Telecommunications

“ 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. ”

“ Telecommunications industry.—The term `telecommunications industry' means communications businesses using regulated or unregulated facilities or services and includes broadcasting, telecommunications, cable, computer, data transmission, software, programming, advanced messaging, and electronics businesses.''. ”

“ For its universality, its versatility and its economy, our telecommunications network is unmatched by any in the world. I believe it would ill-serve the public interest if AT&T, GT&E or any other participant in the network were denied the opportunity and the challenge of bringing their financial resources, their tradition of universal service and importantly their in-place research capabilities to the rich new compunications field. ”

“ Government itself, however, has been more active than at any other time in the past in developing telecommunications. Some of our more important projects are:
1. The Nationwide Telecommunications Expansion and Improvement Program, which is now more than 60 per cent complete. ”

“ The term ``telecommunications support services ́ ́ means a product, software, or service used by a telecommunications carrier for the internal signaling or switching functions of its telecommunications network. (8) The term ``telecommunications carrier ́ ́— (A) means a person or entity engaged in the transmission or switching of wire or electronic communications as a common carrier for hire; and (B) includes— (i) a person or entity engaged in providing commercial mobile service (as defined in section 332 (d) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 332 (d) ) ) ”

“ The telecoms operators feed into politics in a more reliable—year in, year out, week in, year out—way than any other bunch of people except pharmaceuticals in the world, and then the politics of the west, not just this place, but all the developed societies, the operators of telecommunications have generations of accrued gains to spend keeping themselves in incumbency. ”

“ When PBX and voice switching and all the pieces of intellect necessary to run a telephone system can be run on commodity white box hardware at no cost, and bandwidth can be bought in bulk by buyers with deep enough pockets to buy as much backbone time as they want, the telecommunications operators of the world are in a terrible jam. ”

“ Each Party shall ensure that an enterprise of any Party may use public telecommunications services for the movement of information in its territory or across its borders, including for intra-corporate communications, and for access to information contained in databases or otherwise stored in machine-readable form in the territory of any Party. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the industrialized nations, a technological revolution is taking place—a revolution marked by rapid, dramatic advances in computers and telecommunications. ”

“ Airfields: 2 total, 2 usable; 2 with permanent-surface runways; 1 with runways 2,440-3,659 m, 1 with runways 1,220-2,439 m
Telecommunications: minimal domestic and international telecommunication facilities; 550 telephones (0.4 per 100 popl.) ; 2 AM stations, 1 TV station ”

“ Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.
There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct. ”

“ The Marconi station at Glacé Bay, Cape Breton, is now receiving messages for cableless transmission to England at the rate of ten cents a word—newspaper matter at five cents a word. Transatlantic wireless telegraphy is an everyday occurrence, and the common practical uses are almost beyond mention. ”

“ To use the language of the money-market, there was a temporary “slump” in cable shares. The world again woke up—this time to the fact that experiments of which it had heard faintly had at last culminated in a great triumph, marvellous in itself, and yet probably [Pg 9] nothing in comparison with the revolution in the transmission of news that it heralded.
The subject of Wireless Telegraphy is so wide that to treat it fully in the compass of a single chapter is impossible. ”

“ Wireless telephony, like wireless telegraphy, but to an even greater extent, is peculiarly suited for the conveyance of marine intelligence. Wireless telephony occupies a unique position in this regard-no operator is required. The additional expense of an operator is an objection to the wireless telegraph in many cases, and forbids its installation. Anybody can operate the wireless telephone. It is also much quicker-words can be spoken more rapidly than they can be put into Morse signals and translated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The history of wireless telegraphy and telephony is a striking example of how it is possible for scientists laboring in the field of pure research and stimulated by accumulated knowledge and imagination to arrive at discoveries of the most vital importance. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy.—To the men who were struggling to unite continents by electrical conductors the idea that connection for the purposes of communication could be established without any conductors whatever would have seemed an idle dream. ”

“ The telephone service has been extended to great distances—for instance, from Boston to Omaha—not by relays, but by strengthening the blows upon the medium between the transmitting circuit and the receiving one, just as we desire to do in what is called wireless telegraphy, the apparatus of which is almost identical in principle to that employed in telephony. ”

“ In such a sense many of the most common modern conveniences of life would have seemed impossible a century ago. To travel with safety sixty miles an hour, to talk through the telephone with a friend an hundred miles away, to receive intelligible messages across the Atlantic by a cable, and, still more, to communicate by wireless telegraphy would have seemed impossible until recently. ”

“ At present wireless telegraphy has not superseded the ordinary methods of communicating over land, but there can be no doubt that wireless telegraphy, if free from Government restrictions, would in certain circumstances very quickly supersede land-line telegraphy, while it has proved a formidable commercial competitor to the cable as a means of connecting this country with America. ”

“ At the close of the century, however, by means of ocean cables and telegraph lines, and telephone instrumentalities—to say nothing of the more wonderful wireless telegraphy now coming into use—we are in instant communication with all the great centers of civilization, and each morning may read the world's daily history gathered by these agencies for our instruction. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy, as it is practiced to-day, is based upon the fact that a system of wires or circuits, through which high frequency oscillations are surging, becomes a source of electromagnetic waves. Various methods have been devised for making the system more efficient and capable of giving better results with a given amount of power. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy already has reached remarkable perfection, but it is still a young science, and we may confidently expect developments which will enable us to send messages with all speed across vast gulfs of distance at present unconquered. ”

“ If you invent a new way of using the phone network—say, a cheaper way of making long-distance calls using voice-over-IP, you can’t roll that out on the phone network without the permission of the carrier. ”

“ This series of articles is based on the Cantor Lectures delivered before the Society of Arts, London, in March, 1903. The lectures were attended by many of the leading British scientific men and electrical engineers, and attracted wide attention as the most complete and authoritative statement hitherto made of wireless telegraphy. ”

“ More and more the thrust is for carriers to provide bandwidth or data rate capacity adequate to accommodate a subscriber's communications needs, regardless of whether subscribers use it for voice, data, video, facsimile, or other forms of transmission. ”

“ There is a very decided field of opportunity for wireless telephony for long-distance work. The present systems of long-distance wires are very expensive to construct and maintain, and are subject to the whims of storms and the elements. ”

“ Railways and steamships had begun this work of binding man to man by "nobler and cunninger methods." The telegraph and cable had gone still farther and put all civilized people within sight of each other, so that they could communicate by a sort of deaf and dumb alphabet. And then came the telephone, giving direct instantaneous communication and putting the people of each nation within hearing distance of each other. ”

“ The possibilities of clear speech-transmission at indefinite distance are without measure. Like the telegraph, the telephone has opened an immense and profitable industry, involving hundreds of millions of dollars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A great corporation, nerved at every point with telephone wires, may now pay fifty thousand dollars to the Bell Company, while at the same time a young Irish immigrant boy, just arrived in New York City, may offer five coppers and find at his disposal a fifty million dollar telephone system. ”

“ Wireless telephones will not only transmit the speech more clearly and distinctly, but have the further advantages that the initial cost is very much lower than that of wire lines, the maintenance is almost nil in comparison, the depreciation is smaller, the number of employees required is less, and a break-down is limited to the inside of the station, where it could be quickly remedied by the substitution of a duplicate spare piece of apparatus. ”

“ In this way, masked as competition, the nuisance and waste of duplication began in most American cities. The telephone business was still so young, it was so little appreciated even by the telephone officials and engineers, that the public regarded a second or a third telephone system in one city as quite a possible and desirable innovation. ”

“ FIG. 153.—The aerial system of a transatlantic station.
The wireless telephone enables a passenger on board ship to communicate direct with his home by relaying the message over the line wires. By the same means the captain of a ship can call his home office and communicate with the owner of the vessel.
Telegraphs and telephones are the nerves of the world, carrying swift messages from its brain centers to its hands, annihilating distance in thought. All differences between men as individuals and people as nations can be traced to the lack of close contact. ”

“ So it’s particularly true, because 20th century technology offered us ubiquitous point‐to‐point wire line interpersonal communication called “the telephone”, and there was a very long period—three generations plus—in which the profits of treating that as a commodity for sale accrued to a few favored players who became enormously powerful. ”

“ For a complicated internal service of inter-communications, the telephone is much superior to speaking tubes, as the switchboard system enables the user to communicate with any department without the need of extra tubes. ”

“ But because a way was found to couple the wireless telephone with the wire telephone, the new wonder has great possibilities as a supplement to our existing system. Before so very long it may be possible for an American business man sitting in his office to call up and converse with a friend on a liner crossing the Atlantic. ”