TELECOMMUNICATIONS: A VIEW OF THE FUTURE
This research provides an overview of what
the future may hold in store in the area of telecommunications. While specific
technologies and applications are addressed in this overview, the broader
thrust of the research considers the coordinated\telecommunications infrastructure which must be developed and
expanded, if the potential of telecommunications technologies are to be realized over the
next decade or two. Although this overview is developed from a private sector‑business,
industry, and professional‑perspective, it is obvious that telecommunications
are equally as important for public sector organizations, for households, and
for individuals.
Telecommunications transmission technologies
blossomed in the decade of the 1980s, and the pace of innovation is quickening
in the 1990s. The new technologies create opportunities for organizations‑public
sector and private sector, households, and individuals to improve both the
effectiveness and the efficiency of their communications. Unfortunately, these
opportunities are often thwarted by the chaos which accompanies dynamic
technological innovation. The tremendous promise of telecommunications technology for the future may not be
fully realized in the absence of the development of a telecommunications
infrastructure for both the American economy and the international economy.
The pervasive use of telecommunications technology in general and the
Internet in particular is so great that, at first glance, it may seem odd to
suggest that the Internet raises moral questions. Yet the fact that information
is so readily available via computer creates a double effect. On one hand there
are obvious benefits in having a wealth of research and life-management
resources available to anyone equipped to tap into the Internet. On the other
hand, at a time when much personal information is stored online in data banks
used by financial, commercial, and government institutions, the very
availability of information puts individual privacy at risk. Investigators, marketers, officials, and unscrupulous persons
may intrude on individual privacy with impunity and potentially threaten the
individual's well-being as a result. Indeed, marketers are ubiquitous on the
Internet. It is a rare online session that is not affected by so-called popup
ads, which are unsolicited invitations to users to buy something and which
interrupt the data-processing objectives of the Internet user. Meanwhile, the
availability of socially controversial information on the Internet--from
sexually obscene to hate-mongering political Web sites--has raised questions of
who may or should have access to some or all of the Internet.
