History of the Telephone and Communication Network - Term Paper Example

History and Political Science 11 April A Brief History of the Telephone and Communication Network highlighting Major Events and Technologies from 1845 to the Present including the Major Impacts of Regulation The earliest form of electrical communication introducing the Information Age was the telegraph which was invented in 1837 by Samuel F.B. Morse. It was followed by invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas A. Watson in 1876. The original telegraph by Morse had no key and sounder. Rather, the device was designed to print patterns at a distance. The patterns consisted of familiar dots and dashes that indicated short and long beeps of the Morse code respectively. Morse developed a key and sounder in 1844 for his first commercial telegraph, the code used by the transmitter and receiver was still the Morse code but in this case a telegrapher closed a switch or telegraph key in a particular pattern of short and long closures that represented a letter of the alphabet at the transmitting end. A person’s distance of communication increased into thousands of miles, the time taken to deliver a message reduced to seconds and the amount of information was maintained in the limit of five to a hundred words per minute with the entrance of the electric telegraph and laying of the transoceanic cable in 1858. The first telephone was the magneto-telephone on which both transmission and reception were done using the same instrument. A speaker’s voice was converted into patterns of electrical energy that were sent over fairly long distances through wires to a receiver. The receiver would convert the energy patterns back to the original sound waves that the listener could understand. This system was more efficient and advanced than the telegraph since apart from providing long distance communication capabilities, speaking and hearing could be done directly making its use suitable for everyone. Its information transfer rate was only limited by the human speech rate. Today telecommunication uses the telephony technologies related with the electronic transmission of fax, voice and other information over long distances using systems that were initially associated with the telephone. The radio was invented in 1901 by Guglielmo Marconi. This was after Heinrich Hertz discovered the electromagnetic wave in 1888. Marconi had begun experimenting with wireless telegraphy in 1895. In 1906, the radio was built in the United States of America as the first commercial voice transmitting device that utilized electromagnetic waves. The invention of the radio opened up new opportunities for wireless communications. A wartime ban on nonmilitary broadcasting delayed acceptance of the radio until in 1920 when the first regular commercial broadcast begun. Hundreds of amateur radio stations later emerged, wireless communication was stimulated by the Second World War, and this led to extensive development of mobile, cellular, satellite, consumer radios and television systems. In early 1939, John Vincent Atanasoff invented the first electronic computer. He was an American mathematician and physicist. In 1941, a message recorded in telegraph code on punched paper tape was converted to a code used to represent the message data on punched cards read by a computer and this was the hallmark of the relationship between computers and communications (Gokhale 6).Between 1939 and 1944, Howard Aiken developed the first large-scale automatic digital computer called Mark 1 and this marked the beginning of the modern computer era. The invention of the transistor in 1948 at the Bell Telephone Labs was a significant development in the history of electronics. In 1961, the integrated circuit was invented by Fairchild and Texas Instruments; this made it possible to make smaller devices like microprocessors and amplifiers that had minimal power requirements. In the early 1970s, the desktop personal computer made its first public appearance in the market which was after the development of the microprocessor in 1971 by Intel. Since the introduction of the internet in 1982, there has been tremendous growth in the use of computers. Key developments include the development of numbers, introduction of automated calculation and the evolution of electronics that have revolutionized the way people live making tasks that were previously complex easier to achieve. Many people have been involved in the development of the computer to what it can do today. Research on other applications of computers is ongoing and it is believed that future computers will make life even easier. One aspect is the fact that they can be used to replace humans in areas like the industries making production greater and more efficient. The American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) Company dominated the telecommunications market since its incorporation in 1885. The company went through tremendous growth and dominance in the 1950s and 1960s and as a result it faced frequent antitrust actions from the Department of Justice. Before the Communications Act of 1934 was passed, the telephone industry was regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission which had previously been responsible for regulation of railroads and later given the responsibility of regulating telephone services and prices. A major shortcoming of the Interstate Commerce Commission authority’s is the fact that it could order railroads to interconnect lines but not telephone companies, it thus operated by passing regulations based on complaints from the telecommunications industry. The commission’s lack of authority to introduce extensive policy making procedures consequently made it hopeless to establish a comprehensive national telecommunications policy. The Bell system continued taking over more independent telephone companies which raised concern by the Federal antitrust authorities. This led to the introduction of the Kingsbury Commitment of 1913. Under the Commitment, Bell systems agreed to cease obtaining competing companies, not fight the imposition of economic control and dispossess Western Union which it had acquired in 1908. Furthermore, the Kingsbury Commitment provided for Bell systems to incorporate its system with remaining independent companies. By acknowledging these actions, the Bell system was not required to dispossess previous acquisitions of native telephone companies or its dominance in long distance communications. This is because the incorporated systems were now to be held under economic regulation and not competition. The Kingsbury Commitment was immediately abandoned as the United states Department of Justice considered more acquisitions by Bell systems approving nearly them all during the period that the Commitment was in effect. Ideas from the Kingsbury Commitment formed the ground for the United States policy of economic regulation in telecommunications, the policy lasted for many years till its replacement by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In 1921, the Willis-Graham Act was passed by congress, with its enactment telephone industries gained the right to pursue acquisitions and consolidation. The enactment of the bill was supported by both the Bell system and independent telephone companies. Bell systems increased its acquisitions beyond territories with an aim of eliminating competing companies. The previous competitive era in the telecommunications industry was brought to a close with the enactment of the Willis-Graham Act and its impact. Competition in the telecommunications sector later emerged in radio broadcasting, the industry quickly resolved to established market segments of voice whose monopoly was Bell systems, record whose monopoly was Western Union and broadcasting which was in many companies. Although competition occurred within each segment, it was little until the 1970s. In February 1934, President Roosevelt proposed the Communications Act of 1934 which was passed by the United States congress in June 1934. This formed the Federal Communications Commission which took over responsibilities of regulating telecommunications from the Interstate Commerce Commission. Contrary to the Interstate Commerce commission, the Federal Communications Commission was given nearly comprehensive authority over all interstate activities in the telecommunications industry. The commission was mandated to provide oversight in control of interstate communications while several states were given the authority of controlling intrastate communications. The second title of the act allows the Federal Communications commission to regulate common carriers in telephone systems as well as their rates and services and also provide non-discriminatory access to telephone communication. The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 was one of the most significant segments of legislation during the reign of President’s Franklin Roosevelt New Deal. The act allowed the federal government to make cheap loans to non-profit cooperatives formed by farmers who had come together with the aim of bringing electricity to rural America. The act was passed by the United States congress in May 20, 1936 fulfilling the Rural Electrification Administration promise of funding rural electricity in long-tem. Rural America had suffered from lack of attention by privately owned utility companies that saw no need of providing power to rural areas. The companies argued that this was not profitable on their part. In October 1949, the United States congress made further amendments to the act allowing further modernization of rural America. The Rural Electrification Administration was authorized to make loans for provision and improvement of telephone services in rural America. In 1949, the United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against AT&T and Western Electric which was its manufacturing subsidiary. The Department claimed that the companies had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act; the companies faced accusations of confining trade to the manufacture, distribution and sale of telephone equipment. The United States Department of Justice wanted AT&T to dispossess from Western Electric and for Western Electric to dispossess fifty percent of stock ownership in Bell Research Laboratories. The laboratories were part of AT&T research and development branch. The suit took seven years before it was settled. In 1956, a final judgment to the 1949 law suit was passed. The consent decree of 1956 allowed AT&T to remain together but wanted the company to contain its business to traditional voice communication services. As stated in the decree, AT&T was prevented from using its own technology and research for purposes of getting into other lines of business and was directed to license its charter to all foreign and local applicants on payment of average royalty fees. By licensing its patents to all potential applicants, the Bell system would indirectly cultivate competition against itself. AT&T under its senior management had failed to venture into new technology for development even within Bell Research Labs which it owned. The 1956 consent decree did not deny other companies from entering AT&T market of local and long distance telephone despite denying AT&T access into new communication lines. In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission passed a ruling according telephone company customers rights to connect their personal equipment to the public telephone network provided that the equipment would not cause harm to the network. This was known as the Carterphone Decision. The carterphone was a two-way radio transceiver that had an acoustic coupler for standard telephone handsets. The Federal Communications Commission passed the Carterphone Decision after Bell systems attempted to reject the use of the carterphone. The decision authorizes connection of devices like modems to the telephone network. Microwave Communications Inc. was a trucking company whose operators used microwave radio to communicate with one another. The company appealed to be accorded rights to provide private telephony. In 1969, the company was authorized to operate between Chicago and St. Louis through a microwave network. This was called the MCI ruling of 1969, the ruling opened up competition in long distance telephony market. The 1956 Consent Decree was in effect until in 1984 when the Bell system broke up as a result of the Modified Final Judgment. The company was divided into sectors providing local and long-distance telephony. The action got its name from the fact that it modified the 1956 Consent Decree. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first major reform to the 1936 telecommunications legislation that had established the Federal Communications Commission. The Act deregulated local telephone markets like the combined bell system which was the monopoly Local Exchange Carrier as well as long distance carrier. This was with the aim of deregulating the telecommunications market and making the industry competitive by increasing competition among service providers. Works Cited Gokhale, Anu. Introduction to Telecommunications. New York: Thomson Delmar Learning, 2004. Print. Campbell, Dennis. International Telecommunications Law [2008] Volume IV. Salzburg: York Hill Law Publishing, 2008. Print. Temin, Peter, and Louis Galambos. The fall of the Bell System: A Study in Prices and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Print. Gershon, Richard. Telecommunications and Business Strategy. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print. Black, Sharon. Telecommunications Law in the Internet Age. California: Academic Press. Print. Read More