Communications: Highlights include the AT&T divestiture, a new long-distance record in fiber-optic communications, local-area networks, and cellular radio

The boundary lines between telephone and data communications blurred further last year, mainly because of the breakup of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. in the United States, which became effective Jan. 1, 1984. With AT&T's divestiture of its regional companies offering local telephone service, AT&T became legally free to diversify into areas of technology that had previously been ruled off-limits. Exercising that new freedom right away, the company in the summer announced its first personal computer, the AT&T 6300 [see "Personal computers," page 45].