Telecommunications
In 1849, Paul Julius Reuter launched a pigeon service to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels. This operation ran for one year until the gap in the telegraph link was closed. Homing pigeons had been used throughout history by different cultures to carry messages over long distances. Frontinus claimed Julius Caesar used pigeons as messengers during his conquest of Gaul. The Greeks also conveyed the names of victors at the Olympic Games using these birds.
Chains of beacons were commonly used on hilltops during the Middle Ages to relay signals. One notable instance occurred during the Spanish Armada when a beacon chain relayed a signal from Plymouth to London. These chains could only pass a single bit of information like "the enemy has been sighted" which required prior agreement on meaning. Claude Chappe built the first fixed visual telegraphy system between Lille and Paris in 1792. Semaphore towers cost ten to thirty kilometres apart and required skilled operators. The last commercial line was abandoned in 1880 due to competition from electrical telegraphs.
On the 25th of July 1837, English inventor Sir William Fothergill Cooke demonstrated the first commercial electrical telegraph alongside scientist Sir Charles Wheatstone. Samuel Morse independently developed a version that he unsuccessfully demonstrated on the 2nd of September 1837. His code proved an important advance over Wheatstone's signaling method. The first transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed on the 27th of July 1866 allowing transatlantic telecommunication for the first time.
A patent for the conventional telephone was filed by Alexander Bell in February 1876 just hours before Elisha Gray filed a similar caveat. Early attempts included Antonio Meucci developing a talking telegraph and Johann Philipp Reis creating a telefon. The first commercial telephone services were set up by the Bell Telephone Company in 1878 and 1879. These services appeared on both sides of the Atlantic in New Haven and London. Long-distance technologies invented during the 19th century generally use electric power including the electrical telegraph and telephone.
In 1894 Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi began developing wireless communication using radio waves. By 1901 he demonstrated they could be transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean. On the 17th of December 1902 a transmission from the Marconi station in Glace Bay became the world's first radio message to cross the Atlantic from North America. In 1904 a commercial service was established to transmit nightly news summaries to subscribing ships.
World War I accelerated the development of radio for military communications. Commercial radio AM broadcasting began in the 1920s becoming an important mass medium for entertainment and news. Development of stereo FM broadcasting began in the 1930s in the United States and the 1940s in the United Kingdom. Displacing AM as the dominant commercial standard occurred in the 1970s. Marconi won the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics for his breakthroughs in radio communications.
The simplest vacuum tube called the diode was invented in 1904 by John Ambrose Fleming. It contained only a heated electron-emitting cathode and an anode allowing electrons to flow in one direction. These devices became key components of electronic circuits for the first half of the 20th century. They were crucial to the development of radio television radar sound recording and long-distance telephone networks.
For most of the 20th century televisions depended on the cathode ray tube invented by Karl Ferdinand Braun. The first version showing promise was produced by Philo Farnsworth and demonstrated to his family on the 7th of September 1927. Starting in the mid-1960s vacuum tubes were replaced with transistors. Semiconductor devices made it possible to produce solid-state devices that are smaller cheaper and more efficient than vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes still have some applications for certain high-frequency amplifiers today.
On the 11th of September 1940 George Stibitz transmitted problems for his Complex Number Calculator from New York using a teletype. He received computed results back at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. In the 1960s Paul Baran and Donald Davies started investigating packet switching technology independently. A four-node network emerged on the 5th of December 1969 constituting the beginnings of ARPANET. By 1981 this network had grown to 213 nodes before merging into the Internet.
The effective capacity to exchange information worldwide grew from 281 petabytes in 1986 to 471 petabytes in 1993. It reached 2.2 exabytes in 2000 and 65 exabytes by 2007. This growth represents two newspaper pages per person per day in 1986 rising to six entire newspapers per person daily by 2007. Local area networks like Ethernet developed in 1983 while Token Ring appeared in 1984. The Internet Engineering Task Force published Request for Comments documents guiding development.
In 2008 estimates placed the telecommunication industry's revenue at US$4.7 trillion representing just under three percent of global product. Sales of mobile phones in 2005 totaled 816.6 million units shared among Asia Pacific Western Europe CEMEA North America and Latin America markets. Africa outpaced other markets with 58.2% growth over five years from 1999. A 2003 survey revealed roughly a third of countries have fewer than one mobile subscription for every 20 people.
One-third of countries also had fewer than one land-line telephone subscription for every 20 people. Half of all countries had fewer than one out of 20 people with Internet access. Sweden Denmark and Iceland received the highest ranking on an index measuring ability to access information technologies. African countries Niger Burkina Faso and Mali received the lowest rankings. In Bangladesh's Narsingdi District isolated villagers use cellular phones to speak directly to wholesalers and arrange better prices for goods.
At the 1932 Plenipotentiary Telegraph Conference and International Radiotelegraph Conference in Madrid two organizations merged to form the International Telecommunication Union. They defined telecommunication as any telegraphic or telephonic communication by wire wireless or other systems. The ITU decided at the Atlantic City Conference in 1947 to afford international protection to all frequencies registered in a new list. All frequencies referenced shall have right to international protection from harmful interference according to Radio Regulations adopted there.
The history of broadcasting discusses debates regarding balancing conventional communication like printing and radio broadcasting. Patriotic propaganda for political movements started mid-1936 when the BBC broadcast to the Arab World partly countering similar broadcasts from Italy. Modern political debates include reclassifying broadband Internet service as telecommunications known as net neutrality. Countries enact legislation conforming to International Telecommunication Regulations established by this UN agency leading in information technology issues.
Common questions
When did Paul Julius Reuter launch his pigeon service for telecommunications?
Paul Julius Reuter launched a pigeon service to fly stock prices between Aachen and Brussels in 1849. This operation ran for one year until the gap in the telegraph link was closed.
Who invented the first commercial electrical telegraph and when was it demonstrated?
English inventor Sir William Fothergill Cooke demonstrated the first commercial electrical telegraph alongside scientist Sir Charles Wheatstone on the 25th of July 1837. Samuel Morse independently developed a version that he unsuccessfully demonstrated on the 2nd of September 1837.
What date marked the completion of the first transatlantic telegraph cable?
The first transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed on the 27th of July 1866 allowing transatlantic telecommunication for the first time.
How many mobile phone units were sold globally in 2005 according to the script?
Sales of mobile phones in 2005 totaled 816.6 million units shared among Asia Pacific Western Europe CEMEA North America and Latin America markets.
When did the International Telecommunication Union form from merged organizations?
Two organizations merged at the 1932 Plenipotentiary Telegraph Conference and International Radiotelegraph Conference in Madrid to form the International Telecommunication Union.