Organized society depends on communication of all kinds, including the
ability to communicate at a distance, instantaneously. With the
development of solid- state electronics and its application to digital
processing, telecommunication has become extremely important to large
segments of American business. The in- troduction of competition to
serve these voice, data, and video needs has ex- panded the number of
service options available, and some of them are finding their way into
the residential sector. From a relatively stable, mature industry,
telecommunication has rapidly become a technology-driven marketplace in
which a host of companies are competing for customer attention with new
services and equipment. Heretofore, books on telecommunications have
addressed facilities and how they work. In this book, I am seeking to
provide a much broader perspective which includes information on the
motives driving the business itself, on new media and services, and on
advancing technologies, as well as on digital facilities and their
integration into the environment of future businesses and households.
Covering so wide a set of topics presents many problems, not the least
of which is that the character of the information is different in each
chapter, and the material will be read by persons skilled in disparate
fields. It is possible to read each chapter by itself-although a reading
of all of them is needed to understand the new dimensions being
introduced into the telecommunication experience.