|
Categories - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services Category: Telecommunications
In addition to the obvious personal benefits, the quick expansion of a national telecom network has resulted in the rapid economic development of the United States. It has allowed the entire country to instantly share its wealth of information. Companies have not had to wait for days to receive information that manufacturing depended on or about break throughs in technology or changes in company direction. The work force can now instantly get information it needs and even its education as a result of the national telecommunications network. Just as with electrical power, the deployment of telecom infrastructures occurred rapidly in urban areas where the number of tightly packed subscribers resulted in a revenue stream that justified the investment. In rural areas, however, the same economic opportunity didn't exist and a stimulus was required to insure that telecommunications services were deployed to the many small towns and farms that still cover the vast majority of the country. The Rural Electrification Agency, REA, had been formed under Teddy Roosevelt's New Deal administration in order to guarantee longer term loans at lower interest rates to help facilitate the spread of electrical power to rural areas. In 1949, Congress expanded the REA's reach into telecommunications allowing the same services to be used to stimulate the spread of telecom services throughout the country. The agency is now called the Rural Utility Service, RUS, and is assisting in the adoption of things like wind turbines and VOIP. Rural co-ops sprang up with the members sharing in the costs, effort, and benefits of the co-op while installing miles of telephone cable. Some of the fledgling telephone companies would have as few as 40 customers in 40 square miles. Even today, it's not unusual to find 500 customers supported with 200 miles of cable. An Iowa farmer, still, also runs the phone company in his small community of 215 people. He has managed to install fiber optic cable and provide xDSL services to the local school and businesses while taking care of his farm. The gargantuan efforts, technological capability, and business skills involved in this undertaking cannot be overstated. The vast majority of the 1,200 telephone companies in the U.S. have 1,000 customers or less. While accomplishing the task of providing up-to-date services to their subscribers, these small TelCos have also managed to be profitable and always pay their bills as they have negotiated a myriad of government regulations and rate controls that have been imposed on them. Their conquest and ongoing struggle, as they introduce new services like xDSL and VOIP, is very news worthy, but their contribution never makes the news. In order for the nation's telecom backbone to function, the TelCos all must share their networks with each other equally. Not one of them wants to be the one that is not shared with and therefore unable to keep customers happy as they make national and international calls, surf the web, and share files. Now, however, the government, based on a lack of knowledge and wild speculation, is trying to impose net neutrality. This will cause the TelCos to have to make major investments in their networks just to meet government requirements with no increase in revenue to cover the cost. Once again, our communications network is being threatened by the very people that it serves. As computer technology and telecommunications technology have begun to converge, we find a new range of telecommunications services available. In the next ten years, assuming that the backbone is not destroyed by the government, you will be able to choose between the major networks, movies, college classes, the Internet, emergency services, and video teleconferencing with your office, friends, and family, all with your TV remote control. Our televisons will no longer be referred to as boob tubes.
|
