Information could travel no faster than the gallop
of a horse in the centuries before the telegraph. Once information
could be represented and transmitted in patterns of electrical signals,
large-scale
communication networks were quickly established as
critical infrastructure for society. These networks spanned
regional and national administrative domains, and they depended on standards
for information exchange and facilities for addressing and routing
message traffic through the network.
Instantaneous communication across cities, continents and oceans
gave rise to key institutions of today's society: global
news media, national
markets and banking systems, and the ideas of "the international
community" and what Marshall McLuhan.called "the global village".
Along with these came early forms of e-mail, electronic
commerce, online chat, and wire fraud.
We'll discuss the Victorian Internet over three or four days.
Day 1: Innovation and Acceptance
- How is information sent over the wires? What were the key
technical innovations that make the transmission more effective: faster,
more expressive, more reliable, more automatic? Do you think these
innovations are still relevant today?
- What was the role of government and the marketplace in incubating
the technology? Could the telegraph have happened if government had
not invested in it? Should government support scientific research, or are
the benefits outweighed by the damage of competing with private industry?
What about government funding of deployments, i.e., bringing the
products to market? With respect to this question, is
government investment in infrastructure (roads, bridges, transport,
telecommunications, power) different from government investment in,
say, TV sets, cars, and telephones?
- What were the key barriers to acceptance of the technology by
the society? How did the innovators overcome these barriers?
How long did it take for society to recognize the potential?
- "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic."
(Arthur C. Clarke). Discuss.
Day 2: Interconnection and Switching
Reading: chapters 4-6.
- The telegraph grew "from the bottom up". What economic factors
drove interconnection of different isolated telegraph systems? How
did economics influence the topology (shape) of the network?
- What new technical problems did interconnection introduce?
How were they solved? Are these innovations still relevant today?
- What new technical problems were introduced as traffic volumes
grew?
How were they solved? Are these innovations still relevant today?
Day 3: Impacts and Evolution
Reading: the rest of the story.
- The telephone largely replaced the telegraph. Will the
Internet be superseded by something more powerful? What will replace it?
- Could the telephone have happened without the telegraph?
- How did these inventions impact the society? What can we learn
about how the Internet has changed and will continue to change society?
- What new legal/regulatory issues were raised by the telegraph?
How did governments respond to them? What principles of governance
determined their responses: were there useful historical antecedents,
or did governments have to develop new principles and powers?