Disaffected by the bureaucracy of the Bell Communications Research laboratory and the fact that it has to share all developments with the six other regional phone companies spun off from AT&T in 1984, US West Inc has decided to supplement its $100m a year contribution to Bellcore with its own 3,000-employee research and development operation, in which it will invest $150m a year. The Englewood, Colorado company is stomping through the 14 mountain and desert states that it serves to find the ideal site for the centre, which will have 1,500 advanced technology employees: the site chosen must also be suitable for adding a manufacturing plant in case US West is permitted to enter manufacture on its own account, and also a computer centre. The other 1,500 employees of the new unit will be marketing people scattered through the operating units of the phone company. The site is to be picked in time for groundbreaking in the autumn, and US West wants the centre completed by early 1990.
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