B72-19 Future Developments in Telecommunications

Abstract

J. Martin has succeeded in writing an eminently readable book about telecommunications that is refreshingly different from the usually stuffy textbooks full of technical jargon. Future Developments in Telecommunications is provocative, informative, and will be enjoyed equally by laymen with a passing interest in telecommunications, sociologists who are looking for thought-provoking notions of the effect of future communications on society, businessmen whose future life blood will be at the mercy of telecommunications, and the "experts" in the field of telecommunications, namely the computer users and the communications systems analysts. It is remarkable indeed that a book can be written that would have such a wide audience without becoming trivial to persons actively engaged in the development and operation of telecommunications systems. However, J. Martin has succeeded in one of his aims by demonstrating to nontechnical and technical audiences alike, the catalytic effect that communications presently have on the development of society and how this effect is likely to be magnified in the future, even–to the extent of affecting world prosperity and political systems. He raises many interesting and thought-provoking questions on the social challenges we will have to overcome as telecommunications grinds inexorably forward affecting more and more of the lives of each of us.