Juan Monroy — Class 4, Telephone

C. The Cycle
1. Invention
2. Disruption
3. Consolidation: Monopoly
4. Division: Break Up
5. Reorganization
D. The Cycle and Media
1. Telephone
2. Movies
3. Television
E. The telephone warns us what technology could become…
1. Invention
  - Alexander Graham Bell
  - voice over telegraph
2. Disruption
  - telegraph
  - vocal communication
  - no transcription necessary
  - broke Western Union’s monopoly
3. Consolidation
  - American Telephone and Telegraph
  - incorporated 1876
    - Gardiner Hubbard
    - Theodore Vail
  - long Distance
    - wires
    - exchanges
4. Local Telephone
  - independent companies
  - Balkanized
  - interconnected by AT&T long wires
5. Monopoly
  - Kingsbury Commitment (1913)
  - Theodore Vail returns
  - natural monopoly
  - anti-trust exemption
  - provided universal service
6. Vertical Integrated
  - switches
  - exchanges
  - long wires
  - telephone equipment
7. Federal Communications Act
  - passed 1934
  - Federal Communications Commission
  - regulated telephone as utility
  - affirmed common carrier principle
8. Foreign Attachments
  - Hush a Phone
  - Carterphone
9. Control over Innovation
  - microwave relay
    - ground
    - relay
    - 1950s
  - communications satellite
    - Telstar
    - 1962
  - Western Electric phones
    - design remained the same over 50 years
    - rotary dial
    - “you can have any color you want”
    - no foreign attachments
10. Breakup
  - AT&T Breakup 1984
  - Ma Bell
  - Baby Bells
11. Effects of Breakup
  - touchtone dialing
  - fax machines
  - answering machines
  - modems
  - local telephone monopolies
  - long-distance telephone competition
12. Telecommunications Act
  - deregulated
  - signed 1996
  - integrated services to provide “competition”
    - local
    - long distance
    - video
    - mobile telephone
  - consolidation of baby bells
    - AT&T
    - Verizon
    - Qwest
13. Mobile Telephone
  - consolidated industry
  - landline phone companies
  - dude, where’s my disruption?