Tom, AT&T's equity went into a huge bet on circuit switching aginst packet networks. Packet networks are simpler, cheaper and more efficient. They do require more subtle billing, but most telco's don't want to overhaul their billing systems to enable this, as that would involve writing off their exisiting investment. I can dig you out some links if you like.

Clay, you are missing part of the point of Gonzo. A big chunk of time in any business environment is speant in having conversations with people - colleagues, people you are buying or selling to, or just water cooler chats. As originator of the term 'render wander', I appreciate that many jobs often include times when you are waiting on something or someone. Historically this would mean reading the paper, or chatting about last nights game. The net lets you use this downtime to tallk in public, as we are doing here. Enlightened employers encourage this, or at least don't condemn it, as it adds value to the employees insight and hopefully to the companies perception.

I work on QuickTime at Apple as a software engineer. While compiling code, I join in many mailing lists loosely related to video, media and so on. I don't spend all my time selling Apple or QuickTime, but when it is relevant I'll mention them as options. I think this works - someone recently paid me the compliment that if you are looking for information about an aspect of QuickTime, adding "Kevin Marks" to your google query improves your hit quality no end.