THE TELEPHONE REVOLUTION
(Page 2 of 3)
March/April 1984
by Copthorne Macdonald
Some of the new long-distance companies have their own microwave networks, while others lease the use of facilities at wholesale rates and resell the service. Phone Book talks a bit about each of the major companies (MCI, ITT, Sprint, Western Union, and Satellite Business System), and 24 of them are listed in the "Yellow Pages" section at the back of the volume. Larry and Alan point out that it takes careful comparison shopping to figure out which of them offers the best deal for you.
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The book also discusses the negative side of the new law: the effect on local rates. Back when AT&T and the local Bell companies were tied together, part of the payment for long-distance calls helped to subsidize the cost of local service. The long-distance access charge will be phased out over the next few years, and local rates will be adjusted upward to compensate.
AN EXPLOSION OF SERVICES
Though the telephone system was designed for voice communication, it's also capable of transmitting various forms of information. Phone Book mentions most of these new capabilities.
For example, businesses depend on hard copy communications such as letters, memos, telegrams, and data printouts. For these, mail service is adequate much of the time . . . but when quick delivery is very important, the cost of actually moving these communications from one place to another can be very high. In the past, the standard business solution to this problem was telex, an international teleprinter service. A message typed onto a telex can be transmitted by telephone to a distant machine that will produce hard copy.
Telex is still with us, but there are some new variations on that theme. One increasingly popular option is electronic mail, a service offered by computer utilities such as Compuserve and The Source. With electronic mail, you type your message into a computer terminal and transmit the encoded data by phone line to the utility's central computer. The communication is stored there, in a section of memory often called the "electronic mailbox", until the addressee calls up the computer utility to check his or her mail. Thus, an electronicmail letter can arrive within minutes . . . or wait around for days to be "delivered".
