In reading old literature, I'm amazed at the enormous scope of research conducted by the pre-divesture Bell Laboratories. Anything and everything even remotely related to telecommunications was carefully studied by them. Because their work had benefit for the entire nationwide Bell System, the economies of scale of cost saving were great and cost-justified the lab.
With the Bell System broken and today's Bell Labs and other units (Bellcore) far, far smaller than the past, I was wondering who, if anyone, does that kind of research today?
Examples of Bell Labs research:
--medical -- instant blood test machines for workers in hazardous environments, such as lead smelters
--materials, plastic -- better insulation (less crosstalk/capacitance, easier wire threading, longer lasting, cheaper); toxicity tests of plastics, telephone set body shells, protective gear
--materials, metal -- contact points in switchgear, conductors, fuses, motor and relay windings, refining, scrap reuse, corrosion resistance, strength, cable strength
--traffic--toll, local, busy hour, peak, monitoring, recovery, planning
--switching--cheaper and higher capacity switches, lower maintenance. Components, such as circuit boards, ICs, frames.
--telephone sets: more efficient in terms of power consumption, reception, and transmission; more durable, cheaper to build; human engineer studies for ease of use and accuracy.
--computers--switching assistance for routing, AMA recording; maintaining cable records; billing records; repair records; traffic analysis, maintenance analysis
--transmission--cheaper and higher capacity media; wireless transmission and wireless sets.
Obviously external developments has changed what they do, but then there are new challenges.