Telegraph to Telecom: Transitions in Time

A major milestone in the history of telecommunications was the invention of the electric telegraph. It was the beginning of communication via wire. The computer industry is typically thought of as new, but the essential technology of computer networks was developed when Americans were migrating westward. The Magnetic Telephone Company, as well as dozens of other high tech companies of the nineteenth century, followed the railways with miles and miles of telegraph lines. (Derfler & Freed, 2003).

Morse code was a grand new technology and was first demonstrated in the grandest of locations, the Supreme Court chamber of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. In 1844, the first data communications was sent from our nation's capitol to Baltimore, Maryland. This concept was so huge and so widely accepted that within seven years there were fifty telegraph companies operating in the U.S. (Bruno).

Morse code and the telegraph were ingenious yet simple. Operators used a simple method of dots and dashes for letters and numbers. When the Morse Key was pressed the electric circuit was open and when released the electric circuit was closed. The electrical current traveled through the wire to a printer device that printed a tape of the code message which an operator would translate. This simple solution to communicating long distance has improved and evolved into a newer technology, the packet switch. The single signal wire has evolved into fiber optics. Communicating one at a time has evolved into mass communication.

Automation was already on the minds of the nineteenth century inventor who wanted to replace people with machines. The early telegraphs required a person on each side of the wire, one to encode the information and one to decode. The decoder was replaced by the printer. The encoder specializing in Morse Code was replaced by anyone who could use a typewriter. Inventors wanted to make the telegraph services bigger and better. Alexander Graham Bell was trying to develop a device to allow several telegraph signals to share the same line when he accidentally developed the telephone. (Derfler & Freed, 2003). Telecommunications and analog technology was now the forefront of technology. It wasn't until the 1970's that digital technology was again the forefront. Packet switching used the simple concept of telegraphy by cutting the current on and off. Communications methods have continued to improve over the decades.