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History of Telecommunications
through 3/03/1797 |
George Washington | 1st President of the United States. The Internet Public Library article The WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Before 1790 | Telecommunications is simply the process of communicating over a distance. Ancient telecommunications used both audio (for example, signal drums) and visual (like signal fires and smoke signals) methods. Even packetized data (a note) on a transport media (a carrier pigeon) dates back more than 2,500 years. | |
| First Non-Commercial Semaphore Systems | The Chappe brothers, in France, were in their teens and were going to schools some distance apart but visible to each other. They obtained permission to set up a signaling system so they could send messages to each other. Their semaphore system consisted of movable arms on a pole whose positions denoted letters of the alphabet. From www.cclab.com/billhist.htm | |
through 1/01/1860 |
Commercial Semaphore Systems | Commercial semaphore systems were in use from the time the Chappe brothers established their first system in France in 1791 until the last system shut down in Algeria in 1793. As late as 1840, appropriations requests were made to the US Congress for the establishment of semaphore systems. |
through 3/03/1801 |
John Adams | 2nd President of the United States Internet Publid Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1809 |
Thomas Jefferson | 3rd President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1817 |
James Madison | 4th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1825 |
James Monroe | 5th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1829 |
John Quincy Adams | 6th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1837 |
Andrew Jackson | 7th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1841 |
Martin Van Buren | 8th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 4/04/1841 |
William Henry Harrison | 9th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1845 |
John Tyler | 10th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Fax invented by the Scotch physicist Alexander Bain | Clear back in 1843 Alexander Bain connected two pens to pendulums which in turn were joined to a wire that was able to reproduce writing on an electrically conductive surface (see www.ideafinder.com) and ta da! the fax was born. | |
| Morse Demonstrates the Electric Telegraph | ||
through 3/03/1849 |
James Knox Polk | 11th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 7/09/1850 |
Zachary Taylor | 12th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1853 |
Millard Fillmore | 13th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1857 |
Franklin Pierce | 14th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Western Union formed in Rochester, New York | ||
through 7/28/1866 |
First Trans Atlantic Cables Layed | Five attempts to lay the cable were made over a nine year period - in 1857, two in 1858, in 1856, and in 1866. The 1857 attempt was unsuccessful. The 1858 attempt was completed on August 5th. In September of 1858, attempts to achieve faster telegraph operation resulted in destructive voltage being applied to the cable. The effort was not tried again until 1865 and was completed on July 28, 1865. This cable remained in use for the next 100 years. Map of the first trans Atlantic cable |
through 3/03/1861 |
James Buchanan | 15th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Last Commercial Semaphore System | The last operational semaphore system went out of business in 1860. It was located in Algeria. | |
through 4/15/1865 |
Abraham Lincoln | 16th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1869 |
Andrew Johnson | 17th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1877 |
Ulysses Simpson Grant | 18th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Alexander Graham Bell (or maybe it was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Gray"> Elisha Gray</a>) invents the telephone | In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and his financial backer, Gardiner G. Hubbard, offered Bell's brand new patent (No. 174,465) to the Telegraph Company - the ancestor of Western Union. The President of the Telegraph Company, Chauncey M. DePew, appointed a committee to investigate the offer. The committee report has often been quoted. It reads in part: "The Telephone purports to transmit the speaking voice over telegraph wires. We found that the voice is very weak and indistinct, and grows even weaker when long wires are used between the transmitter and receiver. Technically, we do not see that this device will be ever capable of sending recognizable speech over a distance of several miles. "Messer Hubbard and Bell want to install one of their "telephone devices" in every city. The idea is idiotic on the face of it. Furthermore, why would any person want to use this ungainly and impractical device when he can send a messenger to the telegraph office and have a clear written message sent to any large city in the United States? "The electricians of our company have developed all the significant improvements in the telegraph art to date, and we see no reason why a group of outsiders, with extravagant and impractical ideas, should be entertained, when they have not the slightest idea of the true problems involved. Mr. G.G. Hubbard's fanciful predictions, while they sound rosy, are based on wild-eyed imagination and lack of understanding of the technical and economic facts of the situation, and a posture of ignoring the obvious limitations of his device, which is hardly more than a toy... . "In view of these facts, we feel that Mr. G.G. Hubbard's request for $100,000 of the sale of this patent is utterly unreasonable, since this device is inherently of no use to us. We do not recommend its purchase." - the quote comes from Warren Bender. Interestingly, many say similar things about open service provider fiber today... "Who needs all that bandwidth when DSL and cable modems are perfectly adequate." | |
| First Telephone Line (between Somerville and Boston, MA). | ||
through 3/03/1881 |
Rutherford Birchard Hayes | 19th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 9/19/1881 |
James Abram Garfield | 20th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1885 |
Chester Alan Arthur | 21st President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/04/1889 |
Grover Cleveland | 22nd President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1893 |
Benjamin Harrison | 23rd President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1897 |
Grover Cleveland | 24th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| First Radio Equipment | Guglielmo Marconi, Italian engineer, built his first radio equipment. By the end of this month he could flit a switch and make a bell ring at the other end of his attic workspace. Originally, radio or radiotelegraphy was called "wireless telegraphy", which was shortened to "wireless". The prefix radio- in the sense of wireless transmission was first recorded in the word radioconductor, coined by the French physicist Edouard Branly in 1897. | |
through 9/14/1901 |
William McKinley | 25th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1909 |
Theodore Roosevelt | 26th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| 1903 Berlin Conference | In 1903, Germany sponsored a "preliminary conference concerning wireless telegraphy", held in Berlin, which reviewed some of the outstanding international issues related to the developing technology. Although the conference found some areas of agreement, there were still unresolved disputes, especially about intercommunication between stations owned by different companies. The Conference's Final Protocol outlined issues which the governments of the participating countries were asked to review, pending a proposed international convention, which convened in 1906. From Thomas H. White United States Early Radio History | |
| 1904 Roosevelt Board | In 1904, various U.S. government agencies, including the Navy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Army's Signal Corps had all begun setting up their own radio transmitters, with little coordination between the various departments. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed a board, consisting of representatives from the various agencies, to prepare recommendations for coordinating government development of radio services. The 1904 "Roosevelt Board" Report -- or, more formally, Wireless Telegraphy: Report of the Inter-Departmental Board Appointed by the President to Consider the Entire Question of Wireless Telegraphy in the Service of the National Government -- proposed assigning most of the oversight of government radio to the Navy Department, plus significant restrictions on commercial stations. (A review of the development of U.S. regulation policies through 1904 appears in The Origins of Regulation chapter of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 book, History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy). From Thomas H. White United States Early Radio History | |
| 1906 Berlin Convention | A second international radio conference was held in Berlin, Germany in 1906, to deal with issues left over from the 1903 Conference. The result was a comprehensive agreement, the International Wireless Telegraph Convention (Convention Radiotelegraphique Internationale), which was adopted on November 3, 1906, and became effective July 1, 1908. Although U.S. representatives signed the agreement in 1906, the U.S. Senate did not ratify the Berlin Convention until April 3, 1912, and the President proclaimed U.S. adherence to the Convention effective May 25, 1912. (An overview of the effect of the 1906 Berlin Convention is included in the Renewed Efforts to Establish Control chapter of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy). From Thomas H. White United States Early Radio History | |
through 3/03/1913 |
William Howard Taft | 27th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 | The Wireless Ship Act [Act to require apparatus and operators for radio communication on certain ocean steamers] was passed by the United States Congress in 1910, requiring all ships of the United States traveling over two-hundred miles off the coast and carrying over fifty passengers to be equipped with wireless radio equipment with a range of one-hundred miles. The legislation was prompted by a shipping accident in 1909, where a single wireless operator saved the lives of 1200 people. The Act did not alleviate the problem, existing at the time, of interference between multiple users of the radio spectrum. In fact, by mandating increased use by shipping, it may well have exacerbated the problem. There was already an ongoing conflict between amateur radio operators and the U.S. Navy and private companies. Amateur radio enthusiasts regarded the new medium as a wide-open new frontier, free from government regulation and corporate influence. They fought against government and corporate encroachment in many ways, including by sending fake distress calls and obscene messages to naval radio stations, and forged naval commands sending navy boats on spurious missions. It was this, in addition to the public outcry after the sinking of the RMS Titanic and an international convention agreed in London, that caused Congress to replace the Wireless Ship Act with the Radio Act of 1912. From Wikipedia - Wireless Ship Act of 1910 | |
| Mann-Elkins Act | Congress passed the Mann-Elkins Act in June 1910. It amended the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, expanding the Interstate Commerce Commission's (ICC) responsibilities to include the regulation of telephone, telegraph, and cable companies. The new law declared such companies to be common carriers subject to ICC regulations. From Enclyclopedia.com - Mann-Elkins Act | |
| Radio Act of 1912 | The U.S. Congress finally passed a comprehensive Act to Regulate Radio Communication, which was signed by President Taft on August 13, 1912, and went into effect December 13, 1912. Officially this new law implemented provisions of the 1906 Berlin Convention. However, a new International Radiotelegraphic Convention had been signed in London on July 5, 1912, to become effective July 1, 1913, and the new U.S. law included many provisions which actually reflected standards of the soon-to-be ratified London Convention, most importantly the requirement that most radio transmitters had to be licenced, plus the provision that radio operators now had to qualify for operator's licences, not just certification. (The Achievement of Federal Regulation chapter of Linwood S. Howeth's 1963 book, History of Communications-Electronics in the United States Navy, reviews U.S. regulatory activities from 1908 through the adoption of the 1912 Radio Act). From Thomas G. White United States Early Radio History | |
through 3/03/1921 |
Woodrow Wilson | 28th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 8/02/1923 |
Warren Gamaliel Harding | 29th President of the United States Internet Public Library article> WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 3/03/1929 |
Calvin Coolidge | 30th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| The National Broadcasting Co. (NBC) | The National Broadcasting Co. (NBC) was incorporated by the Radio Corporation of America, which had originated as Marconi Wireless. | |
| The Radio Act of 1927 | Prior to 1927, radio was regulated by the United States Department of Commerce, and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover played a strong role in shaping radio. His powers were limited by federal court decisions, however; in particular, he was not allowed to deny broadcasting licenses to anyone who wanted one. The result was that many people perceived the airwaves to suffer from "chaos," with too many stations trying to be heard on too few frequencies. (Initially only two frequencies were available for broadcasting with one of these being reserved for "Crop reports and weather forecasts.") After several failed attempts to rectify this situation, Congress finally passed the Radio Act of 1927 (signed into law February 23, 1927), which transferred most of the responsibility for radio to a newly created Federal Radio Commission. (Some technical duties remained the responsibility of the Radio Division of the Department of Commerce.) The five-person FRC was given the power to grant and deny licenses, and to assign frequencies and power levels for each licensee. The Commission was not given any official power of censorship, although programming could not include "obscene, indecent, or profane language." In theory, anything else could be aired. In practice, the Commission could take into consideration programming when renewing licenses, and their ability to take away a broadcaster's license obviously enabled them to control content to some degree. The Commission also had little power over networks; in fact, the Radio Act of 1927 made almost no mention of the radio networks (notably NBC and, a bit later CBS) that were in the process of dominating radio. The only mention of radio networks was vague: The Commission {the Federal Radio Commission} shall "Have the authority to make special regulations applicable to stations engaged in chain broadcasting." The act did not authorize the Federal Radio Commission to make any rules regulating advertising. Advertising was mentioned in the act with only slightly more authority than networking; merely requiring advertisers to identify themselves: "All matter broadcast by any radio station for which service, money, or any other valuable consideration is directly paid, or promised to, or charged to, or accepted by, the station so broadcasting, from any person, firm, company, or corporation, shall at the time the same is so broadcast, be announced as paid for or furnished as the case may be, by such person, firm, company, or corporation." A forerunner of the "equal time rule" was stated in section (18) of the Radio Act of 1927 which ordered stations to give equal opportunities for political candidates. The Act did vest in the Federal Radio Commission the power to revoke licenses and give fines for violations of the act. The Radio Act of 1927 divided the country into five geographical zones. Each zone was represented by one of the five Commissioners. The 1928 reauthorization of the Radio Act included a provision, called the "Davis Amendment" after its sponsor Ewin L. Davis, that required each zone to have equal allocations of licenses, time of operation, station power, and wavelength. This greatly complicated things for the Commissioners; they were required to deny station applications to otherwise qualified candidates simply because the new station would put a particular state or zone over its quota. For example, the northeast had a greater population than the southwest, but was limited to the same number of stations as more sparsely populated areas. Likewise, many small communities in the southwest could have added a local station without increasing interference (because of their remoteness), but were prevented from doing so by the Davis Amendment. Although the Commission's primary responsibility was radio, on February 25, 1928 Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC became the first holder of a television license from the Federal Radio Commission. From Wikipedia - Federal Radio Commission | |
| First television license granted to Charles Jenkins Laboratories of Washington, DC | ||
through 3/03/1933 |
Herbert Clark Hoover | 31st President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 4/12/1945 |
Franklin Delano Roosevelt | 32nd President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Communications Act of 1934 - Establishment of the FCC | The Communications Act of 1934 was a United States federal law enacted as Public Law Number 416, Act of June 19, 1934, ch. 652, 48 Stat. 1064, by the 73rd Congress, codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, 47 U.S.C. ss 151 et seq. The Act replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It also transferred regulation of interstate telephone services from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the FCC. The stated purposes of the Act are "regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, nationwide, and worldwide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges, for the purpose of the national defense, and for the purpose of securing a more effective execution of this policy by centralizing authority heretofore granted by law to several agencies and by granting additional authority with respect to interstate and foreign commerce in wire and radio communication, there is hereby created a commission to be known as the 'Federal Communications Commission', which shall be constituted as hereinafter provided, and which shall execute and enforce the provisions of this Act." On January 3, 1996, the 104th Congress of the United States amended or repealed sections of the Communications Act of 1934 with the new Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was the first major overhaul of American telecommunications policy in nearly 62 years. From Wikipedia - Communications Act of 1934 | |
through 1/20/1953 |
Harry S. Truman | 33rd President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Memex Proposal | Vannevar Bush (Science Advisor to president Roosevelt during WW2) proposes Memex -- a conceptual machine that can store vast amounts of information, in which users have the ability to create information trails, links of related texts and illustrations, which can be stored and used for future reference. | |
through 1/20/1961 |
Dwight David Eisenhower | 34th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Hush-A-Phone v. US and FCC | Hush-A-Phone v. United States, 238 F.2d 266 (D.C. Cir. 1956) was a seminal ruling in United States telecommunications law decided by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hush-A-Phone Corporation marketed a small, cup-like device which mounted on the speaking party's phone, reducing the risk of conversations being overheard and increasing sound fidelity for the listening party. ATT, citing the Communications Act of 1934, which stated in part that the company had the right to make charges and dictate "the classifications, practices, and regulations affecting such charges," claimed the right to "forbid attachment to the telephone of any device 'not furnished by the telephone company.'" During this era, the phones were leased from the phone company, not owned by the consumer. Initially, the FCC found in ATT's favor; it found that the device was a "foreign attachment" subject to ATT control and that unrestricted use of the device could, in the commission's opinion, result in a general deterioration of the quality of telephone service. The court's decision, which exonerated Hush-A-Phone and prohibited further interference by ATT toward Hush-A-Phone users, stated that ATT's prohibition of the device was not "just, fair, and reasonable," as required under the Communications Act of 1934, as the device "does not physically impair any of the facilities of the telephone companies," nor did it "affect more than the conversation of the user." This victory for Hush-A-Phone is widely considered a watershed moment in the development of a secondary market for terminal equipment. It and the related Carterfone decision are seen as precursors to the entry of MCI Communications and the development of more pervasive telecom competition. From Wikipedia - Hush-A-Phone v. United States | |
| Sputnik | The USSR launches Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite. | |
| Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA or ARPA) | In response to the launch of Sputnik, the US Department of Defense issues directive 5105.15 establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency. | |
through 11/22/1963 |
John Fitzgerald Kennedy | 35th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 1/20/1969 |
Lyndon Baines Johnson | 36th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov artcile |
| Carterfone Decision | From Wikipedia - Carterfone The Carterfone is a device invented by Thomas Carter. It manually connects a two-way mobile radio system to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), making it a direct predecessor to today's autopatch. The device was acoustically, but not electrically, connected to the public switched telephone network. It was electrically connected to the base station of the mobile radio system, and got its power from the base station. All electrical parts were encased in bakelite, an early plastic. When someone on the CB radio wished to speak to someone on phone, or "landline" (eg, "Central dispatch, patch me through to McGarrett"), the station operator at the base would dial the telephone number. When callers on the radio and on the telephone are both in contact with the base station operator, the handset of the operator's telephone is placed on a cradle in the Carterfone device. A voice-operated switch in the Carterfone automatically switches on the radio transmitter when the telephone caller is speaking; when he stops speaking, the radio returns to a receiving condition. A separate speaker is attached to the Carterfone to allow the base station operator to monitor the conversation, adjust the voice volume, and hang up his telephone when the conversation has ended. This particular device was involved in a landmark United States regulatory decision related to telecommunications. In 1968, the Federal Communications Commission allowed the Carterfone and other devices to be connected directly to the ATT network, as long as they did not cause harm to the system. This ruling (13 F.C.C.2d 420) created the possibility of selling devices that could connect to the phone system using a protective coupler, and opened the market to customer-owned equipment. The decision is often referred-to as "any lawful device", allowing later innovations like answering machines, fax machines, and modems (which initially used the same type of manual acoustic coupler as the Carterfone) to proliferate. From BNET - Carterfone Changes Our World citing a September 1984 article in "Communications News" The FCC's June, 1968 "Carterfone Decision" was one of the most important and far-reaching in its consequences of any that body has made in its history. The "Carterfone Decision" clearly signaled the FCC's commitment to the "competition in the marketplace" philosphy which, just a year later, gave a green light to the specialized common carrier and, still later proclaimed an "open skies" policy for domestic satellite applicants. In its "Carterfone Decision" in June, 1968 the FCC declared that the Carterfone could be attached to the telephone network and ordered the Bell System (and other telcos) to revise their tariffs to make such attachment possible. In their decision, the FCC cited their earlier (1956) "Hush-A-Phone" decision and clearly stated that a subscriber's right to use the network in ways which are "privately beneficial without being public detrimental" extended to all types of equipment, including telephone terminal equipment. | |
through 8/09/1974 |
Richard Milhous Nixon | 37th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| LOG... | Around Labor Day in 1969, BBN delivered an Interface Message Processor (IMP) to UCLA that was based on a Honeywell DDP 516, and when they turned it on, it just started running. It was hooked by 50 Kbps circuits to two other sites (SRI and UCSB) in the four-node network: UCLA, Stanford Research Institute (SRI), UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The plan was unprecedented: Kleinrock, a pioneering computer science professor at UCLA, and his small group of graduate students hoped to log onto the Stanford computer and try to send it some data.They would start by typing "login," and seeing if the letters appeared on the far-off monitor. "We set up a telephone connection between us and the guys at SRI...," Kleinrock ... said in an interview: "We typed the L and we asked on the phone, "Do you see the L?" "Yes, we see the L," came the response. "We typed the O, and we asked, "Do you see the O." "Yes, we see the O." "Then we typed the G, and the system crashed"... Yet a revolution had begun"... | |
through 1/20/1977 |
Gerald Rudolph Ford | 38th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 1/20/1981 |
James Earl Carter, Jr. | 39th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 1/20/1989 |
Ronald Wilson Reagan | 40th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| ATT Consent Decree goes into effect | Prior to the ATT Consent Decree, ATT provided local telephone service through 22 company owned Bell Operating Companies. As part of the divestiture, the Bell Operating Companies were reorganized into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs).  As of December 2006 (when SBC acquired ATT and renamed itself att), the seven had consolidated into three - att, Verizon and Qwest. | |
| S 2594 - Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986 | One of the pieces of legislation introduced by Al Gore as he "took point" on the legislation that made the Internet what it is today. | |
through 1/20/1993 |
George Herbert Walker Bush | 41st President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Tim Berners-Lee proposes the World Wide Web | ||
| Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau implement the first HTTP client server interaction. | ||
| Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) Web Server Goes Online - the first web server outside of CERN | On Dec. 12, 1991, the first Web server outside Europe went online at SLAC in Stanford, Calif. The next month, Berners-Lee demonstrated his Web application to more than 200 physicists at a conference in France. For his grand finale, he connected to the Stanford server and performed a search on the bibliographic database. | |
through 1/20/2001 |
William Jefferson Clinton | 42nd President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
| Mosaic | In January 1993, Marc Andreessen released a version of his new, handsome, point-and-click graphical browser for the Web, designed to run on Unix machines. In August, Andreessen and his co-workers at the center released free versions for Macintosh and Windows. There are two ages of the Internet - before Mosaic, and after. The combination of Tim Berners-Lee's Web protocols, which provided connectivity, and Marc Andreesen's browser, which provided a great interface, proved explosive. In twenty-four months, the Web has gone from being unknown to absolutely ubiquitous. A Brief History of Cyberspace, by Mark Pesce, ZDNet, October 15, 1995 | |
| Telecommunications Act of 1996 | The Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first successful attempt to rewrite the sixty-two year old Communications act of 1934 (as updated by the 1996 law), was passed on 1 February 1996. The act refocuses federal communications policymaking after years of confused, multi-agency and intergovernmental attempts to regulate and make sense of a burgeoning telecommunications industry. The bill relies on increased competition for development of new services in broadcasting and cable, telecommunications, information and video services while it reasserts Congress' leadership role as the dominant communications policymaker. Portions of the act became effective immediately after President Clinton signed the bill into law on 8 February 1996. Other sections of the act will be implemented as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) promulgates new rules and regulations to meet provisional requirements of the act. Noting the historic nature of the bill, President Clinton stated that the legislation would "stimulate investment, promote competition, provide open access for all citizens to the Information Superhighway." However, many public interest groups are concerned that the act undermines public interest values of access. The act includes several highly controversial provisions that various interests groups claim restrict speech or violate constitutional protections. One section of the bill prohibits the transmission of indecent and obscene material when the material is likely to be seen or read by a minor, and another provision requires broadcasters to formulate a ratings scheme for programs. After nearly four years of work, the bill's passage was eagerly awaited by government and industry leaders alike. Public interest and various industry groups, upset with provisions that would restrict First Amendment rights of telecommunications users vowed to challenge the constitutionality of those provisions in court. Within hours of the bill's passage, a number of civil liberties groups led by the ACLU sought an injunction against provisions of the act. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a complex reform of American communication policymaking that attempts to provide similar ground rules and a level playing field in virtually all sectors of the communications industries. The act's provisions fall into five general areas:
The act abolishes many of the cross-market barriers that prohibited dominant players from one communications industry, such as telephone, from providing services in other industry sectors such as cable. New mergers and acquisitions, consolidations and integration of services previously barred under FCC rules, antitrust provisions of federal law, and the "Modified Final Judgment," the ruling governing 1984 "break-up" of the ATT telephone monopoly, will be allowed for the first time, illustrating the belief by Congress that competition should replace other regulatory schemes as we enter a new century. From The Museum of Broadcast Communication - U.S. Policy: Telecommunications Act of 1996 | |
| Al Gore "Invented" the Internet | Al Gore did not claim to invent the Internet. In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN's "Late Edition," when asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley, Gore replied, in part: "Dring my servivce in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." Vint Cerf, who really can be called the "Father of the Internet" responded to Gore's quote and the flap it caused with this email | |
through 1/20/2009 |
George Walker Bush | 43rd President of the United States Internet Publid Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |
through 1/20/2017 |
Barack Hussein Obama | 44th President of the United States Internet Public Library article WhiteHouse.gov article |