Future phone
Article Abstract:
Innovations in information service, education, entertainment and health care will all be in place by the end of the 1990s due to advancements in telecommunications systems and equipment, including fiber optics and multimedia technology. Global communications will be linked by the telephone, but this telephone will take advantage of supercomputers, video and data bases to provide a multitude of services to telephone customers. Competition for market dominance with this technology is likely to be fierce, and already telephone companies and cable television companies are fighting against government regulations that bar them from each other's business. Each sector has made major investments in developing and installing the technology for network transmissions that will be the foundation for future telecommunications. Telephone communications will make its greatest impact when these technological innovations are joined with mobile communications that give people constant access to information, entertainment and each other.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1992
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Bell's baby: Alexander Graham Bell's proudest invention wasn't the telephone
Article Abstract:
Alexander Graham Bell contended that the telephone was not his greatest invention but that the photophone, a device that sent and received voice transmissions by light, anticipating current developments in fiber optics. Bell invented the telephone in 1878, divorced himself from the company that would become AT and T in 1879, and started work in Boston on his photophone. He based his research on experiments with transmitting voice over sunbeams after reading that selenium transforms light energy into electrical current when in contact with sunlight. A selenium-based cell, with a mirror of very thin glass capable of vibration, caught sunlight through a window. When the mirror was spoken at, an electrical signal went through the telephone. Transmission quality and distance limited the photophone's efficacy, but Bell believed in the importance of this work.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1992
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Wireless world
Article Abstract:
The global telecommunications industry moves to put a wireless telephone in everyone's pocket. Industry observers see a profound change in the telecommunications infrastructure emerging, one that connects a telephone call to a person instead of connecting a telephone call to a place. Companies that are forging ahead with plans capture part of this future market note the success of cellular telephone systems in the US market and the huge, untapped global possibilities. Large capital investments by the industry along with an already crowded radio spectrum are some of the obstacles that stand in the way. Incompatible global standards also inhibit the large seamless networks that planners envision.
Publication Name: The Wall Street Journal Western Edition
Subject: Business, general
ISSN: 0193-2241
Year: 1990
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