Evolution of Technology

Abstract

In the recent past we have seen some of the most dramatic structural and regulatory changes in the U.S. telecommunications industry--more than in its entire history. The last few years have been a period that has also seen significant judicial action and the establishment of ground rules which will set the future development of the industry. Both the courts--via the AT&T divestiture-- and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have been extremely busy in terms of the number and the significance of decisions made. These changes are addressed in terms of how the industry is being restructured and what changes can be anticipated (Journal of the American Society for Information Science; Nov1986, Vol. 37 Issue 6, p409-413, 5p).

In this paper I will discuss some of the major milestones of the telecommunications industry. AT&T was a monopoly in the telecommunication industry in the early 1900's.

Telecommunications

The history of telecommunications is a story of networks. Alexander Graham Bell on his honeymoon wrote of a "grand system" that would provide "direct communication between any two places in [a] city" and, by connecting cities, provide a true network throughout the country and eventually the world (Winston, Media Technology, p. 244). The term was adopted in 1932 by the Convention Internationale des Telecommunications held in Madrid (OED). At this point, the telegraph, the telephone, and the radio were the only widely used telecommunications media. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) was created in 1919, three years before Britain's British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). By 1950, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) provided the best telephone service in the world. American television led the way after World War II (1939-1945). Then, in the early 1980s, a new device was introduced: the personal computer. Although not intended as a tool for telecommunications, the personal computer became in the 1990s the most powerful means of two-way individual electronic communication.

The Telegraph

The first practical means of electronic communication was the TELEGRAPH. The science on which it is based was over a century old when the sudden development of the railway system in the 1830s, first in England, then in America, made it necessary to communicate the movement of trains rapidly.

The Telephone Ane The Fax

Bell's TELEPHONE, invented in 1876, and brought telecommunication into the home, although the telephone remained primarily a business tool until after World War II, when telephones become common in American homes.

Radio and Television

RADIO and TELEVISION are quite different from the telegraph and telephone: they communicate in one