Information and communication revolution 265
IBM · 2013
Usually literature distinguishes three stages in the extraordinary development of technologies which have improved the transmission of information. The first stage began during the French Revolution when a system of mechanical semaphore signals, le télégraphe, was constructed by installing a vast network of relay stations able to transmit messages across the country in a few hours. Yet the functioning of the system, which served only state interests, was hampered by bad weather, darkness of the night, and human errors. The first electric telegraph lines built next to railroad networks became operational in the 1840s. By 1851, the first submarine cables were laid that connected Britain with continental Europe and, by 1866, a transatlantic cable linked Britain with America. British imperial power subsequently pushed the extension of the electric telegraph network even further. Although the telephone was invented in the 1870s and the radio around 1900, their application only came into widespread use from the 1920s onwards. While telegraphy and telephony made the transmission of words nearly instantaneous, the radio did the same for sounds. Basic new communication technologies that improved international distribution of information included “a Pacific cable (1903), transatlantic wireless telegraph (1907), transcontinental telephone (1915), radio facsimile (early 1920s), transatlantic telephone (1927), high speed telegraph (1929) and teletype (1931)” (Beniger 1986: 324-326).