"ARPA approached AT&T in the early 1970's to see if AT&T would be
interested in taking over part of the ARPANET and offering a public
packet switched service, but AT&T declined."
- L. G. Roberts, "The Evolution of Packet Switching,"
IEEE Proceedings, Nov. 1978, 66:11, pp. 1307-1313.
[p. 1310, middle of column 1]