (credited with linear predictive coding of speech), Gerhard Sessler and Jim West (credited with the electret microphone), Harry Black (credited with negative feedback). Noted: The supplied citation gives the title as "The Future of Telecommunication Research" and only the year; the document's own title is "The Future of Telecommunication Research in the United States" and it is dated November 17, 2006. No venue is named in the document; it is clearly a speech text ("Thank you for the opportunity to address this assembly") but the assembly is not identified. The acronym given for the NRC proposal is "ARTA" while the expansion printed is "Advanced Telecommunications Research Activity"; the letters do not correspond. This document gives Baker's tenure as 1955 to 1973; the companion Nature Materials commentary in this batch gives 1955 to 1979. The bibliography dates Noll's Prometheus article to June 2002 while the Nature Materials commentary cites it as 2003.