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History of Telecommunications and its impact on Australian Society
Suggested Answers
Activity 1
Global developments in the history of telecommunications
Go to the URL http://www.webbconsult.com/hist-time.html 
and click on the links to view the developments for each historical period mentioned.
Use the table format below to enter a minimum of TWO key developments for each historical time period.
Sample Answers
| TELECOMMUNICATIONS TIME LINE | ||
|---|---|---|
| TIME PERIOD | YEAR | DEVELOPMENT |
| 1800s | 1844 | First public demonstration of Morse's electric telegraph, Baltimore to Washington |
| 1866 | Permanent communication is established by wire from the United States to Europe with the completion of the second Atlantic telegraph cable | |
| 1900s | 1901 | First transatlantic signal as Marconi signalled the letter "S" across the Atlantic from England to Newfoundland. The first radio message is send a year later. |
| 1916 | New engineering and scientific discoveries continue within the Bell telephone system including development of new magnetic alloys, and the condenser microphone which revolutionized radio and public address systems | |
| 1920s | 1924 | More than 15,000,000 telephones in use in the Bell System in the US. The first transmission of pictures over telephone wires is publicly demonstrated by Bell System engineers |
| 1927 | A public demonstration of television by wire from Washington, D.C. to Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York City was made. First colour photographs sent over wire from San Francisco to New York | |
| 1930s | 1936 | First coaxial cable installed between New York and Philadelphia made available for multi-channel telephone tests. |
| 1937 | The combined handset telephone was introduced commercially | |
| 1940s | 1940 | Broad band carrier systems are introduced allowing for simultaneous calls over a single pair of wires. |
| 1946 | First commercial multi-channel high frequency microwave radiotelephone system in Bell System is introduced. Mobile telephone service placed in commercial use in St. Louis. | |
| 1950s | 1953 | Plans for transatlantic telephone cable are announced |
| 1958 | Bell System's Data-Phone service, which permits high-speed transmission of data over regular telephone circuits is announced | |
| 1960s | 1962 | The world's first international communications satellite - Telstar – was launched into space. First transmission came during Telstar's sixth orbit of the earth. |
| 1967 | Bell Laboratories revels a "lineless" extension telephone, a battery operated portable unit that performs the major functions of a regular telephone set. | |
| 1970s | 1970 | International direct-dialling from London to New York is introduced. The fifth transatlantic cable is placed in service |
| 1976 | AT&T installs its first digital switch. | |
| 1980s | 1981 | IBM introduces the desktop personal computer (IBM PC). |
| 1988 | The first transatlantic fibre optic cable is completed. | |
| 1990s | 1993 | The first digital mobile network is established in the U.S. while the first all digital cellular network is established |
| 1999 | Organizations all over the world spend billions of dollars as they try to make their telecommunications systems and networks ready for the turn of the century. The Internet envelopes the business community as companies scramble to ensure that they are ready to do business via the "World Wide Web". | |
| 2000s | 2000 | Years of preparation and billions of dollars result in the Y2K "Bug" being nothing more than a minor pest on January 1st |
| 2001 | Apple Computer introduced its new operating system OS-X while Microsoft launched their new operating system Windows XP | |
Activity 2
Australian developments in the history of telecommunications:
Visit the web address http://www.caslon.com.au/austelecomsprofile.htm
Australia & New Zealand telecoms
The chronology of telecommunications in Australia can be grouped under a series of what could be referred to as landmarks. These landmarks are listed below:
- telegraphy (1854)
- early telephony (1879)
- Federation and a national network (1901)
- radio broadcasting (1922)
- OTC (1946)
- deregulation (1975)
- wireless (1993)
- churn (1996)
- after the crash (2000)
- the ACMA era (2005)
Use the table format shown below to select a minimum of THREE significant events for each landmark period.
Sample Answers
| AUSTRALIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS TIME LINE | ||
|---|---|---|
| LANDMARK PERIOD | YEAR | DEVELOPMENT |
| telegraphy (1854) | 1854 | opening of telegraph line from Melbourne city to Williamstown |
| 1870 | Singapore to Port Darwin cable established by the British Australian Telegraph Company | |
| 1876 | first Australia to New Zealand telegraph link | |
| early telephony (1879) | 1879 | Australia's first telephone service opened in Melbourne |
| 1880 | first Australian telephone directory (44 numbers) | |
| 1901 | Batavia linked to Perth via the Cocos-Keeling Islands | |
| Federation and a national network (1901) |
1901 | Australian Constitution embraces "telegraphic, telephonic and other like services" |
| 1908 | first trans-Tasman radio transmission (via HMS Powerful in Tasman Sea) | |
| 1914 | telephone trunk line between Melbourne and Adelaide | |
| radio broadcasting (1922) | 1922 | AWA (Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Ltd) gains licence to operate Coastal Radio Stations |
| 1930 | public radio-telephone service between Australia and New Zealand | |
| 1932 | Australian Broadcasting Commission Act 1932 | |
| OTC (1946) |
1945 | Federal government acquires CRS stations from AWA |
| 1961 | coaxial cable links Melbourne and Sydney | |
| 1966 | OTC (Overseas Telecommunications Commission) linked via INTELSAT II | |
| deregulation (1975) | 1975 | establishment of Australian Telecommunication Commission (trading as Telecom Australia) |
| 1992 | OTC merges with Telecom as Australian & Overseas Telecommunications Corporation (AOTC) Optus launches analogue mobile phone network |
|
| 1992 | Australian legislation for introduction of pay-tv Radiocommunications Act 1992 in Australia |
|
| Wireless (1993) |
1993 | Telstra, Optus and Vodafone launch digital GSM service |
| 1995 | Cybernet in Melbourne is Australia's first cybercafé | |
| 1996 | Telstra records largest profit in Australian corporate history | |
| churn (1996) |
1997 | Australian telecommunications sector opened for full competition |
| 1997 | Telstra partly privatised Commonwealth government establishes National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) |
|
| 1999 | Telstra sells managed PABX operations to Ericsson | |
| after the crash (2000) |
2000 | Southern Cross Trans-Tasman cable Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act in Australia |
| 2003 | Spam Act 2003 in Australia | |
| 2004 | over 1 million broadband subscribers in Australia | |
| the ACMA era (2005) |
2005 | merger of Australian Broadcasting Authority and Australian Communications Authority as the Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) Crimes Legislation Amendment (Telecommunications Offences & Other Measures) Act 2004 comes into effect |
| 2006 | Communications Minister Coonan declares "Broadband infrastructure is the roads and railways of a modern 21st century economy" | |
| 2006 | ABS reports 5.1 million 'active' household internet subscribers and 0.86m 'active' government/business subscribers | |
Activity 3
Visit the URL http://www.caslon.com.au/austelecomsprofile1.htm and identify ONE event from each of the periods listed above and write a brief paragraph discussing each. Use the table format given below.
Sample Answers
| AUSTRALIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS EVENTS | |
|---|---|
| HISTORICAL PERIOD | DISCUSSION |
| the colonial period | Telecommunications in Australia began in 1854 with a telegraph line from Melbourne city to Williamstown, publicly funded but privately constructed (like South Australia's first line in 1856 from Port Adelaide to Adelaide city). At that time there were over 23,000 miles of line in the US (up from 12,000 miles in 1850, 2,000 in 1848 and 40 in 1846). |
| first telephony | For the first fifty years of its existence most people in Australia experienced telecommunications through telegraphy even where the telephone was available. It was thus at second hand, rather than directly person-to-person. That experience often involved couriers, with a 'telegraph boy' for example delivering a handwritten or printed message to a residence, business or other location. It also involved use of official post offices and agencies, with individuals for example visiting an office and writing the message on a form which was then keyed for transmission to the desired destination. Messages were charged on a character by character basis and on the basis of distance, resulting in 'telegraphese' (truncated spelling and grammar that was a precursor of texting). |
| shape of the network | The Australian networks were government assets operating under colonial legislation modelled on that of Britain. The UK Telegraph Act 1868 for example empowered the Postmaster General to "acquire, maintain and work electric telegraphs" and foreshadowed the 1870 nationalisation of competing British telegraph companies. The nature of the networks meant that regulation in Australia was unchallenging -
|
| federation | Section 51(v) of the 1901 Australian Constitution gave the new national government power over all postal, telegraphic, telephonic and 'other like services'. The latter encompassed future developments such as radio, television and the internet. The colonial networks (staff, switches, wires, handsets, buildings etc) were transferred to the Commonwealth and became the responsibility of the first Postmaster-General (PMG), a federal Minister overseeing the Postmaster-General's Department that managed all domestic telephone, telegraph and postal services. With 16,000 staff (and assets of over £6 million) it accounted for 90% of the new federal bureaucracy. That figure climbed to over 120,000 staff (around 50% of the federal bureaucracy) by the late sixties. At the time of federation it would have been appropriate to speak of a 'telephone divide'. Public phones were available in a handful of post offices and otherwise restricted to major businesses, government agencies, institutions and wealthier residences. Eight million telegrams were sent that year over 43,000 miles of line. (In the UK there were around 89 million messages.) |
| radio and picturegrams | A public radio-telephone service between Australia and New Zealand commenced on 25 November 1930. In July of the following year that was linked to the UK-Australia radio-telephone service, which utilised beam wireless stations in Victoria at
Fiskville and Rockbank. Those stations were opened in 1927 by Amalgamated Wireless Australasia (AWA). The company was an electrical conglomerate - the Australian equivalent of General Electric in the US - with interests extending from radio receiver manufacture to operation of commercial broadcasting stations. The two stations were primarily concerned with radiotelegraph traffic. Facsimile services were introduced in the late 1920s, using the Siemens-Karolus picturegram system. Images were of low quality and transmission was slow and expensive, so that most traffic appears to have related to low resolution reproduction in newspapers of photographs and cartoons. In Australia the first photographs were transmitted between Sydney and Melbourne in 1929, with the first radio-picturegrams from London received in Melbourne in 1934. Equipment at that time was only available at PMG premises or those of its agents such as AWA. |
| consolidation | By 1939 Australia was 7th in the world teledensity ranking, with all capital cities except Darwin connected through a national network of 'voice grade' lines and 50% of services through automatic exchanges (significantly better than the UK and most of continental Europe). It has remained in the top ten and as current statistics suggest it has a greater per capita number of mobile phones than the UK and US. A public telex (teleprinter) service was available in Australia from 1954. Transmissions of picturegrams between PMG sites peaked at 6,280 in 1958, declining as individual media organisations, news services such as Australian Associated Press and a handful of industrial companies such as BHP installed their own picturegram equipment. Both the teleprinter and picturegram services were superseded in the 1970s as 'wet' and later plain paper facsimile machines became available. Those devices did not require special training or a dedicated line. In 1975 telecommunication regulation and delivery was restructured, with PMG handling all postal services, OTC retaining responsibility for international telecommunications and the Australian Telecommunication Commission (trading as Telecom Australia) being established to provide public telecommunication services within Australia. |
| the emergence of data networks | Throughout most of Australia's history the dominant infrastructure model was that of a publicly owned network centred on the transmission of telegraphic and voice traffic rather than digital data. Telephone handsets were owned by the network operator, rather than by the subscriber, and in an echo of Henry Ford's quip about the Model T came in any colour as long as that was black. From the 1960s, as mainframes became increasingly affordable (whether on a purchased, leased or time-shared basis), there was growing public and private sector demand for domestic and international data exchange. In 1973 around 2,500 modems were in use; that figure grew throughout the decade. Declining infrastructure costs outpaced reductions in establishment fees and ongoing maintenance charges by the PMG, leading some major consumers such as the television networks to explore loopholes in the legislation that would enable creation of dedicated private networks (eg high-capacity microwave links between stations and television transmitters in NSW). Such moves were reflected in uptake of private facsimile machines throughout the 1980s: by 1993 the number of machines in Australia had grown to around 360,000. Faced with demands from domestic and commercial users for lower prices and better access to the network (from the early 1970s most Australian households expected to have a fixed line phone) the monopoly network operator in Australia adopted two strategies. One was to roll out basic infrastructure across the nation, minimising investment through technical compromises in the location of exchanges and use of twisted pair connections to households. Those compromises meant that much of the network in place at 2003 was unsuitable for ADSL. Upgrading to broadband was not possible without significant investment (unlikely given demands to raise revenue and profitability in a competitive environment). A second strategy was an acknowledgement that all customers were not equal and that commercial customers - in particular major organisations - both could and would pay a premium for a higher quality of service based on enhanced infrastructure. One example in the 1970s was the PMG's Common User Data Network (CUDN), a packet-switching scheme allowing simultaneous access by multiple users for the exchange of information between computers and featuring a primitive electronic mail system. |
Activity 4
Societal Impacts Resulting From the Development of Telecommunications
As you have discovered, the development of telecommunications has had a profound impact on our technological society.
Open the following web site,
http://www.assa.edu.au/Publications/mobilephone.pdf
and scroll down to the section titled “III Work, Home and Leisure.”
This web site uses the mobile phone as a case study. Read this section, and find three ways in which mobile phone technology has impacted on society.
Now scroll down to the section “IV Patterns of Use of Mobile Telecommunications” and find at least one new pattern for the use of the mobile phone.
Sample Answer
Work, Home and Leisure
- The introduction of new technologies has historically had profound impacts on the nature and organization of work. While much of the focus to date has been on computerization, the spread of mobile phones may have profound consequences for when and how work is done. Mobile phones increase the ability to coordinate activities, especially across remote sites. This means that it is no longer necessary to conduct communications from an office desk. For example, trades people were enthusiastic early adopters. The painter could order supplies and schedule new jobs from a ladder.
- Mobile phone message banks allow one to defer and consolidate the process of responding to telephone calls. Tasks and parts of task sequences can be delayed, consolidated, programmed in advance, and performed from a remote location. This time-shifting property also expands the possibilities for multi-tasking – completing a task in the background while concentrating one’s direct attention on another activity. Control over timing aids the coordination of disparate demands from all the family members and promises to significantly alter the experience of time pressure. Given the increasing number of married women in the workforce, the ability of parents to synchronize home and work via mobile phone communications will become increasingly important.
- Mobile phones are not purely tools of the trade or means of organizing domestic chores. They are also crucially instruments of leisure. Outside the workplace and domestic sphere, the mobile phone’s role within leisure and an expanding consumer culture – most obviously amongst younger generations – is visible everywhere. In social research of recent years, the topics of ‘mobility’ and ‘consumption’ have emerged as ‘cutting-edge’ themes.
Patterns of Use of Mobile Telecommunications
- Mobile phones are important means of communication. They are emerging as multi-modal channels and as important repositories for personal information and content creation. From their commercial availability in the early 1980s, mobiles have moved from being an expensive means of voice communication for business users to a device that has become intricately woven into everyday life.
- From the perspective of education and literacy, it is generally well accepted that literacy needs to be pluralized, as many media occur not only on paper, but also on screens of various kinds. Literacy involves both individual skills and social practices, and for adolescents, literate activities occur in schools and outside. This role will become increasingly important as the features of mobile phones increase.
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