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Arguably, telecommunications as we know it today began when Samuel Morse, an American painter and inventor, publically demonstrated his version of the electric telegraph in 1838.
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In 1862, a coast-to-coast telegraphy line was launched, and proved to be an instant success.
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The first commercial telephone services were set up on both sides of the Atlantic in 1878-79.
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The first switchboard became operational in Connecticut in 1878, together with telephone numbers and directories.
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In 1915, the first transcontinental telephone call was made. But it took another 12 years before such calls became possible for general customers with the help of radio technology.
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In the 1920s, using a fast-moving Nipkow disk, Scottish engineer John Logie Baird demonstrated it was possible to transmit moving images in London in what came to be known as a mechanical television.
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The BBC started experimenting with TV broadcasts in 1929, building on Baird’s work.
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American inventor Philo Farnsworth used the cathode ray tube to make an early version of a television device. He demonstrated it publically in 1934 in Philadelphia.
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The cellular network was integrated into a coherent system initially by innovations such as the TAT-1 cable and international direct dialling in the 1950s and 1960s.
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The first transatlantic telephone cable was set up as late as 1956.
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In 1958, a US satellite was used to transmit a presidential Christmas message to the world.
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In 1960, the Echo satellite was launched by Nasa for radio communication. In the same year, the first-ever repeater active satellite was launched.
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In 1962, at the height of the Cold War, MIT researcher JCR Licklider conceived a plan to build a “galactic network” of computers which would enable important US leaders to talk to each other in case the Soviets attacked and disabled the telephone system.
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The ARPAnet grew slowly through the 1970s, and universities in the US and Europe were added to the network. But the system of packet switching had reached its limits.
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The age of the handheld cellular mobile phone began in April 1973 when Motorola’s Martin Cooper made a mobile phone call in front of journalists.
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In the late 1970s, American computer scientist Vinton Cerf developed a system for the various small networks of the world to talk to each other, or do the “handshake”. This critical innovation was called Transmission Control Protocol or TCP, later expanded to include Internet Protocol or IP. (The acronym TCP/IP is used even today.)
