How Technology Moves On

(Hopefully the link works sometimes New Scientist stuff is subscriber only)

From issue 2589 of New Scientist magazine, 03 February 2007, page 14
From The New Scientist, 7 February 1957.

New Scientist has a weekly column entitled 50 years ago this week. Well for this issue it goes back to an article from February 1957 talking about the upcoming developments in telephone calls. The article talks about systems which we now take for granted which were only then in the earliest of trial stages.

The first paragraph starkly outlines the difference between then and now:

The ideal telephone service, one supposes, would make it possible to pick up any telephone in the world, dial the number for any other telephone and, having been instantly connected, talk for as long as one liked

We achieved that and more, what would the original author thing of mobile phones, satellite phones, fibre optics and the interweb.

It then goes on to describe three developments that would make that ideal nearer:

1. Subscriber dialled trunk calls.

The first facilities by which a British subscriber can dial their own trunk calls - direct calls without the need to be directed via an operator between cities with different area codes are scheduled for 1959.

2. Automatic exchanges scheduled for 1961

3. radio telephone links for such remote places as Orkney.

The article concludes with two more stark examples of how far we have come.

But how will this affect the subscriber in the long term? With the introduction of trunk-dialling the current time-limited, three minute call will probably be abandoned and replaced by a system of charges based on time multiplied by distance.

There may even be a time in the foreseeable future when a flat rate for all UK telephone calls becomes a reality.

Where will the next fifty years take us? Judging on this small example it will be beyond our wildest imaginations.