Jerrek
15-09-2003, 05:52 AM
I don't know how many of you know the history of telecommunications, or how many of you guys are interested in it, but for those of you that are interested, here is some interesting trivia. It draws some comparisons between North American and Europe. I'm not too sure about South Africa, but you can fit yourself in where you see fit.
Before taking a look at telecommunications, we need to take a look at the railroad industry from two centuries ago. With the invention of the railway, transportation improved vastly. Given a rail line between two towns, one could move people and goods around faster and cheaper than what was possible before. In North America, the railway system was built and owned by private companies. The railway was not operated or owned by the government in any way. This is quite a bit different from Europe, where the railway was owned and operated by the state.
So there you have a rail line between two towns. As commerce expanded, a fundamental problem developed. How can you send more than one train, in different directions, on the same line without having them crash into each other? This lead to signaling technology, where a copper cable was installed with all rail lines. This allowed operators at the stations to signal other towns when a train left and on what rail line it left.
Soon after that some genius got the idea that if I can signal when trains left, why not send messages in Morse code? I could charge people per word to send a message. So, the telegraph was born. The first telegraphs were sent at rail stations and collected at rail stations.
This developed into a more solid telecom industry. More copper was installed, messages got cheaper, and so forth. The important thing to note here is that in North America the telecommunciations were controlled by private companies. Anyone that built rail lines also sold of telecom lines. This was different from Europe, where the government owned the rail lines and as a result the government also owned the telecom company.
Over time, the telecom industry exploded. AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph) was formed, as well as other companies such as Worldcom, Sprint, MCI, Bell, and so on. In Europe, each country was stuck with its "<nation name> Telecom" as in "British Telecom," "France Telecom," "Deutche Telecom," and so forth.
In the 1960s, Bell Labs came up with the North American Numbering Plan system. It was a systematic way of numbering telephone numbers. It was very easy to use, very sensible, and was easy to implement into telecom switches. Bell become a very large company, and as a result of an antitrust case was split up into several companies: Pacific Bell, Southern Bell, Verizon, and so forth.
Today, there are tens of tier 1 telecom carriers, and hundreds of tier 2 carriers, in North America. Europe is slightly different, having had to deregulate the industry first. From the start companies were allowed to built their own infrastructure (in North America), but in Europe that only started recently. As a result, Europe lags North America substantially in the wireline telecom industry.
Fierce competition over here has driven down prices. Telephone service is divided up into two distinct services. Local and long distance. Local service is basically offered at cost these days. Competition has driven the prices down so that there is virtually no margin anymore on local service. Where I live I can pick from three local service carriers: Bell Canada, AT&T Canada, and Sprint.
Long distance is not quite there yet. There is fierce competition between thousands of long distance carriers because 300 million people in North America all have very different needs. Some only call in their own state, some only specific states, and others prefer to call all over the place.
Competition has resulted in lower total cost. In North America, the <b>cost</b> price of carrying a call, on-net (meaning if you are an AT&T subscriber and you call another AT&T subscriber, and AT&T carries the call completely without using other carriers), is $0.02 per minute. That is for ANY call placed in North America. So if AT&T charges me $0.07 a minute, their margine is $0.05 a minute on on-net calls. Compare this with Europe who is breaking under the strain of decades of state ownership. They are all forced to pay premiums on local calls, and long distance calls are very expensive.
As a result of competition, costs are lowered, and as a result of that, the number of WTNs (working telephone numbers) in North America are higher than anywhere in the world. In the U.S. and Canada, there are 72 WTNs per 100 people. In the UK, there are 57. In India, it is 0.08. Washington, D.C., is the most densely covered area in the world, with over 120 phone lines per 100 people.
And now I bid goodnight.
Before taking a look at telecommunications, we need to take a look at the railroad industry from two centuries ago. With the invention of the railway, transportation improved vastly. Given a rail line between two towns, one could move people and goods around faster and cheaper than what was possible before. In North America, the railway system was built and owned by private companies. The railway was not operated or owned by the government in any way. This is quite a bit different from Europe, where the railway was owned and operated by the state.
So there you have a rail line between two towns. As commerce expanded, a fundamental problem developed. How can you send more than one train, in different directions, on the same line without having them crash into each other? This lead to signaling technology, where a copper cable was installed with all rail lines. This allowed operators at the stations to signal other towns when a train left and on what rail line it left.
Soon after that some genius got the idea that if I can signal when trains left, why not send messages in Morse code? I could charge people per word to send a message. So, the telegraph was born. The first telegraphs were sent at rail stations and collected at rail stations.
This developed into a more solid telecom industry. More copper was installed, messages got cheaper, and so forth. The important thing to note here is that in North America the telecommunciations were controlled by private companies. Anyone that built rail lines also sold of telecom lines. This was different from Europe, where the government owned the rail lines and as a result the government also owned the telecom company.
Over time, the telecom industry exploded. AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph) was formed, as well as other companies such as Worldcom, Sprint, MCI, Bell, and so on. In Europe, each country was stuck with its "<nation name> Telecom" as in "British Telecom," "France Telecom," "Deutche Telecom," and so forth.
In the 1960s, Bell Labs came up with the North American Numbering Plan system. It was a systematic way of numbering telephone numbers. It was very easy to use, very sensible, and was easy to implement into telecom switches. Bell become a very large company, and as a result of an antitrust case was split up into several companies: Pacific Bell, Southern Bell, Verizon, and so forth.
Today, there are tens of tier 1 telecom carriers, and hundreds of tier 2 carriers, in North America. Europe is slightly different, having had to deregulate the industry first. From the start companies were allowed to built their own infrastructure (in North America), but in Europe that only started recently. As a result, Europe lags North America substantially in the wireline telecom industry.
Fierce competition over here has driven down prices. Telephone service is divided up into two distinct services. Local and long distance. Local service is basically offered at cost these days. Competition has driven the prices down so that there is virtually no margin anymore on local service. Where I live I can pick from three local service carriers: Bell Canada, AT&T Canada, and Sprint.
Long distance is not quite there yet. There is fierce competition between thousands of long distance carriers because 300 million people in North America all have very different needs. Some only call in their own state, some only specific states, and others prefer to call all over the place.
Competition has resulted in lower total cost. In North America, the <b>cost</b> price of carrying a call, on-net (meaning if you are an AT&T subscriber and you call another AT&T subscriber, and AT&T carries the call completely without using other carriers), is $0.02 per minute. That is for ANY call placed in North America. So if AT&T charges me $0.07 a minute, their margine is $0.05 a minute on on-net calls. Compare this with Europe who is breaking under the strain of decades of state ownership. They are all forced to pay premiums on local calls, and long distance calls are very expensive.
As a result of competition, costs are lowered, and as a result of that, the number of WTNs (working telephone numbers) in North America are higher than anywhere in the world. In the U.S. and Canada, there are 72 WTNs per 100 people. In the UK, there are 57. In India, it is 0.08. Washington, D.C., is the most densely covered area in the world, with over 120 phone lines per 100 people.
And now I bid goodnight.