Communication technology

“ Information technology based chiefly on advances micro-electronics and computer science is of particular importance. Coupled with rapidly advancing means of communication, it can help improve the productivity, energy and resource efficiency, and organizational structure of industry. ”

“ Computer, communication and information technologies Development of computers as well as of telecommunications and information systems; technology associated with computers and telecommunications, including their use for management systems, for production processes, for automation, for the study of economic problems, in scientific research and for the collection, processing and dissemination of information ”

“ These projects, dreams a decade ago, bridge areas of technical specialty in which this nation is unexcelled. The United States has the most advanced communication system in the world, with a vast scientific and technological base supporting the communications industry. ”

“ Advanced telecommunications capability.—The term ``advanced telecommunications capability'' is defined, without regard to any transmission media or technology, as high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology. ”

“ Traditionally, transmission capacity has been offered for discrete services, such as telephone service. With the incorporation of digital technology into the telephone network and the inclusion of computer processing capabilities into both terminal equipment located in the customer's premises and the equipment making up a firm's "network," this is no longer the case. Telecommunications service is no longer just "plain old telephone service" to the user. A subscriber may use telephone service to transmit voice or data. ”

“ We proposed to address the structure under which competitive computer processing services are provided. In so doing we recognized that the confluence of communications and data processing renders unlimited the possible combinations and permutations of services which can be offered to the consumer. Moreover, we noted that the nature of these services are determined not by the transmission facilities but, rather, by the specific processing applications offered through electronic equipment attached to the channel of communication. ”

“ As we stated in the Tentative Decision:
[this] structure flows from a recognition that computer processing technology has substantial benefits for communications users and the desire to minimize regulatory obstacles to the full development of its market applications, and not solely from a concerted effort to force competition per se into the telecommunications market; It so happens that the potential for a competitive environment to evolve is very real, and such a possibility should be viewed as a positive contribution. ”

“ We believe that our adoption of a differentiation between basic and enhanced services best furthers the public interest because it comports with the actual development of this dynamic industry. As the market applications of computer technology increase, communications capacity has become the necessary link allowing the technology to function more efficiently and more productively. Transmission networks have benefitted from some of the productive breakthroughs which this relatively new field has made possible. ”

“ We are faced with the reality that technology and consumer demand have combined to so overrun the definitions and regulatory scheme of the First Computer Inquiry that today no comparable, minimally enduring line of demarcation can be drawn. In enhanced services, communications and data processing technologies have become intertwined so thoroughly as to produce a form different from any explicitly recognized in the Communications Act. ”

“ The telephone has achieved a rare and exalted state for a technological artifact: it has become a HOUSEHOLD OBJECT. The telephone, like the clock, like pen and paper, like kitchen utensils and running water, has become a technology that is visible only by its absence. The telephone is technologically transparent. The global telephone system is the largest and most complex machine in the world, yet it is easy to use. ”

“ You can also use a computer as an up-to-date source for communication, linking you to banks of information that are available almost instantaneously from public and private online information sources. With the computer hooked up to the telephone, you can get information quickly, receive it visually, and record it in detail if you wish. ”

“ We live in an age of communication, yet the various media we use to talk to one another remain largely separate systems. One day, however, your telephone, TV, fax machine and personal computer will be replaced by a single ``information processor'' linked to the worldwide Net by strands of optical fiber. Beyond databases and file libraries, power will be at your fingertips. Linked to thousands, even millions of like-minded people, you'll be able to participate in social and political movements across the country and around the world. ”

“ Engineers using computers to solve complex problems in aircraft design.
The science of communication is advancing along with that of computers, and can help make the dream of a worldwide “brain” come true. Computers in distant cities are now linked by telephone lines or radio, and high-speed techniques permit the transmission of many thousands of words per second across these “data links.” An interesting sidelight is the fact that an ailing computer can be hooked by telephone line with a repair center many miles away and its ailments diagnosed by remote control. ”

“ The supply of communications products and services will be limited only by the ingenuity of businessmen and scientists. Government will no longer be a barrier that prevents or delays the introduction of innovations in technology.
We have all read a great deal about the marvelous inventions that the convergence of computer and communications technology will make possible. Consumers and businessmen will have highly intelligent communications products and services in their homes and offices that will increase productivity, save energy and improve the quality of life. ”

“ If I select "k" from a menu provided by my communications program's command scripts, then my system will retrieve today's business news from Tokyo and put them up on my screen. In the process, my system tells the modem to do several things, including "call a number," "speed 2400 bps," "redial if busy," "go on-hook when done." The only thing that I have to do, is press "k". The communications program and the modem will do the rest. Automatic communication is impossible without an intelligent modem. ”

“ We began this proceeding in 1976 by recognizing that the boundary between data processing and communications that had been drawn five years earlier in our First Computer Inquiry was already obsolete. In our Tentative Decision last year we supported a distinction of a similar kind between simple customer premises telephone equipment that could continue to be regulated as a part of "basic service" and the more sophisticated equipment that embodies advanced technology and allows customers to do more than just engage in conversation. ”

“ In the case of the wireless telegraph the number of messages which may be sent simultaneously is much restricted. In the case of the wireless telephone, owing to the thousands of separate wave-lengths required for the transmission of speech, the number of telephone conversations which may be carried on at the same time is still further restricted and is so small that all who can employ wires will find it necessary to do so, leaving the ether available for those who have no other means of communication. ”

“ It was after the turn of the century that telegraph engineers began in earnest to think about a system of telegraphy that would permit direct intercommunication by the printed word, and direct circuit connection to any outlying subscriber as in the telephone communication system. ”

“ By doing this it will inculcate a desire among boys to learn the wireless code and transmit wireless telegraphy messages themselves, and in doing so will tend to develop that nucleus of communication experts in the coming generation, which is always an imperative necessity to every nation. ”

“ Everyone from Bellcore to the cable TV companies to AT&T wants to put in these things called 'personal communication systems.' So you could have local competition—you could have multiplicity of people, a bunch of neighborhoods, sticking stuff up on poles. And a bunch of other people laying in dark fiber. ”

“ With this new technology, users now find it cost-beneficial to remove some of the computing power from a centralized computer location. The phenomenon of distributed processing allows computers and terminals to perform both data processing and communications control applications within the network and at the customer's premises. ”

“ I don’t know much about the technical end as you know, but I can see that the man who invents a method of communicating by wireless secretly, or so others can’t hear him, will make his fortune and revolutionize the science. ”

“ We were working on a closed means of radio communication—a method of wireless connection that would not only prevent the enemy from decoding or unscrambling, but which would be impossible to detect unless you were set up properly. ”

“ The discussion of current practice is balanced by an analysis of key trends in the scholarly use of information technology. These include the trends toward end-user computing and connectivity, which provide a framework for forecasting the use of electronic texts through this millennium. The presentation concludes with a summary of the ways in which the nonscientific scholarly community can be expected to use electronic texts, and the implications of that use for information providers. ”

“ As a result, the computer industry and the communications industry are becoming more and more interwoven. We believe, and the record shows, that this trend will become even more pronounced in the future. As it does, an increasing number of enhanced services will be developed to meet the need of the marketplace. ”

“ Providers of enhanced services are afforded tremendous flexibility because there is no restriction on the types of services they may provide, except those imposed by the demands of their customers. The boundary between basic and enhanced services raises no such barrier since we believe we have identified a common necessary element in our definition of basic services. The trend in technology is toward new and innovative enhancements that build upon basic services. For computer vendors and entrepreneurs the momentum is away from basic communications services, rather than toward it. ”

“ One can scarce overestimate the value of modern methods of communication to the world. So much of our development has been more or less directly dependent upon it that it is difficult to fancy our situation without the telegraph and telephone. The diligence with which the ancients sought speedy methods for the sending of messages demonstrates the human need for them. ”

“ They assist in the improvement of economies and of living conditions in all countries. Communications, organizational functioning and scientific and industrial progress have developed so rapidly with computer technology that our form of living has changed irreversibly. ”

“ The scientists are enthusiastic. They talk of robustness and dumb networks with smart terminals. They talk of TCP/IP and HTML and decentralized systems that run on open protocols, so that anyone can connect to this network and use it any way they want to. You, of course, know nothing about the truly astounding outburst of creativity and communication that would actually flower on such a system, that would flower precisely because it is so open and no one country or company controls it or the protocols that run it. ”

“ I go to the businesses and I say: “When are you planning to allow on the network, in your business, machines that have software in it you can’t read, can’t control, can’t modify and which phones home to people on the network in ways you can’t read?” ”

“ Of course he should, as far as handling the apparatus is concerned. But he must grasp the basic principles, so that he’ll understand the kind of thing modern apparatus will do for him.
“Both in regard to secret service and to coördination in general, we must get together with the British communication experts and come to an understanding about codes and apparatus. Science has given us such a wealth of new methods in radio engineering that much depends on a clear understanding of what your apparatus will do. ”

“ Telephone system:
general assessment: the "Telecommunications Liberalization Plan of 1998" opened the telecommunications market to competition and foreign investment encouraging the growth of modern telecommunications technology; fiber-optic cable trunk lines are being installed between all major cities; major networks are entirely digital and the availability of telephone service is improving
domestic: microwave radio relay, fiber-optic cable, and a domestic satellite system with 40 earth stations serve the trunk network ”

“ When in the middle of the nineteenth century the human race had achieved a degree of development that made swift communication essential to the common life, the telegraph and the ocean cable were invented; or it might rather be said, the laws that make them possible were discerned, and were taken advantage of to utilize for this purpose. The constant developments in rapid transit, in the instantaneous conveniences of telephonic communication, and, latest of all, in wireless telegraphy, are all in the line of absolute correspondence with the advancing needs of humanity. ”