4. Highways in the Sky [Next | Previous | Contents]

The Telephone Connection

There have been a number of technical and institutional developments which have played a major role in the development of a world economy. Included are: the establishment of scheduled shipping and airline routes, the construction of railroad and highway networks, the adoption of time zones and standards for a universal postal system, and the creation of a global telephone network. Each of these developments has played a role in moving the world economy from its previous rural-agrarian base to its current urban-industrial base.

Until recently the world economy has been dominated by those networks which facilitate the movement of goods and services (through people), such as ships, trains, trucks and planes. However, technologies which support the rapid communication of information are now the dominant force in the world economy, and it appears likely that they will move the world economy from an urban-industrial base to a distributed-information base. These technologies include broadcast television and radio, and cable TV. But the primary technology supporting this change is the telephone network.

The telephone network is no longer a telephone network but the major communication ‘highway’ of the world.

That’s because the phone business is no longer just a phone business. It’s a computer driven telecommunications network that in a very real sense constitutes the electronic lifeblood of countries all over the world. Everything depends on it — communications, transportation, education, business, hospitals, you name it. [1]

De-regulation in North America has made it possible for users of the telephone system to ‘plug-in’ a large number of different devices beside the standard voice telephone, such as: facsimile machines, telex machines, computers communicating through modems, and portable cellular phones. This connection freedom is common in almost all parts of the world. In addition, the introduction of digital lines, fiber optics, automated switching, satellite relays, and computer access ports has made the telephone network the most versatile communication network on earth.

The telephone network is simple to use and provides bi-directional and multi-directional communication (for example in a conference call), in a fully random-access mode where any point is accessible to any other point. It provides direct access to almost any point on earth, as you can see by a quick review of the front pages of any North American telephone book. It has a massive installed base of access points (approaching 1 billion [2]) and can carry voice information, music, still images (e.g., photographs), video signals, and alphanumeric data.

The importance of the telephone network will continue to grow during this decade as communication speeds on the network improve, as the network becomes able to support a greater variety of media, and as it becomes cheaper to use. The greater capacity of the network will be facilitated by the increased use of satellites and the wide-spread introduction of fiber optics (FOX).

Over the next twenty five years many more satellites will be launched. Currently one satellite has enough transmission capacity to provide every man, woman and child in the United States and Canada with a personal computer data link. [3] Each generation of satellite will handle more data more reliably and over a longer life than the previous generation.

FOX cables also carrying amazing volumes of information, and can act as substitutes for satellites. The FOX cable installed between the U.S. and Japan can provide 40,000 simultaneous circuits. [4] The installation of a FOX network has been underway in NA since the late 1970s. FOX cables have also been installed across the Atlantic, and more will be installed during this decade. This network of FOX cables will make available an inexpensive long-distance communication channel accessible to anyone on the telephone network. Fifth generation FOX technology is under development in the research laboratories, and promises to provide capacities and speeds on the network that can only boggle the mind. [5], [6]

Other communication devices besides telephones, and entire networks (e.g., cable television) are being completely integrated with the telephone network. Devices on these networks are able to communicate over the telephone network with devices in remote locations. Within a few years 95% of all computer networking in the U.S. will be carried out on the telephone lines already installed. [7]

In addition, standards have been defined for the introduction of an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) that “promises to change the nature of the telephone and to speed up the movement of information around the world.” [8] The ISDN standard and the similar Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) integrated-services platform permit many types of computers to communicate with one another, and permit the telephone network to carry images and live motion video in real-time in addition to the voice and data it already carries. By the end of this century, telephone conversations will represent only a very small portion of the information carried on the telephone network.

Field trials have been completed to test portions of the ISDN standards. Japan was the first country to begin field trials in Mitaka in 1984. The Japanese expected to have 200 cities connected to the ISDN network by 1990 and to make the network available nationwide by 1995. [9] Other countries such as Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany, Singapore, and Italy all have, at least limited, ISDN networks available today. [10], [11] The beginnings of a nationwide ISDN service in the U.S. was officially launched in the fall of 1992, and initially connected 20 major cities. [12] In early 1992, most of the regional Bell operating companies in the U.S. planned to have at least 50% of their lines in wire centres incorporating ISDN within two years. [13] By the end of the century every urban user of the telephone, and most rural users, will probably have access to ISDN services.

China is planning a major installation of telecommunication technology and expects to leapfrog the rest of the world by adopting ISDN. “Intelsat claims that satellites will be able to bring ISDN to the rest of the world during the 1990s. Intelsat claims that there are now ISDN plans in Brazil, Ecuador, India, Ivory Coast and Peru.” [14]

Similar pilots of the newer ATM protocol developed by IBM, AT&T and Northern Telecom have been conducted on a 15,000 km transpacific cable and in a network connecting universities in Illinois and Wisconsin. [15] ATM may prove to be the standard communication medium of choice because it has the potential to integrate voice and data on a seamless network. [16]

The wide-spread use of satellites, FOX, ISDN, and ATM will make it practical to send over the telephone network the large volumes of data required to support video images. The transfer of voice information, video signals, or alphanumeric data will be practically instantaneous. Information will move at close to the speed of light (around the world 7 times in a second), and you will be able to communicate to any other point on earth as quickly as a conversation could travel from Bronx to Manhattan. [17]

Plug Compatible

Within the next twenty five years amazing new computers and telecommunication devices will become available. These will permit you to communicate via satellite and the telephone network with another person located anywhere on earth. You will have available devices such as the following:

• A multi-display video phone which will carry your voice on one channel, and a high resolution three dimensional image of you as you talk, on a second channel. [18],  [19] The ‘phone’ will also provide additional channels for carrying text or graphics which you may wish to display on a separate device while speaking. [20],  [21] You will be able to interact with the person at the other end of the line, much as you do while talking in his or her presence. You will be able to draw pictures, point at displayed objects, and move quickly from one ‘page’ of display to another.
  
  Singapore offers today live motion commercial vidoephone services across a digital network. [22] When digital networks become more common, moving images will be transmitted along with voice data.
  
  In the past, the commonly available technology was an obstacle to providing this kind of service. But now with faster computers, compression software and fiber optics connections it is possible to provide video phone services even on copper wires. The only remaining obstacles to the wide-spread introduction of video phones are the price and the critical mass of installed units required to make them really useful. [23]
  
  Companies such as Mitsubishi, Sony, Ricoh, Northern Telecom and AT&T have all introduced video phones. [24],  [25],  [26] These video phones cost around $400 to $1,500 U.S., but as demand and production volume increases the price will probably drop. At first, the use of video phones will appear in business environments. But just as with the introduction of cellular phone, it will not be long before individuals are using video phones for personal use. [27]

• A pocket-sized unit in the form of a thin hinged sheet, which will act as a portable display and communication device. You will be able to obtain information from any computer to which you have access permission, or speak with any person on the telephone network, anywhere on earth.
  
  This unit will be powered by light so it will not require batteries or an electrical power outlet. In urban areas it will be possible to connect this unit into any telephone port. In urban or rural areas it will be possible to connect it to a small device containing a receiver and transmitter which will permit you to communicate directly with a satellite, and via the satellite with the telephone network. [28],  [29]

• A flat screen with at least twice the resolution of today’s TVs or standard computer monitors. [30] These screens will be available in many sizes including wall-sized units of less than an inch thick  [31] for viewing life-sized images of co-workers or TV shows, movies, graphics, and art; and smaller ones the size and thickness of a clipboard for viewing text, diagrams or video images. These smaller ones will permit you to display ‘pages’ as quickly as you can flip the pages of a book, and will be as convenient and as comfortable to use as a book or magazine.

• A fully portable communication module about the size of a watch or credit card you will wear on your wrist, carry in your pocket,  [32] or wear like sun-glasses. [33] This module will act much like a portable telephone does today, but will be considerably smaller.
  
  This communication module will permit you to communicate with a computer to check, for example, your bank account and transact a transfer of funds to a store where you are currently shopping. Your voice ‘print’ will be checked, and within seconds the store’s computer will register the payment.
  
  It will also be connected into the Personal Communications Network (PCN) which is in the planning stages in the phone companies. [34] This network will consist of small ground-based communication cells in urban areas in a Public Cordless Telephone Service (PCTS) network  [35] and a world-girdling network of dozens of satellites such as the Iridium network of 66 satellites planned by Motorola  [36] or the network of hundreds of satellites planned by Bill Gates. These networks will provide you with a personal phone number which you will be able to use in the office or at home. By telling the PCN where you are, a phone call could be routed to you anywhere in the world.

Many parts of the fully digital optical telecommunications network are already in place, and the devices for the next generation of personal communications are being planned today or already are under construction. For example AT&T’s digital long-distance optical network is well developed and stretches at least 140,000 kms world-wide. [37]

Future networks will likely complement or merge with office-information systems, home-entertainment electronics, and existing communications equipment and networks. Those integrated systems will remove most geographical and media obstacles from everyday personal and business discourse. ... The move is toward something that could be called universal communications. [38]

Electronic Mail

Two and a half millennia ago the Persians established a network of mounted couriers which held together an empire of 40 million people. This empire extended over the largest area ever brought under one rule up to that time. Mail could travel from Sardis to Susa (2400 kms) in under a week. [39] The Greek historians Herodotus (484?-425 BC) and Xenophon (445-355 BC) were both impressed by this system and wrote of it with admiration. It is the words of Herodotus which have become the slogan used by the U.S. postal system and are familiar to every North American: “Neither snow, nor rain, nor the gloom of night keeps these messengers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Not to be outdone, the Romans had their cursus publicus which tied together their administration. This postal system survived the fall of the Empire, but slowly deteriorated in the Middle Ages. During the late Middle Ages attempts were made to re-establish a postal system in Europe (for example, the Germanic Butcher Post of the mid-thirteenth century [40]). But nothing in Europe during this period could compare with the system established by the Khans. This system as described by Marco Polo (1254-1324) in the account of his journey to the Far East was more sophisticated than the Persian postal system, and included most of the territory which had been under Persian Rule, plus northern India, Mongolia and China.

The western world did not see the return of comprehensive postal systems until Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) laid the foundation in the colonies and Rowland Hill (1772-1842) of England published his book, Post Office Reform: Its Importance and Practicability (1837). Since then the world has been brought under one postal system, under the jurisdiction of the Universal Postal Union established in 1874.

From Persia to the 20th century the movement of mail has contributed greatly to the smooth running of each civilization. However, recently there has been much dissatisfaction with the public postal system in Canada. [41] The cost of sending a first-class letter has risen 500% in the past twenty years. A letter moves no more quickly today between Toronto and Ottawa or Toronto and Vancouver than it did 40 to 50 years ago. Saturday mail service is long gone, and in many places home delivery has been replaced by neighbourhood mail drop-off locations called (euphemistically) ‘super boxes’. There have been a number of mail strikes, some of which have shut down the system for weeks. Although the U.S. mail system is somewhat more efficient than the Canadian system, and the workers are not allowed to strike, there seems to be a similar degree of dissatisfaction with the U.S. mail system.

Dissatisfaction with government run postal systems has encouraged businesses to seek alternate means of communicating internally, with other businesses, and with their customers. [42] In North America the growth of alternatives to the postal system has been astounding. As a result, the postal system in NA is dying a slow death. It is becoming essentially a service for moving ‘junk’ mail (advertising, catalogues, and announcements) [43], and “although paper is still the preferred medium for many ... if they could deliver the right page out of the ... catalogue to the right person, they wouldn’t send the whole catalogue.” [44]

The most visible alternative to the postal system is that provided by courier services. Many businesses now routinely use local couriers for intra-city delivery of mail, and large national and international couriers for moving mail overnight to almost any point in North America, and within a few days to almost any city in the world.

However, the courier system will be a temporary phenomenon, with a shorter life than the postal system. The use of couriers has arisen only because the public postal system has failed to meet the needs of businesses which can afford a faster and more efficient service. These same businesses are also those which can afford other alternatives to the public postal system. Some of these alternatives are much less visible than the brightly painted trucks and planes of the couriers since they use the telephone network to move information.

There are a number of different ways that information is being moved over the telephone system, such as telex messages and facsimile transmission. The latter is very popular in Japan where hand written communication still predominates because typewriters and word processors have been difficult to develop and use. But the method which is growing the fastest in North America is electronic mail (E-mail).

In my company we have an in-house E-mail system. With its text-editing facility I can prepare a memo or longer text document. Or I can attach text (even very long documents, voice messages, diagrams, or any file in digital form) prepared on any computer in the office into a mail message. Once I have the text or file I want in my mail message, I can send it to one or 100 correspondents in any of our branches anywhere in the world. Each of my correspondents has a PC on his desk and can read his mail at his convenience. In order to reply it is necessary for him to select the reply function from the menu, and the system automatically prepares the ‘envelope’ for him. He can type his reply at his PC or move it in from a word processor, computer file or any other device (such as a page scanner) which can prepare a digital file.

I find the E-mail system an effective means of communicating. It saves time when conversation is not necessary. I can also be assured that the correspondent reads the message (in fact the system will give me the date and time when the message was read, if I request it). One example will show how the system proves effective. To make capital expenditures in our company we need approval from the corporate controller. Once I needed this approval quickly. I sent an E-mail message describing the request and the reason to the controller and to other people in corporate accounting. On that day our controller was not in Ottawa (our Canadian corporate office) but was in Washington (our U.S. corporate office). I did not know this. Nevertheless he was able to read his mail in Washington and send his approval. Once I had received his approval, I sent a copy of the purchase order via facsimile transmission to the hardware vendor (our company E-mail system allows us to send FAX messages from within the E-mail system.)

Using the E-mail system, I had obtained approval and placed the order in a few hours and for less than a dollar for communication costs. In contrast, if I had used the postal system it would have taken at least a week; and if I had used a courier it would have cost the company about twenty dollars.

The in-house E-mail system within my company has been accepted by almost everyone who has access to it, and it is being used for an increasing percentage of the communication among employees. Many national and international companies have set up an in-house E-mail system. “Messages and memos move silently and instantaneously. Terminals at every desk — thousands of them in any large organization — flicker quietly as information flows through the system, bouncing up to a satellite and down to an office half-way around the world or to a terminal in an executive’s home.” [45]

Your immediate response might be one of indifference. You say that you cannot afford the cost of connecting into an E-mail system; and anyway, only one or two of those with whom you communicate has a personal computer. It may appear that the development and use of E-mail systems makes sense only for large international corporations which need to tie together thousands of employees, or for companies which have to move information quickly to save money (e.g., the banks, or stock brokers) or to stay ahead of the competition. But, "E-mail will catch on in the home. It’s just extraordinarily useful and convenient." [46]

E-mail may be used primarily by businesses today, but will likely go through the same acceptance life-cycle as did the typewriter and word processor. Within a few years E-mail systems will become so widely available that you will have access to one in your home. CompuServe, as an example, provides an E-mail service which is being used by private individuals for education, hobby and personal business needs.

Consider the analogy provided by the typewriter and a PC with word processing software. In 1873 E. Remington and Sons, gun makers of Ilion, NY, began to mass produce typewriters. The first demand for typewriters was in business, and a number of new jobs came into existence centered around the use of this new device. [47] Soon typewriters began to appear in private homes. For 100 years the sale of typewriters became a major source of revenue for companies such as Remington, IBM, and Olivetti.

In the mid-_70s a significant trend began: the computer in the form of a word processor began to replace the typewriter. Until this time computers had been used primarily for processing numeric data and, to a limited extent, text. But since the appearance of the word processor, a growing percentage of computer power has been used to process text. In twenty five years the amount of information (which today we call text) which will be received, ‘massaged’, stored, and transmitted by computers, will exceed any projection based upon current trends.

At first word processors were expensive, difficult to use and unreliable. Only daring companies introduced them. There were fears among secretaries, troubles with unions, numerous cost-benefit studies and installation headaches. I encountered these problems as I introduced word processors into a municipal government in the mid-_70s. There are still problems like this being encountered in some organizations. But today it is almost assumed that a company will buy word processing software and a PC rather than a typewriter. This is certainly the case in my company. In the Toronto office, we have only one typewriter left for about 150 employees, but everyone has a PC with word processing software.

Today the manufacture of typewriters is as significant as the proverbial manufacture of buggy whips. Word processing software is moving out of businesses into home and school. There are a number of universities which now require all entering freshmen to have their own personal computer with word processing software. A growing number of high school students also using word processing software. Churches and pastors, if not currently using personal computers with word processing packages, are at least thinking about the possibility. The word processor, in about 15 years, has moved from a leading edge technology to being commonplace.

As the typewriter and word processor moved from the business to the home, so will E-mail. This will happen very soon, since “the electronic mail market is starting to heat up.” [48] The number of subscribers connected to commercial systems such as CompuServe, America Online, and E-mail providers on the Internet is in the tens of millions. In addition, there are large private E-mail systems. For example, around 40,000 employees in Digital Equipment Corporation send 400,000 messages per day to one another, and at IBM almost every employee is connected to an in-house E-mail system. [49] It was estimated that in 1992, in the 2000 largest companies in the U.S., there were almost 12 million E-mail users. This number was expected to increase to 27 million users by 1995. [50]

These different E-mail systems are being integrated through connections to common networks such as the Internet which has around 16,000 networks and almost two million host computers connected and many millions of users, and can be reached from 137 countries. [51], [52] In addition a standard for a global directory to integrate all E-mail systems has been defined. [53]

Subscribers continue to connect to E-mail systems at a rate of over 25% per year. As more subscribers send more mail over E-mail networks, the cost per item sent will drop. This will encourage more corporations to move to E-mail systems where the increasing volumes will bring dramatic price reductions. [54] At some point, the cost of creating and sending via the postal system a one page letter, will cost over $1, but the cost of sending the same information by E-mail will cost only a few cents. [55]

When it costs ten times as much to send a physical sheet of paper as to send the same information via E-mail, businesses will attempt to move all of their correspondence into the E-mail system, away from the postal system. Since a major source of the revenue for the postal system is business mail, it will not be long before the postal corporations will feel the effect of losing this important source of revenue. [56] As their revenue base contracts, prices will inevitably climb even higher. Corporations which deal with the public will look for ways to send bills electronically, and the average citizen will find it too expensive to use the postal system to send letters and payments. The increasing cost of moving paper will be the primary cause of most households in North America being brought into the E-mail network.

The capital costs of entering the E-mail network are not as high as might be expected. France provides the best example of the computer terminal becoming as a standard domestic appliance. As part of radical changes to the French telephone system, mass-produced terminals that cost as little as $30 [57] are being installed in every home. [58] The French system provides each phone subscriber access to an electronic telephone ‘book’ [59] and 15,000 other services such as the USA Today data base, and electronic shopping and banking. [60], [61] There are currently over 5 million subscribers to this system, and at the peak 100,000 additional subscribers were being added each month. The agency set up to establish this service expected to recoup its investment in five years. [62] The French Minitel system is now going global and is available in the U.S..

In North America, computer terminals/phones are already available (e.g., the Display Phone made by Northern Telecom). By the end of this century North Americans will be able to purchase compact display phones instead of the touch-tone phone of today. When produced by the millions these will cost around $30. [63] But their purchase may be subsidized by corporations such as the phone company, banks, large department stores or utility companies which will find it cost effective to have customers connected to the E-mail network.

In addition to display phones, over a third (approaching half) of all homes in North America have a personal computer. Most of these computer can be modified to access the E-mail network. Also cable TV suppliers are integrating their networks with the Internet. [64] It is technically feasible today to supply every home in NA (currently connected to cable TV), with access to the Internet E-mail network.

However E-mail terminals are paid for or supplied, every home with a phone, TV or computer will be connected to the E-mail system within twenty years. The conventional postal systems will be replaced with an electronic substitute [65] which is being built around the telephone system — the highway in the sky.

Homeward Bound

The construction of highways has had a significant impact on the production, work, consumption, and recreation patterns of North Americans. Today North Americans seem to spend a major portion of their lives in cars and life seems to be centered around the automobile. Most people (at least 85% [66]) commute to work by car, often spending more than 30 minutes driving each way. Suburban shopping malls and cinemas surrounded by acres of paving have become the symbol of our age.

The Church also has been affected by this phenomenon. What church would not include in its advertising a notice of ample parking along with the availability of air conditioning and nursery services? Highways have contributed to the development of large regional commuter churches with vast parking lots and programs for everyone. This in turn has had a destructive impact on the neighbourhood church.

But the age of transportation and the age of the commuter may be nearing their end for a number of reasons. First, the cost of moving goods and people likely will increase as the earth’s supply of petroleum declines. Alternate sources of power for automobiles and trucks will become available but probably will be more expensive than gasoline or diesel fuel. Goods locally produced in factories designed for ‘mass customization’, and from regionally available raw materials will be cheaper than goods produced in distant parts of the continent or in foreign countries. It will also become more expensive to move people to and from their places of work or recreation. This may result in a change in people’s behaviour and reduce the amount of commuting that they are willing to do.

Second, the increased cost of transportation will be accompanied by the increasing availability, and decreasing relative cost, of powerful new communication devices which will profoundly affect the way people work together.

The industrial economies are now in the early stages of another transformation that may ultimately be at least as significant [as the industrial revolution].

Changes in the economies of production and transportation drove the revolution of the last century. The revolution underway today will be driven not by changes in production but by changes in coordination. Whenever people work together, they must somehow communicate ... [67]

AT&T, Bellcore, Xerox PARC and other similar organizations have been using permanent video links and video phones in an experimental capacity within some of their offices for a number of years. Reports indicate that the person using this form of communication “senses in his conversation an enhanced feeling of proximity and intimacy with the other party.” [68]

The advanced communications devices which will become available in the next decade will make it even easier for many people to work together from remote locations. The workplace is being transformed by these electronic media. “Engineers quitting for the day pass design problems over time zones much like a baton in an endless relay race; companies call upon researchers separated by oceans to collaborate on complex projects. Corporate E-mail is breaking down hierarchies by making upper managers more accessible and speeding up the pace of research.” [69] Many of the information intensive jobs in the 21st will be performed by people using video phones, E-mail and links to computer networks.

The accessibility of the communications network from office or home, will make it increasingly easier for people to work form their homes and unnecessary for them to commute regularly to a place of work. An example was documented in the business section of the Toronto Star. [70] The article describes how Delta Hotels has established automatic telephone routing for some of its reservation agents. These agents are supplied with telephone and computer terminal links and can access the same information as agents working in the central reservation area. This arrangement is especially effective for part-time work as it eliminates the travel requirement. The article states: “Callers don’t know they’ve reached ‘Sally’ the helpful reservation agent in her kitchen. Neither does the Delta computer on Church St., which distributes the calls to a free agent.” [71]

Another example is what IBM has accomplished in Toronto. It was able to cut over $40 million from its annual real-estate costs by providing technology to about 900 of its employees. This technology permits the employees to work from their homes and cars and to visit small regional offices around the metro area only as required. [72]

Third, more than half of the work force in NA is already employed in jobs which involve the production or manipulation of information. This percentage will probably increase as the resource extraction and manufacturing jobs become more automated. As the percentage grows, the use of the communications network will also increase.

These trends — the increasing financial and social cost of commuting; the increasing availability of digital communication links in the home, and the use of E-mail and video phones; and the increasing percentage of the work force involved in information processing — will likely reduce the amount of commuting and change the manner in which people perform their work. They will be ‘telecommuting’ rather than commuting to work.

Access in the home to the new communication media (e.g., cable shopping networks, America Online, the World Wide Web on the Internet, etc.) will also make it possible for people to do some (or all) of their shopping, [73], [74] and much of their schooling and business (such as banking [75] or consulting a lawyer) from their homes. They will even be able to ‘see’ a doctor from their home or consult with a specialist from a remote clinic. This may be accomplished using the emerging ‘virtual reality’ technology which will permit a doctor to provide treatment almost as effectively as when being present with the patient. [76]

Shopping at home has been possible for generations. Sears has had its mail and phone order catalogue, magazines have carried thousands of classified ads for products which can be purchased through the mail, and TV has carried advertisements for kitchen products, records, and other consumer goods. Shopping from home is not a new phenomenon. But the nature of this phenomenon will change over the next twenty five years. In Canada the Home Shopping Network became available across the cable TV network in 1987. [77], [78] Over 25,000 products were initially made available on this network. Goods purchased over a toll-free telephone connection were shipped via couriers in their delivery area, and in remote locations by Canada Post (another death blow to the postal system — the postal system was left with the unprofitable deliveries).

In the U.S., the J. C. Penny Co. launched a $40 million pilot project in Chicago (with Cableshare) to provide its Telaction home shopping system to 125,000 homes. J. C. Penny said that, depending on how the system fared in Chicago, it would extend the service to 20 major cities within a year, and to more than 60 centers during the next five years. [79] At the time other companies, including Abercrombie & Fitch, American Airlines, American Express, Kinney Shoe Corp., Marshall Field’s and Speigel, all expressed an interest in the use of Telaction.

IBM and Sears also worked together on a computerized information and shopping network called Prodigy. From 1984 through 1988 they invested $400 million in the service and introduced it in 1988 in San Francisco. The service became available nationwide through computer access and through cable TV. Prodigy includes Dow Jones information, USA Today, brokerage services and many shopping services, including grocery shopping. [80], [81]

With the arrival of the World Wide Web and electronic-commerce, the commercial services such as Telaction and Prodigy are being folded into Web-based service offerings. E-commerce is still somewhat immature due to the complexity of providing secure electronic funds transfer. But with companies such as Microsoft and the major credit card vendors working frantically to provide secure transactions, E-commerce will likely become a major force in the 21st century economy.

When the TV broadcasting and cable TV networks begin supporting HDTV (High Definition TV), home shopping will get another boost. HDTV will give twice the resolution of current TV which will provide bigger (even wall sized) screens, with a sharp image. The products shown on these TV or computer screens will be more clearly defined than on present screens, and for example, it will be possible to see what clothing will look like on an image of yourself. [82] This will improve the visual presentation of goods and make it more likely that consumers will be attracted to make purchases through the network rather than in person.

Another key development which will make home shopping an attractive alternative will be the increasing efficiency of the network to supply competitive information about products. Shopping by browsing around a ‘video mall’ as if you were actually in the store [83] will be augmented by databases of competitive information about products which can be accessed for a fee. In addition there will be more accurate pricing information. A purchaser will be able to make a query and determine which supplier will provide a specified product (e.g., a standard appliance), with a 3 year warranty, delivered to her door. This type of electronic shopping will have a significant economic impact by changing the nature of advertising and marketing, by providing, theoretically, a more efficient market and by shifting the line between retailing and distribution. [84]

“Telecommunications facilities can act as a substitute for much travel, with people able to see each other ... at a great distance.” [85] It will be possible to carry out consultations with lawyers, bankers (for example to obtain a house mortgage), financial consultants, counselors, and other professionals via video phones. Documents, identification, and authorization will all pass over the digital network. The Los Angeles County Courts are moving in this direction already. A system is being used which allows lawyers to file briefs directly from their offices without having to make an appearance in court. Nearly two dozen court systems are using video conferencing for arraignment proceedings and for meetings with lawyers and probation officers. [86]

The next logical step will be to administer a trial via video conferencing, using for example, the VideoWindow developed by Bell Communications Research. [87] Initially this type of system will be used for corporate suits — for example, one dealing with the use of a copyright — for which there is no requirement to have a live jury present. As the capabilities of the communications systems become more sophisticated, face-to-face communication will be replaced by an electronic equivalent: video-to-video communication.

James Martin reported another use of a video phone at Boston’s airport. It was not possible to have a doctor at the airport for the occasional emergency. Also it was difficult to get a doctor to the airport quickly because of heavy traffic in the tunnel going to the airport. A nurse on duty at the airport was connected to a downtown hospital via a video link. When it was necessary to consult a doctor, the nurse and patient could be at one end of the link and any doctor on call at the hospital at the other end. The nurse had equipment in the clinic at the airport which she could use to let the doctor hear the heart rate of the patient and obtain a close up view of any part of the body. [88]

This form of telecommuting will, within a decade, permit doctors to perform endoscopic surgery on patients remotely. They will be assisted by 3D cameras manipulated by robot arms. [89] Pathology specialists are now able to perform diagnosis on tissue specimens for remote rural hospitals, the images and diagnostic instructions can be transmitted over standard telephone lines. [90] Doctors at the Hotel-Dieu de Montreal Hospital in Quebec have demonstrated the use of a robot arms to successfully operate on the gall bladders of three patients. Their conclusion is that this technique could be especially useful in rural hospitals where skilled surgeons are not always available. [91]

In remote areas of Canada, telemedicine is being used to provide medical services. [92] Within the next few decades it will be possible for any person in his home to communicate with a doctor, and, where a visit to a clinic is not necessary, to obtain a diagnosis [93] and even a prescription. [94] The prescription could then be ordered over the network from the nearest pharmacy. Doctors already use the telephone for some forms of diagnosis and even for renewing prescriptions. They will quickly adapt to new communication devices which will make it quicker for them to provide services to their patients.

When these new communication and computing devices are in place, they will probably have more impact on society than the other networks, such as highways, TV broadcasting, and the simple telephone network, have had:

Like the clock, the Net has the potential of being a technology that alters who we are as well as what we do. It will also impact our work habits, organizations, and transportation systems. [95]

With the elimination of distance as a significant communications cost factor, some tantalizing new prospects are opened up for the exploitation of the Electronic Highway concept. [96]

As with any social innovation, such communications-for-travel substitutions raise the possibility of future shock. [97]

[An] internal study of HP’s E-mail systems suggest that the “potential for real change caused by a medium which allows widely separated people to aggregate their needs is, in fact, quite frightening.” [98]

In short, cities will be transformed as the Information Superhighway develops. We will have to rethink spatial relationships, transportation connections and telecommunication linkages among homes, workplaces and service providers. Housing will have to be reconfigured ... The weakening or disappearance of traditional gathering places will require the creation of different foci for community life ... Offices, hospitals, schools, and shopping centers will fragment and recombine in surprising ways as virtual transactions and telepresence relax traditional requirements of proximity. ... This restructuring will take place on a massive scale. [99]

As people move to the communication network from commuting, there will likely be some impact on “the social and economic landscape.” [100] For example these changes may lead to economic decentralization. [101]

What will people do with the extra time made available through the reduction in driving? What will happen to North America’s infatuation with the ‘freedom’ provided by the automobile? Will there be fewer social problems as the tensions caused by commuting on densely packed highways are reduced? How will families cope when parents can work from home and children can ‘attend’ classes from home? Will marital problems increase or decrease? Will people need sources of face-to-face social interaction or will they be satisfied with social stimulation over the communication network? Will a new rural society emerge, as the cities die, since it will be no longer necessary for people to live in close proximity to carry on most of their daily activities? Or will people move into denser areas to have personal contact with people in recreation since they will have little of this contact in their work, business and shopping?

These are tough questions to answer. It is difficult to predict where technology is taking us. But we can suggest some possible directions and their impact, both bad and good, on the Church.

Mount Ebal

There are numerous distractions for the average North American which have made regular church attendance ‘unnecessary’ or ‘difficult’: Sunday religious TV programs, Sunday televised sports, wide-open Sunday shopping and recreation, weekend visits to the cottage, family events, over-time work, and household chores. The Electronic Highway will add even more distractions.

In addition, people who become accustomed to carrying out many of their transactions on the Electronic Highway may expect to get all of their religion from the same medium. Work at home, shop at home, bank at home — why not ‘attend’ church at home? The Electronic Highway could potentially have a greater impact on the Church than did the advent of the TV evangelists and TV broadcasting of church services, and continue the trend toward the privatization of religion. A Toronto futurist has written that:

One of the older members of my church once commented that when she was a girl her family’s whole social life — and therefore, most of their entertainment — arose from being members of the local church, with the suppers and parties that arose out of such membership. Today television, movies videos and computer games have all given us ways of getting our entertainment out of a box, instead of from the company of people around us. [102]

Beside contributing to the continuing trend toward the privatization of religion, the Electronic Highway will likely also add another destructive force. Our society is showing signs of an electronic narcosis. Isolation, alienation, fear, a negation of responsibility and depression are all symptoms of this narcosis. [103] Many of these can be traced to our electronic wonderland of TV, radio, cassette recorders, video recorders, compact disk players, computer games, and electronic toys. With the widespread introduction of new services on the Electronic Highway we can expect to see this narcosis increase.

Ray Bradbury in his book Fahrenheit 451 describes a society in which books are banned, and electronic gadgets rule. He published this book in 1953, yet it still gives a good indication of what may be the result of the Electronic Highway on society. One character (Clarisse) says the following:

“I’m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn’t it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this.” She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. “Or talking about how strange the world is. Being with people is nice. But I don’t think it’s social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you? An hour of TV class, and hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures ... but you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don’t; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four or more hours of film-teacher. That’s not social to me at all. It’s a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it’s wine when it’s not.” [104]

Will people be content working, carrying out their personal business, taking their education, and participating in some forms of recreation from home, via the Electronic Highway? Will they be happy using it for much of their communication with the world outside of their homes? Some futurists such as John Naisbett and Alvin Toffler believe that people will not be happy doing this. [105]

One writer has said that “machines may be used as time-savers ... but for most of the population, terminals will never be ‘face-savers’, the blinkings of a user-friendly screen will never replace a friendly smile.” [106] Toffler thinks that the lack of face-to-face contact on the job will rekindle the tradition of strong family life and deep community involvement. He believes that the ‘electronic cottage’ will “touch off a renaissance among voluntary organizations.” [107] And Marshall McLuhan said that “the ‘simultaneous field’ of electronic information structures, today reconstitutes the conditions and need for dialogue and participation, rather than specialism and private initiative in all levels of social experience.” [108]

The services provided by the Electronic Highway will likely become as ‘necessary’ in the future as is the telephone today and the electronic narcosis will increase. But at the same time people will wish that they could be rid of the whole world of technology. This love/hate relationship will increase the tensions in society.

Toffler thinks that this will bring out the voluntary spirit in society. He may be right. However, current trends indicate that support for voluntary organizations is declining in both financial and time contributions. This decline could probably be traced to a number of causes including increased government provision of social services, a divergence from the biblical ethic and the increasing alienation caused by electronic narcosis.

I do not think that the ‘electronic cottage’ is going to bring out the voluntary spirit in society. Instead it is going to increase the need for human services which can decrease alienation and fear. “There is plenty of fear. Fear of what might happen if we don’t, and fear of what might happen if we do computerize. Love is the only known antidote for fear.” [109]

Society will not be able to solve the problems of alienation and fear, with government or other solutions founded by man. True peace and love are ultimately only available through Christ. And it is the voluntary institution established by Christ, the Church, which carries the message of love. “As one of the few remaining personal interactive communities within society, the church has a responsibility and unique opportunity to embody the redemptive love of Christ.” [110]

The Church should lead the world in the use of the Electronic Highway as it did the use of the printing press. But it must also plan to balance the cold world of electronics with the warm personal love of the Gospel which touches human hearts. The Church can either succumb to the forces of privatization and narcosis wrought by the Electronic Highway or it can work against these forces and provide antidotes.

The Church must refocus its current efforts into building a strong fellowship of believers that meets together to share the love of Christ with those in their community. Martin Marty has said that “we have tens of thousands of local congregations, active centers of life for people, in witness and in work ... All of these churches are now too localist; they don’t see their neighbours’ needs and it’s hard to get networks going. ... We need to stimulate our imaginations to see how we can all work together. That’s our challenge for the future: to put our imaginations and our efforts into our churches.” [111]

Mount Gerizim

Keeping in Touch

“Radio and television have done much to homogenize culture. In England fifty years ago there was a wide variety of regional accents. ... Today the strong accents and provincial vocabulary are largely gone. Nearly everyone speaks with the range of accents used on radio and television.” [112] This homogenizing impact of radio and TV extends beyond the ubiquitous voice of the announcer. News of events in the Middle East is watched on TV sets at dinner from Germany to Japan. The whole world sees the same news, and almost as it is happening. Marshall McLuhan made much of this, and coined the phrase ‘global village’ to encompass this and similar phenomena of the electronic age.

However, this immediate, collective, and simultaneous awareness is limited to editorial content considered to be significant by the major news gathering agencies. News of the local and personal has not had the benefit of access to the electronic network. People living apart from their friends and families in another hemisphere (such as missionaries) or in remote communities (in Northern Canada, for example) are almost as isolated today as they would have been 50 years ago. Communication by air-mail letter still takes days and using the international long-distance telephone system still seems expensive for daily communication.

Marshall McLuhan’s global village has in some ways not yet been realized. But this is changing. Access to the world through direct dial on the telephone network is the first step. When we can communicate with anyone, via a video phone, anywhere on earth for little more than it will cost to make a local connection, isolation will be reduced. Those in remote locations will be able to keep informed daily, or more frequently if they choose, of events in their home community. They will not only be able to hear about a nephew taking his first steps; they will also be able to see it. At this point, much of the global village will become a reality.

This extension of computer and communication technology into the realm of personal communication will be a significant benefit for missionaries and for other church workers who are called upon to travel a lot or to be away from home for extended periods. [113], [114] They will be able to keep themselves informed and maintain contact almost as easily as they would if they were living in the next subdivision:

Fast changing technology is having effects around the world — in missions as in many other endeavours. The Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association board has decided that its quarterly bulletin, IFMA News, is no longer needed in view of the new means of communication. The association’s new executive, Hohn H. Orme, explained, “Communication today in the world of missions is at a level never imagined just a few years ago. Desktop publishing, faxed prayer sheets, electronic mail networks, computers, and modems are common in our agency office.” [115]

There could also be potential benefits for the home-bound, such as the elderly. However, here I am not as convinced that the impact of technological changes will be positive. Even today with two or more telephones in every home we don’t bother to contact the home-bound with any consistency or degree of care. It is possible that the changes in technology will make them feel more isolated than the most distant missionary feels. A blank video display is more forlorn than a silent bell on a phone.

Beyond the immediate and personal level of communication, the Electronic Highway will be an effective means for improving the institutional level of communication within the Church. In my denomination the members of a Presbytery extending over 1500 kms were able to use rudimentary offerings of the telephone system to hold a conference call for conducting a business meeting. This saved considerable travel expense and time and met with favourable response by most who participated. When video conferencing becomes inexpensive and readily available, meetings such as this will become the norm, where personal face-to-face meetings are not required.

The institutional church will also be able to use the network for keeping members informed. The Southern Baptists were one of the first denominations to establish a computer-communication network. One of their members has stated that “looking back years hence, we’ll probably see it was really a baby step into a fledgling technology, but to us now its a gigantic step which we suspect will alter our lives considerably. Not even our boldest visionaries can predict what the impact of this giant step into electronic networking will be.” [116]

The Open Road

For years no private individuals in Romania were allowed to own a photocopier; the reason: such devices might have been used for duplication and dissemination of forbidden thoughts. Near the end of his dictatorship, President Nicolae Ceausescu, turned his attention to even the lowly typewriter. [117] The words of the decree which he issued to control typewriters is as follows:

The renting or lending of a typewriter is forbidden. Every owner of a typewriter must have for it an authorization from the militia, which can be issued only after a request has been made. All private persons who have a typewriter must, in the next few days, seek to be issued with such an authorization.

Such a request, in writing, must be sent to the municipal militia, or the town or community militia, wherever the applicant happens to reside, and the following details must be supplied: first and second name of applicant; names of his parents; place and date of birth; address; profession; place of work; type and design number of the typewriter; how it was obtained (purchase, gift, inheritance); and for what purpose it is being used.

If the application is granted, the applicant will receive an authorization for the typewriter within 60 days. On a specified date, the owner of the typewriter must report with the machine at the militia office in order to provide an example of his typing. A similar example has to be provided every year, specifically during the first two months of the year, as well as after every repair to the typewriter. If the application is refused, the applicant can lodge an appeal, within 60 days, with his local militia. If the appeal is dismissed, the typewriter must be sold within 10 days (with a bill of sale) or given as a gift, to any person possessing the necessary authorization. Anyone wishing to buy a typewriter must first of all apply for an authorization. Anyone who inherits a typewriter or receives one as a gift must apply for an authorization at once.

Defective typewriters which can no longer be repaired must be sent to a collecting-point for such materials, but only after the typewriter’s keys, letters, numbers and signs have been surrendered to the militia.

If the owner of a typewriter should change his address, he must report the new address of the typewriter to the militia within five days. [118]

As has often been said: “truth is stranger than fiction.” If this passage was included in a spy novel, the average reader would think it was only a parody. But this was no novel, and it shows the extent to which a communist dictatorship was willing go to keep its people from publishing.

This same attitude has been reflected by the actions of other dictatorial regimes. A few years ago, an article in Time reported that the Soviet Union was allowing some private businesses to operate. But among those enterprises which are still prohibited “is the politically risky business of publishing.” [119] In China “more than 10 million illegally published books” were confiscated and 200 unlicensed publishing houses and more than 40 printing plants were closed. [120] In Saudi Arabia the government Ministry of Information has imposed a ban (and large fine) for the importation of satellite dishes which are used to receive uncensored television programs from outside the country. [121]

The Bible has often been the subject of confiscation. For example, in 303 A.D., Diocletian published an edict declaring that all churches were to be destroyed and all Bibles and liturgical books were to be handed over to the authorities. Wycliffe’s and Tyndale’s English translations were confiscated by a jealous Church and King. In this century Communist, [122] Islamic and other totalitarian dictatorships have tried at different times to stop the selling, distribution and even the reading of the Bible.

Ray Bradbury in his book Fahrenheit 451 speaks of a society in which books are banned; and since all buildings are made of fire-proof materials, the fire department’s role is to burn books. The principal character in the story (Montag a ‘fireman’) begins to steal books from the burning sites, and becomes attached to books. One of the books he keeps is the Bible:

Montag showed her [his wife] a book. “This is the Old and New Testament, and ...”
“Don’t start that again!”
“It might be the last copy in this part of the world.”
“You’ve got to hand it back tonight, don’t you? Captain Beatty knows you’ve got it, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t think he knows which book I stole.” [123]

Mildred’s mouth twitched. “See what you’re doing? You’ll ruin us! Who’s more important, me or that Bible?” She was beginning to shriek now, sitting there like a wax doll melting in its own heat. [124]

Montag took the Bible to Faber to get it copied before he would give it back to Beatty.

“It’s been a long time. I’m not a religious man. But it’s been a long time.” Faber turned the pages, stopping here and there to read. “It’s as good as I remember. Lord, how they’ve changed it in our ‘parlours’ these days. Christ is one of the ‘family’ now. I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we’ve dressed him up, or is it dressed him down? He’s a regular peppermint stick now, all sugar-crystal and saccharine when he isn’t making veiled references to certain commercial products that every worshipper absolutely needs.” [125]

After fleeing from the police Montag comes upon a group which has saved books by memorizing them. He meets Granger who tells him:

“We’re book burners, too. We read the books and burnt them, afraid they’d be found. Microfilming didn’t pay off; we were always travelling, we didn’t want to bury the film and come back later. Always the chance of discovery. Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it. We are all bits and pieces of history and literature. ...” [126]

Granger makes reference to microfilm as a means of preserving books. This has been the media of choice for the long-term preservation of textual information. But with the new technology now available, we can preserve books (particularly the Bible) in digital form on magnetic and optical media. A Toronto-based firm (Optical Recording Corp). has announced the Hi-Lite data card. [127] This card is the same size as a credit card and holds 200 million characters of text. The Bible has just under 3,600,000 characters. Each of these cards could hold 55 copies of the Bible!

However, of more significance than the high density optical storage of digital information is the ease with which copies of the Bible can be made on the digital network. “The Bible, which took Gutenberg five years to set into type, could be transmitted in one half second on one satellite channel.” [128] This is one of the most important features of the new technology. If over the next few decades all homes are wired into the comprehensive communication network which I have been describing it will be possible for you to send within seconds a copy of the Bible’s text to any other person on the network. He will be able to read the Bible on any display in his home, or on a portable computer.

The ability of the communication network to make many copies of a document and distribute these throughout the world will present many difficult problems for writers and publishers. The concept of a copyright will be practically meaningless when copies of a document can be made in seconds anywhere on earth. This power of computers on the communication network will make the photocopier into the ‘quill pen’ of the 20th century, and is already creating a legal nightmare, [129], [130] The National Writers Union in the U.S. claims that electronic publishers are violating their copyrights and that they are losing tens of millions of dollars. [131] It is clear that it is necessary for writers, publishers and lawmakers to re-think the entire concept of the ownership of information.

Marshall McLuhan notes that the concept of authorship and copyrights was much less important in the manuscript age prior to the invention of the printing press. [132] Possibly the use of the computer for the distribution of text will change the meaning of the ownership of information to something similar to that which was common before the invention of the printing press. [133]

However, it will be this amazing ability of the communication network to copy and distribute information, which will be of great benefit to the Church. It will be practically impossible for anyone (even the censors in a totalitarian regime) to stop the dissemination of the Bible through this communication network. “Radio, television, telephone, facsimile transmission, and now E-mail are so common worldwide that not even a Powerful Government can control what information its citizens have.” [134] The only way that it will be possible to stop the transmission of the Bible’s text will be to remove the communication network, as the Romanians tried to do with typewriters.

Monitoring transmissions on the network will probably not work, for the volume of communication will be too great. Also, it will be possible for people sending transmissions to pass the text through encryption algorithms. One such encryption algorithm which has proven to be difficult (though not impossible) to decode uses the multiplication of two very large prime numbers. This encoding device allows the recipient to publish in a public directory his key which is fed into the algorithm by the sender. Other, even more powerful and secure encryption, algorithms have been proposed. [135]

Encryption algorithms could be used to provide security on ring-type networks where anyone can read the data passing by. Banks and corporations passing sensitive information are already using data encryption. Within twenty five years this capability will become available on the electronic mail network used by the average person. [136]

In North America, and the rest of the West, the communication network will be so much an underlying part of the way society functions that it will not be possible to remove the network without destroying the economy, academic institutions, scientific research and even the government itself. This will tend toward the preservation of certain freedoms, the most important of which will be the freedom to communicate the text of the Bible or any other religious material to anyone else on the network. Sadly, this freedom will not guarantee that people will read the Bible, any more than they do today when Bibles can be sold and purchased freely at any bookstore.

In the previously communist countries, the movement to a digital communication network proved to be a means of providing new freedoms. In the Soviet Union there were fewer phones per capita in the early 1970s, than in Fiji [137] and the use of photocopiers and computers was tightly restricted. But the Soviet Union found it difficult to keep up with the West when it restricted telecommunication and computer technology. As a result it had to start making personal computers more available in order to encourage wide-spread familiarity and skill with computers. [138]

Soviet leaders realized in the mid-1980s that failure to computerize would doom their nation to economic and military decline. Faced with the choice of opening society to modern information technologies or losing their superpower status, Soviet reformers opted for the former. [139]

Also as the Soviet Union moved away from paper based administrative systems (driven by rising costs) toward a paperless and ‘cashless’ society, it became necessary for it to open up the communication channels. [140]

[This] reflects the problems faced by many totalitarian countries in their efforts to computerize. Personal computers, in particular, foster individualism, and governments find it difficult to monitor the spread and the uses of the technology. Those governments then face a dilemma: by fostering economic progress through extensive computer use, they run the risk of eroding their totalitarian power. [141]

In 1987, the New York-based Journal of Commerce estimated that there were over half a million privately owned computers in Poland. [142] The Solidarity movement used personal computers for communication and preparing printed publications. Once when the Polish government cut telephone communication lines to prevent news spreading, the Solidarity supporters used the computer communication network of the state bank (Noradowy Bank) to keep information flowing. [143]

The leaders of the Solidarity movement found that using magnetic disks for storage was much better and safer than paper. One leader described a raid situation in which he and others were trying to eat piles of paper as the police arrived. [144] In comparison one small disk storing about 200 pages of text could be rendered unreadable with a magnet or by bending. Disks were also easier to transport and to hide.

In similar fashion the FAX machine played a significant role in the resistance movement around the time of the Tianamen Square incident in Beijing. [145] Direct dial computer-based bulletin boards and the worldwide E-mail network were also instrumental in providing information during the attempted coup in 1991 in Russia. While tanks surrounded the Russian parliament, resisters were able to communicate with the outside world through the Internet E-mail network. [146], [147] The electronic network “resists control by governments or any central authority ... it is a force for democratization of governments and social change.” [148]

The world revolution of communication technology has surely played its role here: even totalitarian systems cannot be made completely impervious to radio broadcasts; and an activist with a personal computer, a printer, and a fax machine is a one-man revolutionary movement. In turn, the ubiquity of information has made it impossible for communist leaders to deny the fact that their countries are worse off than their Western and East Asian counterparts. [149]

It may be that computer technology (and specifically the communication network) will be the means that God chooses to use to break down the falsehood of Islam, just as he has been using it to bring about the collapse of Communism. But will he also use computer technology to break down the materialistic hedonism of the West?

Copyright © 1997, James R. Hughes. All rights reserved.

Endnotes [Next | Previous | Contents]

[1] James R. Chiles, “Goodbye Telephone, Hello to the new Communications Age,” Smithsonian, February, 1992. Back

[2] Andrew Hargrave, “Communications: Towards the 21st Century,” Scientific American, October, 1987. Back

[3] James Martin, The Wired Society (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1978), p. 145. Back

[4] John Voelcker, “Newslog,” IEEE Spectrum, June, 1989. Back

[5] Emmanuel Desurvire, “Lightwave Communications: The Fifth Generation,” Scientific American, January, 1992. Back

[6] Paul E. Green, “The Future of Fiber-Optic Computer Networks,” IEEE Computer, September, 1991. Back

[7] Andrew Reichert, “In the News,” Infosystems, December, 1987. Back

[8] Sarah Underwood, “ISDN on Trial,” Datamation, February 1, 1987. Back

[9] Sushil N. Pandhi, “The Universal Data Connection,” IEEE Spectrum, July, 1987. Back

[10] Bill Musgrave, “Users Colonize ISDN Islands,” Datamation, November 1, 1988. Back

[11] “ISDN to be Launched by West Germans,” Datamation, August 15, 1988. Back

[12] Sally Cahur, “Newslog,” IEEE Spectrum, November, 1992. Back

[13] Susan Kerr, “One Last Chance for ISDN,” Datamation, May 1, 1992. Back

[14] Underwood, op. cit. Back

[15] Gail Dutton, “1994: The Year of the Asynchronous Transfer Mode,” IEEE Software, January, 1994. Back

[16] James Lane, “ATM Knits Voice, Data on an Net,” IEEE Spectrum, February, 1994. Back

[17] Diane Butler, Future Work: Where to find Tomorrow’s High Tech Jobs Today (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984), p. 22. Back

[18] William J Hawkins, “Electronics Newsfront: 3-D Maker,” Popular Science, October 1987. Back

[19] “Ricoh Develops New Device to Transmit Still Coloured Pictures Over Telephone Lines,” Globe and Mail, January 8, 1988. Back

[20] “Video Phones,” Popular Science, October, 1987. Back

[21] Stephen, B. Weinstein, “Telecommunications in the Coming Decades,” IEEE Spectrum, November, 1987. Back

[22] “Singapore pushes ISDN, Videophones,” The Institute (IEEE), December, 1990. Back

[23] Christopher O’Malley, “Whatever Happened to Picture Phones?” Popular Science, January, 1992. Back

[24] Chuck Lentz, “New Phone Technology Brings Together Both Words and Pictures,” World, January 18, 1992. Back

[25] “Ricoh Develops New Device to Transmit Still Coloured Pictures Over Telephone Lines,” op. cit. Back

[26] John Free, “Home Videophone,” Popular Science, April, 1992. Back

[27] Christopher O’Malley, “The Well-Connected Home Office,” Popular Science, October, 1992. Back

[28] “Space Phones,” Scientific American, June, 1987. Back

[29] Edward E. Reinhart, et al., “WARC’s Last Act?” IEEE Spectrum, February, 1992. Back

[30] Timothy M. Beardsley, “Flat Out: Japan Scrambles to Dominate Market for Flat Video Screens,” Scientific American, January, 1988. Back

[31] Bartlett W. Mel, et al., “TABLET: Personal Computer in the Year 2000,” Communications of the ACM, June, 1988. Back

[32] Colin Narbrough and Matthew Robert, “Pocket Phone Go-ahead,” London Times, January 27, 1988. Back

[33] Gary Stix with Tom Koppel, “Headsets: Television Goggles are the Vision of the Future,” Scientific American, March, 1993. Back

[34] Trudy E. Bell, “New Public Mobile-Communications Technologies,” IEEE Spectrum, January, 1991. Back

[35] “Talk is Cheap,” Acumen, December, 1993/January, 1994. Back

[36] Robert Langreth, “World Phone,” Popular Science, March, 1994. Back

[37] “In the News: AT&T to Double Digital Network Size,” Infosystems, December, 1987. Back

[38] Weinstein, op. cit. Back

[39] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Part 1: Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954), pp. 355-258. Back

[40] Hiroshi Inose and John R. Pierce, Information Technology and Civilization (New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1984), p. 158. Back

[41] Michal G. Bennet, “The Postal System Just doesn’t Deliver,” in “Letters to Editor,” Globe and Mail, August 31, 1988. Back

[42] Jonathan Coopersmith, “Facsimile’s False Starts,” IEEE Spectrum, February, 1993. Back

[43] According to USA Today (February 9, 1994), 64% of all mail carried by the US Postal System is advertising and non-profit mailers, 18% is bills and financial statements, 11% is magazines and government mail, and 7% is personal mail. Back

[44] Gary Stix, “Zip Code Breakers,” Scientific American, February, 1993. Back

[45] Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave (Toronto: Bantam, 1980), p. 190. Back

[46] Michael Antonoff, et al., “The Complete Survival Guide to the Information SuperHighway,” Popular Science, May 1994. Back

[47] “50 and 100 Years Ago,” Scientific American, October, 1987. Back

[48] Jonathan Chevreau, “E-mail Gains Momentum,” Canadian Datasystems, November, 1986. Back

[49] Ibid. Back

[50] Tekla S. Perry, “E-mail at work” IEEE Spectrum, October, 1992. Back

[51] Larry Press, “The Net: Progress and Opportunity,” Communications of the ACM, December, 1992. Back

[52] Larry Press, “The Internet and Interactive Television,” Communications of the ACM, December, 1993. Back

[53] Susan Kerr, “The Coming Global Directory for E-Mail,” Datamation, November 15, 1989. Back

[54] Suzanne Wintrob, “No Stamps Needed for this System,” Computing Canada, July 23, 1987. Back

[55] Perry, “E-mail at work,” op. cit. Back

[56] Wendy G. Rohm, “The Last Bastion of Resistance,” Infosystems, April, 1987. Back

[57] John Free (ed.), “Here come Minitels,” Popular Science, February, 1993. Back

[58] Ian Reinecke, Electronic Illusions: A Skeptic’s View of Our High-Tech Future (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 171. Back

[59] David Godfrey and Douglas Parkhill (eds.), Gutenberg Two (Toronto: Press Porcepic Ltd., 1985), p. 70. Back

[60] Trudy Bell, “Technology ‘88: Communications,” IEEE Spectrum, January, 1988. Back

[61] “Notes From All Over,” Reader’s Digest (Canadian Edition), December, 1991. Back

[62] Bell, op. cit. Back

[63] William J. Hawkins, “For Your Home: Video Phones,” Popular Science, February, 1988. Back

[64] Suzanne Kantra, “Internet Comes to Cable TV,” Popular Science, December 1993. Back

[65] Anthony Smith, Goodbye Gutenberg: The Newspaper Revolution of the 1980s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 285. Back

[66] “Is This Trip Really Necessary?” Technology Review, December, 1974. Back

[67] Thomas W. Malone and John F. Rockart, “Computers, Networks and the Corporation,” Scientific American, September, 1991. Back

[68] Martin, op. cit., p. 175. Back

[69] Tekla S. Perry, “E-Mail: Pervasive and Persuasive,” IEEE Spectrum, October, 1992. Back

[70] Pat Brennan, “Home Reservations Agent Provides Home-Style Service,” Toronto Star, September 16, 1987. Back

[71] Ibid. Back

[72] Adam Corelli, “‘Flexiplace’ Revolution Hits Cities’ Cores,” Globe and Mail, May 14, 1993. Back

[73] Larry Press, “Commercialization of the Internet,” Communications of the ACM, November, 1994. Back

[74] Thomas D. C. Little, “Multimedia at Work: Commerce on the Internet,” IEEE MultiMedia, Winter, 1994. Back

[75] Chris O’Malley, “Computers and Software: Banking Networks Push PCs Beyond ATMs,” Popular Science, May, 1994. Back

[76] Michael Antonoff, “Living in a Virtual World,” Popular Science, June 1993. Back

[77] “All Systems Primed for Cable TV Shopping,” Toronto Star, January 1, 1987. Back

[78] Kenneth Kid, “Canadian Home Shopping Hooks up with Rogers Cable,” Toronto Star, July 25, 1987. Back

[79] Kenneth Kid, “US Firm Plans to Test Cableshare Technology,” Toronto Star, February 19, 1987. Back

[80] “IBM, Sears set to Launch Videotext Service in 1988,” Globe and Mail, December 2, 1987. Back

[81] Michael Antonoff, “Interactive TV,” Popular Science, November, 1992. Back

[82] Antonoff, et al., “The Complete Survival Guide to the Information SuperHighway,” op. cit. Back

[83] Ibid. Back

[84] Press, “The Internet and Interactive Television,” op. cit. Back

[85] Martin, op. cit., p. 5. Back

[86] Robert Fox, “Video Judgement Day,” Communications of the ACM, August, 1993. Back

[87] Trudy Bell, “Bell Breakup Plus Five: Mixed reviews,” IEEE Spectrum, December, 1988. Back

[88] Martin, op. cit., pp. 19-23. Back

[89] James F. Martin, “Imaging and Robotics are Changing the Face of Surgery,” IEEE Spectrum, January, 1993. Back

[90] “TV House Calls,” Reader’s Digest, January, 1991. Back

[91] Sally Cahur, “Newslog,” IEEE Spectrum, May, 1994. Back

[92] “Canadian Health Line,” in “News Track,” Communications of the ACM, September, 1988. Back

[93] Michael Antonoff, et al., “The Complete Survival Guide to the Information SuperHighway,” op. cit. Back

[94] “Prescriptions by Courier,” Globe and Mail, September 28, 1993. Back

[95] Press, “The Net: Progress and Opportunity,” op. cit. Back

[96] Godfrey and Parkhill (eds.), op. cit., pp. 83-84. Back

[97] “Is This Trip Really Necessary?” op. cit. Back

[98] “Is This Trip Really Necessary?” op. cit. Back

[99] William J. Mitchell, “The Parable of the Pizza Parlor,” Scientific American, May, 1995. Back

[100] Geoff Lewis, et al., “The Portable Executive,” Business Week, October 10, 1988. Back

[101] Ibid. Back

[102] Richard Worzel, “Building Little Boxes for Ourselves,” Globe and Mail, June 24, 1992. Back

[103] Peter G. Horsfield, Religious Television: The American Experience (New York: Longman, 1984), p. 179. Back

[104] Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), p. 40. Back

[105] John. W. Bachman, Media — Wasteland or Wonderland: Opportunities and Dangers for Christians in the Electronic Age (Minneapolis: Augsburg Pub. House, 1984), p. 67. Back

[106] Deborah C. Sawyer, “Notes on a Revolution: Or Why the People Would Rather Eat Cake,” NOW, December, 1981. Back

[107] Bachman, op. cit. Back

[108] Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), p. 141. Back

[109] David Lyon, The Silicon Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 117. Back

[110] Horsfield, op. cit. Back

[111] Lois Sibley, “Marty on the Church,” Eternity, June, 1987. Back

[112] James Martin, op. cit., p. 267. Back

[113] Michael Antonoff, et al., “The Complete Survival Guide to the Information SuperHighway,” op. cit. Back

[114] Rebekah Scott Schreffler, “Computer Services: High-Tech Witnessing — Christians in cyberspace upload, e-mail, and network on the information highway,” Christianity Today, May 16, 1994. Back

[115] “Religion Watch,” World, June 6, 1992. Back

[116] Russell M. Dilday Jr., Personal Computer: a New Tool for Ministers (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1985), p. 49. Back

[117] “Registering Remingtons in Romania,” The Banner of Truth, April, 1987. Back

[118] Ibid. Back

[119] James O. Jackson, “Inching Down the Capitalist Road,” Time, May 4, 1987. Back

[120] “10 Million Books Banned,” Globe and Mail, June 19, 1987. Back

[121] “International Trade,” World, March 19, 1994. Back

[122] Russia seems to have softened in its view of the Bible. They have permitted the importation and sale of Bibles, the Bible has also been discussed on Soviet TV, and in the Soviet a youth newspaper, where it was said to be a positive source of morals in contrast to atheism, and the Ten Commandments have been introduced in some schools as their moral code. Back

[123] Bradbury, op. cit., p. 77. Back

[124] Ibid., p. 78. Back

[125] Ibid., p. 82. Back

[126] Ibid., p. 139. Back

[127] William J. Hawkins, “Electronics Newsfront: Data Card,” Popular Science, June, 1987. Back

[128] James Martin, op. cit., p. 67. Back

[129] Pamela Samuelson, “Is information Property,” Communications of the ACM, March, 1991. Back

[130] “Computer and Privacy — The Eye of the Beholder,” The Economist, May 4, 1991. Back

[131] Robert Fox, “Newstrack: Fair Shake,” Communications of the ACM, February, 1994. Back

[132] McLuhan, op. cit., pp. 130-133. Back

[133] I discuss the issue of copyrights more fully in chapter 7 Information Implosion. Back

[134] Peter J. Denning, “Halting the Unstoppable,” Communications of the ACM, July 1992. Back

[135] David Chaum, “Achieving Electronic Privacy,” Scientific American, August, 1992. Back

[136] Denning, “Halting the Unstoppable,” op. cit. Back

[137] James Martin, op. cit., p. 244. Back

[138] David Hebdich, “Death of Soviet Pioneer Leaves Gap,” Datamation, August 15, 1988. Back

[139] Steve Usdin, “Soviet Systems: Much Need, But Few Rubles,” Datamation, April 1, 1991. Back

[140] Andrew Nagorski, “The Kremlin Confronts the Information Revolution,” condensed from Newsweek, Reader’s Digest, October, 1987. Back

[141] Buck Bloombecker, “Of Systems, Solidarity, and Struggle,” Datamation, November 1, 1987. Back

[142] Nagorski, op. cit. Back

[143] Ibid. Back

[144] Ibid. Back

[145] Tekla S. Perry, “Forces for Social Change,” IEEE Spectrum, October, 1992. Back

[146] Ibid. Back

[147] Press, “The Net: Progress and Opportunity,” op. cit. Back

[148] Perry, “E-Mail — Pervasive and Persuasive,” op. cit. Back

[149] George Weigel, “What Happened to Communism’s Staying Power?” from American Purpose, World, October 7, 1989. Back