AT&T's forgotten plot to hijack the US airwaves

Right now the Federal Communications Commission is proposing a massive transfer of broadcast spectrum to the wireless industry, whose principals, AT&T included, are providing all of the services offered by television and radio broadcasters -- with voice and Internet too. This is all new to us because we take for granted the old over-the-air broadcast licensing system that we've lived with for almost a century. But nothing was old at the dawn of broadcast radio in the early 1920s. Let's go back to those days and explore an alternate history that never happened -- until now.