12 - The Convergence of Technologies

Abstract

This chapter discusses the merging of the telecommunications, cable TV, and Internet service industries. Television was invented in the early 1930s, but did not become commercially viable until after World War II (1947). The vast majority of customers in the 1950s/1960s received television signals via the airways on VHF and UHF channels. The cable TV industry emerged in the mid-1950s when communities, mostly in the western states and mountainous regions, banded together to provide community TV antennae. In many countries, cable TV companies have seized the opportunities presented by deregulation of telecommunications. Deregulation has allowed competition with national telecommunications companies that previously had a monopoly. The chapter also discusses the convergence of telephony with computing. Computer telephony integration (CTI) is about the relationship between a telephone call and associated data held on a computer. Many businesses now use CTI, which has developed over a number of years and has now reached the point where the computer performs the switching of the call. Both of these developments are driven by advances in technology, cultural changes, a new service-based economy, and the deregulation of telecommunications in many countries.