Organized society depends on communication of all kinds, including the ability to communicate at a distance, instantaneously. With the development of solid state electronics and its application to digital processing, telecommunication has become extremely important to large segments of American business. The in troduction of competition to serve these voice, data, and video needs has ex panded the number of service options available, and some of them are finding their way into the residential sector. From a relatively stable, mature industry, telecommunication has rapidly become a technology-driven marketplace in which a host of companies are competing for customer attention with new services and equipment. Heretofore, books on telecommunications have addressed facilities and how they work. In this book, I am seeking to provide a much broader perspective which includes information on the motives driving the business itself, on new media and services, and on advancing technologies, as well as on digital facilities and their integration into the environment of future businesses and households. Covering so wide a set of topics presents many problems, not the least of which is that the character of the information is different in each chapter, and the material will be read by persons skilled in disparate fields. It is possible to read each chapter by itself-although a reading of all of them is needed to understand the new dimensions being introduced into the telecommunication experience.
