The Mobile Telecommunications Market

The Telecommunications World
At the beginning of the new millennium, telecommunications, in its various forms,
is revolutionizing both our society and the world economy. This book shows how
technologies have developed, how they work, how they are being utilized today, and
how they are likely to come together to satisfy the needs of consumers in the future.
The term “telecommunications,” as shown in Figure 1.1, incorporates the following
areas:
Voice communications
Data communications
Radio systems
Navigational systems
Mobile networks
Fixed networks
Broadcast networks
We explore each of these areas to see how both technology push and market pull have
acted upon them to create the telecommunications environment we have today.
The next few years will see big changes in the telecommunications industry. If all
goes according to plan, the consumer will feel the benefits of greater choice; advanced,
user-friendly, and more personal services; new billing models; enhanced customer
care; and a greater focus on content rather than the underlying technology.
The Evolution of Telecommunications
From Homer to Marconi
Homer, speaking of the fall of Troy in the 11th Century BC, described a chain of
beacons that were used to send the news back to Argos. This is one of the earliest
examples of communication over a significant distance. (Figure 1.2.) The setting
of the story in Greece is significant because the word “telecommunication” derives
from the Greek word tele, meaning far or distant. As we will see, today the term
“telecommunication”
is applied to both short- and long-distance communication
by electronic means.

The first invention that sought to bring about long-distance communication
was the telegraph. The first models utilized 26 pairs of wires, one to transmit each
letter of the alphabet. Samuel Morse saw the need to reduce the number of wires
to one, which he achieved in 1838. To make his telegraph machine function on a
single connection, he devised a coding system that produced an ECG-like line on
tickertape. It was only later that one of his assistants produced the now-familiar
dots and dashes version of the code that could be sound read by the operators. By
1854 there were 23,000 miles of telegraph cable in use, with the first trans-Atlantic
cable link established in 1868.

When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876, not everyone
was impressed. The Engineer-in-Chief of the British Post Office commented, “My
department is in possession of full knowledge of the details of the invention, and
possible use of the telephone is limited.”

The early telephony systems employed operators who would manually connect
one customer’s line to another. On discovering that the local operator was diverting
calls to a business rival, a St. Louis undertaker, Amon Strowger, invented dial
telephony. As with so many developments within the field of telecommunications,
necessity proved to be the mother of invention.

At the end of the 19th Century, Marconi’s invention of the radio telegraph
was key to the development of future radio-based technologies. Using existing discoveries
and inventions, he was able to build a working system that could initially
transmit up to a distance of 2.4 kilometers. By 1899 he had refined his system so
that British battleships could transmit up to a distance of 121 kilometers.

From Marconi to Telstar
At the turn of the century, Marconi sent the first radio signal across the Atlantic,
despite the predictions of his contemporaries that this would fail due to the curvature
of the Earth. They had failed to appreciate that the Earth’s atmosphere could
be used to reflect radio waves.

Television made an appearance in 1926, when Baird produced his electromechanical
machine. As is so often the case, a rival system proved to be just around
the corner. Farnsworth demonstrated the superior electronic television in 1927
that, thankfully, became the forerunner of today’s televisions.
As shown in Figure 1.3, over the next few decades a number of new technologies
were developed that proved essential for the development of our modern telecommunications
systems. In 1947, the transistor was invented, offering great reductions
in the size of telecommunications equipment. The launch of the first communications
satellite in 1962 and the development of fiber-optic cable four years later accelerated
the pace of development for high bandwidth telecommunications.

The Internet and Mobile Communications
The 1970s saw the beginnings of the Internet with the introduction of ARPANET.
The original system was designed to encompass many networks from universities
and government institutions. However, it took the development of the TCP/IP
protocol in 1974 and the subsequent design of the World Wide Web in 1989 by
Tim Berners-Lee to make the Internet as easily accessible as it is today.

Telecommunications Today
The world of telecommunications today is a vast and complex place, encompassing
mobile, fixed, and Internet connections. In past times, telecommunications
and data communications were seen and treated as completely separate fields of
technology. It is not possible today to talk of one and neglect the other; voice and
data communications have converged in both mobile and fixed networks. The next
significant development, already underway, is the convergence of mobile and fixed
networks, providing subscribers with unified communications systems that allow
consumers a huge choice in the mode of their communication with another user
or service.