They put a different meter on it and it was prohibitively expensive.

ATT was early on a lot of technology such as working with MagicCap and Go. They had their own Hobbit processor.

It was pretty cool tech until you saw the pricetag. Then you laughed, and laughed, tears rolled down your face ... $2,000 devices in 1995 money with $200/month usage bills being common (modern money is about double so think $4,000 tablet)

Even if you got a couple price insensitive buyers, the technology is only useful if there's a network effect and that's where it broke down.

You weren't emailing their phone, it was an inbox they'd see next time they dialup to logon to the internet. It wasn't some obvious gain and faxing documents was a more reliable way to get to someone because you're changing their environment with a fax