telecom

Telecom is the shortened name for telecommunications, which, according to the Webster’s New World Telecom Dictionary is the science and technology of transmitting voice, audio, facsimile, image, video, computer data, and multimedia information over significant distances by the use of electromagnetic energy in the form of electricity, radio, or optics.

The modern telecom industry really begin on January 1, 1984 when AT&T’s local operations were split into seven independent holding companies and were prohibited from participating in certain markets. This led to a surge of competition in the long distance market by companies such as Sprint and MCI. This in turn led to a whole host of smaller telecom companies and after-market products such as those provide by independent billing companies who formed to help service this growing industry. Further, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed the statutory and court-ordered barriers to competition between segments of the telecom industry, enabling participants to compete head-to-head.

Technology keeps pushing the telecom industry in new ways from iPhones, to streaming media, to Global Positioning Satellites. From the smoke signal, to Alexander Graham Bell, from the cell phone to the Internet, weighing in at in excess of $1.2 trillion dollars a year, the telecom industry will continue to help drive the world’s economy.