The Telephone of Today ----- and Tomorrow

When imaginative scientists first suggested the possibility that one person could speak directly to another over a long distance, few people took them seriously. Among the few who did was a Scots-born American named Alexander Graham Bell, who was one of the first to develop the telephone in 1876. Now the most common means of voice communication in the world, the telephone of today is infinitely more sophisticated and effective than the crude instrument developed by Bell, and it is being used in ways he could not possibly have foreseen.

One area that is being seriously considered is communications service "on the move". Because America is such a highly mobile society --- a society on wheels --- telephones in cars and trucks are becoming as essential as those in homes and offices.  Industry officials have predicted that mobile communications service will soon be comparable in many respects to the service provided by telephones that do not move.

Another area rapidly being expanded is overseas telephone service. In 1927, when overseas telephone service was inaugurated with a radio telephone call between New York and London the occasion was heralded as "thrilling".Today, many telephone users regard international calls as routine, and overseas service, thanks largely to undersea cables and communications satellites, has undergone extraordinary improvement. Transmission has been made clearer, charges have been greatly reduced, and dependability has been improved. Overseas telephone service has now been extended to nearly 250 countries and areas throughout the world.

For many people the most exciting development in recent years is Picturephone service. Picturephone service, which will become available commercially in the 1970s, will at first probably be used by large business corporations. But as Picturephone service becomes available, it will no doubt spread from the office to the home. It is already clear that "he next best thing to being there" is going to be a Picturephone call.

Possibly the most significant research now being conducted is in the use of the laser beam in telephone communications. This "new light", first produced by scientists in 1960, can beam continuously and with extraordinary intensity. Instead of using light to see by, telephone researchers are thinking of ways to use light to communicate by. In other words, they are thinking of using light for the same purpose radio waves are now used---to transmit telephone calls, television programs, and data messages from one point to another. With the expansion of Picturephone service and high-speed data communications between computers, present message- carrying capacities may soon become inadequate. If it turns out to be technically and economically sound, the laser might prove to be a major breakthrough in telephone communlcations. 

Current research in telephone communications is so extensive and changes are coming about so rapidly that no one can predict with accuracy what the telephone of tomorrow will look like. But there is at least one prediction that can be made with assurance: There will be more and more telephones in the future, and they will be better ones.