By Gerald W. Brock
Because of low-cost pcs and knowledge communications, the rate and quantity of human conversation are exponentially more than they have been even a quarter-century in the past. now not because the introduction of the phone and telegraph within the 19th century has info know-how replaced everyday life so extensively. we're in the course of what Gerald Brock calls a moment details revolution.
Brock strains the advanced heritage of this revolution, from its roots in global struggle II during the bursting bubble of the net financial system. As he explains, the revolution sprang from an interdependent sequence of technological advances, entrepreneurial recommendations, and alterations to public coverage. options in radar, pcs, and digital parts for protection tasks translated into quick growth within the inner most quarter, yet a few possibilities have been blocked by means of regulatory regulations. The contentious political attempt to house new expertise whereas retaining beneficiaries of the sooner regulated monopoly ultimately ended in a regulatory constitution that facilitated the explosive progress in information communications. Brock synthesizes those advanced elements right into a readable fiscal background of the wholesale transformation of ways we alternate and technique info.
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Extra resources for The Second Information Revolution
Sample text
Changes in the cost of information, and changes in technology (including significantly and importantly, military technology). (1990, p. 84) The initiator of the institutional change in telecommunication examined in this book is the sustained rapid technological progress in electronic components. That progress can be considered largely exogenous to the communications industry. It was begun with innovations in Bell Labs but the continuous improvements were primarily developed by companies outside of the communications industry.
The resulting monopoly could then be required to provide subsidized service to politically favored classes of consumers. It could charge high enough prices to provide job security to its unionized labor force without concerns that a company with lower labor costs would undercut its prices. The regulatory structure created an alliance of regulated company managers, unionized employees, and favored consumers that supported continuation of the regulated monopoly. Throughout the half-century of regulatory development from early state railroad agencies through the New Deal, policies to promote technological progress played no role.
S. Census, 1975, p. 788). The Post Office made no at- 26 The First Information Revolution tempt to control or regulate the telegraph industry, but postal rate policies partially determined the telegraph rate structure. Mail and telegrams were imperfect substitutes for each other. Mail was the cheapest means of communicating over long distances and it remained the dominant form of long distance communication, with telegrams providing time-sensitive communications at much higher prices. On routes with no competing telegraph line, Western Union’s monopoly power was limited by the opportunity to substitute a slower three-cent letter for the telegram.