Storytelling, Ethics and Workflow in Documentary Photography
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Editor's Notes
Welcome to this course in the technology of telecommunications. We expect readers at both ends of the science and technology pre-knowledge scale, and in between. At one end of this scale is the average non-technical consumer or subscriber to a telecom service such as voice telephone. Most consumer telecommunications equipment, such as a wired or wireless telephone handset, is designed so you don't need to know how the internal mechanism works in order to use it. At the other end of the scale is the engineer who needs to design all or part of a telecom system. Most readers of these notes are somewhere in between these two extremes. Because of your work or personal interest, you need to know more about the technology of telecommunication equipment; what are its capabilities and limitations? Another area we will touch on briefly in this first lecture only, because it diverges from the main topics of the courrse, is the followoing: How does an executive or a venture capital investor in a new business decide which projects should be funded? Do all the people involved in the decision know the correct technical facts about the project? Is the product price in the range that buyers are willing to pay? (We will discuss this last question in some detail.) You can develop a reputation for doing a good job even when the project you are working on ultimately is not successful, but your career will most likely advance much further if you are associated with a success.
2 2 Release. 1 ; Aug. ‘97 These notes include several historical summaries of technological advances in telecommunication, but our main emphasis is on the development of digital technology for multiplexing, switching and transmission. Most of this “digital history” has been made since 1961, when the first T-1 digital multiplexer was made public by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric, then respectively the R&D organization and manufacturing organization of the conglomerate telecommunications firm American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) ¹. The technology of this particular design was copied under license throughout North America and Japan. Similar digital multiplexers, called E-1, were developed in Europe soon after, and are used in PSTN networks in other parts of the world. The favorable economics of digital multiplexers caused rapid displacement of earlier analog multiplexers, and made the introduction of digital telephone switches during the 1970 and 1980 decades. Today virtually 100% of the telephone lines in developed countries operate with digital switching, multiplexing and transmission equipment. Digital telecom technology has produced tremendous improvements in telecommunications reliability, fidelity (accuracy of the signal information at the destination) and lower costs, compared to the prior analog transmission and electro-mechanical switching technology. Although the manufacturing sector of the telecom industry is in an economic depression as this is written (year 2006), telecom service and equipment are products that will still have a major and growing future market. ______ Note 1: The AT&T corporation formed in 2005 via a merger of several regional telecom service providers is a business descendant of the AT&T corporation mentioned above, but is not precisely the same firm.
First course assignment: Print on paper, fill in and send (via paper or e-mail) to the instructor the Student Information form (from www.engr.smu.edu/~levine/ee8320). Regarding term paper: To obtain approval for your term paper topic, send an abstract or outline or table of contents (TofC), via e-mail to the instructor, richard.levine@ gmail.com, not later than Oct. 22, 2006.????? These message can be read most rapidly if your outline/abstract is in the body of the e-mail, but file attachments are permissible. An abstract is approximately one page or less, summarizing your entire paper (including the conclusion – assuming that you know the conclusion when you write the abstract). You may send revised outline or abstract or TofC if the details of the paper change significantly as you research and write it. About 2/3 of all outlines are approved without change. About 1/3 are changed in various ways. For example, some topics are too new to have much solid factual information available, or the topic or treatment is not suitable for the educational and experience background of the student. The average midterm grade used for determining each student’s final grade is the average of all midterm quiz number grades, except that a separate average for each classroom group will be used if these individual classroom group averages differ by 10 points or more. This is done because of concerns that some classroom groups have more work experience or technical educational background than others. The students attending the recordings of the lecture form one classroom group. A group of remote learning students at a single organizational location, such as the XYZ Telecom Corp. typically forms another group. In most cases each group corresponds to a single SMU section number. Send the finished term paper, printed on paper , to the instructor or to Gary McCleskey at SMU, to arrive before Dec. 1, 2006 at 5PM. Late papers may temporarily receive an Incomplete grade until it is graded and corrections are put into the SMU ACCESS grade reporting system. In some cases, the instructor may request a computer-readable media like disk, after the paper is read and graded. It is not necessary to send such media unless specifically requested.
Many students in this course have come from educational backgrounds far away from the Electrical Engineering, Physics and Mathematics backgrounds that are traditionally associated with telecom technology. For example, at least two past students in the last 20 years had undergraduate degrees in forestry! This “non-technical” 70% of the students are typically employed in the telecom industry and need to understand the technological basis of their work, and for competent evaluation of assertions and claims made by equipment manufacturers (for service providers), and competent evaluation of alternative product development technologies (for manufacturers). Without the technological and economic “smarts” needed in the industry, significant resources have been devoted to projects that were not ultimately successful. Many observers of the telecom industry hold the opinion that the following are examples: Two that had competent technology but which did not succeed, due to prices higher than the end user was willing to pay, are the Iridium satellite radio network and in-flight radio-telephone service in scheduled airplane flights. A third example is ISDN, which was ultimately overtaken by lower cost improved high bit-rate modems (V.90 and V.92) These notes and this course supplement the equations and highly technical descriptions of various scientific and technological systems with a verbal and less quantitative description as well. We use a term paper (together with a one-hour midterm quiz) as the main grading factor for several reasons. A final examination (not used here) on technology details unfairly favors the students with a science or technology background, whereas each student can write a competent term paper at their own level of technological detail.
The Iridium satellite telecommunications system was originally designed by Motorola Corp. to provide complete world-wide portable digital voice and data communication, even in unpopulated areas where ordinary terrestrial cellular/wireless service was not expected to be available. The initial design used 77 LEO polar orbiting communication satellites, a number equal to the number of electrons in the Iridium atom – thus the product name. The number of satellites in the eventual working system was reduced to 66 as a cost saving change, still ensuring that at least one satellite was “visible” overhead at all locations. Although impressed by the advanced technology, many industry observers criticized the pricing when the plan was announced. Iridium and some other firms with planned LEO satellite systems placed advertisements proposing that impoverished farmers in remote areas of the globe would use LEO satellite service. Critics ridiculed these plans. Just as the critics expected, there were very few customers– typically a few oil-exploration crews who would 1) pay for high-cost service, and 2) wanted this service in remote un-populated areas . In most high and middle density populated areas, competing terrestrial wireless service was rapidly installed in the 1990s with low prices; typically $50 handsets and service charges of only pennies per minute. Ultimately, even extensive Iridium price cutting did not increase the user population sufficiently and the Iridium Corp. went into bankruptcy, still providing service to a few government agencies, but without enough capital to ultimately replace the LEO satellites expected to naturally burn up in the lower atmosphere in coming years.
Technically oriented people sometimes say, “We have the technology. Let’s build the product.” They sometimes do not undertake adequate market research to determine the anticipated cost of operation and planned income. Worse, they occasionally conduct badly planned market studies, or they ignore the predictions of well-planned marketing studies that they don’t want to hear. After these few introductory slides regarding non-technical aspects of product development, we will spend the rest of the semester on technical topics.
During the 1970s and 1980s, very significant amounts of telecom industry R&D resources were devoted to ISDN. Two major subscriber interfaces were developed and standardized: the Basic Rate Interface (BRI), providing one or two 64 kbit/s traffic (or Bearer “B”) channels, and the Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which in North America provides up to 23 B channels and one 64 kb/s data or “D” channel devoted to signals for call setup, disconnection, etc. There are a fairly significant number of PRI installations today, typically used with a PBX, . Some people point out that a PRI interface is physically identical with a T-1 digital multiplexer interface, and differs only with regard to the signaling messages in that D channel, and the related software, which conform to the Q.931 standard developed for ISDN. BRI installations are have the same customer target as ordinary analog telephone service:for residential and small business subscribers. Major ISDN hardware and software multi-billion dollar development costs in the 1980s were devoted to BRI, but BRI installations are few and far between today, even in European countries where the telephone service providers are allowed to cross-subsidize ISDN service from other revenue, and thus offer ISDN BRI at a lower price. In North America, BRI ISDN is significantly more costly in both installation and recurring costs than an analog telephone line fitted with a V.90 or V.92 modem, which can provide nearly equivalent “downlink” data rates to subscribers. In fact, the entire industry emphasis regarding high data bit rates for the public has shifted to ISDN, typically provided to subscribers via ADSL on telephone subscriber loops or via co-axial cable using cable TV installations. These two competitive technologies were not as fully developed in the 1980s and were not then viewed as serious competition to ISDN.
Supply-demand curves were first used in the late 19 th century by British economist Alfred Marshall, to explain the market mechanism that determines actual sales price. During a specified time interval, the behavior or motivation of the potential buyer (of candy bars, in Fig.A example) is theoretically described by a demand curve like D1-D2. This curve represents a particular buyer group who will buy a candy each day (30 per month) at a 50 cent price. If the price increases to $1, this average consumer under certain specific background circumstances, buys only 15 per month. If the price goes down to 25 cents, the average consumer buys 100 per month, and stores what he can’t eat in the freezer! This curve is typically constructed by interviewing potential consumers, or by observing the opinions and reaction of potential consumers in “focus groups.” For example, if a desirable substitute candy bar becomes available or Mr. Average goes on a diet, this particular curve no longer applies and fresh research and a new demand curve must be done. If advertising to increase the consumer’s desire to eat these candy bars is successful, a new demand curve, made by sliding the existing demand curve up and to the right, is required. The supply curve S1-S2 shows that the objective of the seller(s) (and manufacturer, etc. the “supply chain”) is to manufacture and sell more of most (not all) products when the sale price goes up. Also, when a certain product sells very well or is very profitable (example : bottled drinking water), competitive manufacturers typically enter the market with their equivalent product thus increasing the quantity available for a higher price. The point (typically only one on the diagram) where these two curves intersect is the equilibrium market price (point W in Fig. A). The product of the market unit price and the quantity sold (equal to the area of rectangle WXYZ) is the gross sales in dollars during the relevant time interval (a month in the example). If the seller’s costs (and thus the sales price) decrease due to new technology, reduced raw material costs or labor costs, or other reasons, a new supply curve made by sliding the existing supply curve to the left (and perhaps up as well), is used. Some products (like gasoline vehicle fuel) can’t be stored and the consumer typically must buy a fixed amount per month for essential driving (to and from work). The consumer must pay more if supply prices increase (supply curve shifts to the right). Illustrated in Fig. B. Some products are perceived as very low cost by consumers. For example, in Fig. C, consumers will thus not buy a telephone call priced over about 20 cents per minute from in-flight systems. The in-flight service provider has very high capital and operating costs, and thus prices the service very high when very few calls are made. In this case, the supply and demand curves intersect at a point where the unit sales quantity is zero, and gross income is thus zero.
Some systems are not successful because the quantity customers will buy, while not zero, is too small to give a profit at the price offered. Offering the product at a lower unit price increases the quantity sold, but in some instances the unit cost to manufacture the product is so high that a lower cost is prohibited. In contrast, some sellers price a new technology device (e.g. a new microprocessor chip) from the beginning at the same low price that is anticipated after it becomes a high quantity, high gross volume item. This encourages more consumers to buy it earlier, and thus reach high sales quantity from the start. This is called “forward pricing” or, with tongue in cheek, “self-fulfilling prophecy.” According to some pessimistic forecasters, direct subscriber-paid satellite radio broadcasting (Sirius and competitor XM Radio) is priced low, but is not profitable. Although both satellite radio systems are garnering significant publicity, and Sirius in particular has signed up so-called “shock-jock” radio personality Howard Stern, the number of subscribers to either system is significantly smaller than was forecast. Some of the consumer reluctance to buy subscriber-paid radio broadcasts is a mind-set based on “free” (sponsor-paid) service in the USA. Again, several other countries (such as Britain and Canada) have subscriber paid radio and TV broadcasting services (provided by a government-designated department), and its citizens would possibly be more receptive to satellite radio, but direct satellite radio service is not currently marketed outside of North America. Also, cable TV is a very similar consumer-paid service, and is successful. It is difficult to consistently and accurately extrapolate from one service to another. Ref. On Jack Goeken: www. goeken .com/ jack .htm
Aside from the customer's reaction to the product's price, there is also a possible issue with the billing or business practice regarding who pays and what “rights” are sold for continued use of a product. There are several relatively recent proposals whose lack of customer acceptance was ultimately identified (after products did not sell) as a perception by the potential customers that the proposed system was too far from the customer's concept of a fair system. Although this is not a technology issue, it often has a major technology impact because a wrong guess diverts scarce product development resources from making successful products.. In 1998-99, Circuit City retail electronics stores briefly marketed a system called DIVX, that required a special disk player and a small payment (credit card transaction via dial-up modem) each time the disk, already in the customer's physical possession, could be replayed. Similarly, Buena Vista (Disney studios) briefly marketed a “Flexplay” DVD that would darken within days after the air-tight package was opened, and thus “self destruct” (become unreadable by the optical DVD player). These two systems were proposed as alternatives to the historical method of renting video media, which then must be returned to the rental retail outlet. Although most preliminary market and focus group studies projected good customer acceptance, real customers rejected both systems, expressing their perception that once they pay for a disk, they should have the right to use it forever without further “per view” payments. The original industry concerns with disc returns and late fees seem to be addressed today via non-technical billing policy changes. References: http://www.cedmagic.com/history/rca-divx-ps8680z.html and http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60983,00.html
Several standards organizations attempted to define a single world-wide compatible standard for 3G wireless, but they could not all agree. Ultimately, two incompatible standards based on different versions of CDMA technology were defined. Two major service providers in North America (Verizon and Sprint, who presently use CDMA, the most popular technology in North America), and a smaller contingent from several Asian countries, all favored CDMA-2000. GSM service providers in North America (Cingular, T-Mobile, etc.) and throughout the world (where it is the major technology) favored W-CDMA. Many observers attribute this to needlessly aggressive competitive. Some people in the industry hope that 3G technology with its “bells and whistles” (entertainment video images, etc.) will lead to higher consumer buying of cellular equipment and services, which has slowed in recent years, after continual growth in the last 10 years. The lowest revenue 2G voice service is the wireless market sector with the largest current (year 2006) growth rate. All 3G and 2.5G systems require new subscriber handsets for new services beyond traditional voice. Base equipment must be replaced or added to as well.
Some “3G sceptics” are very dubious about the cost and ultimate market size for 3G, regardless of specific technology. The sceptics accuse the 3G proponents of misdirecting development resources to an unmarketable product objective. Early 3G marketing trials in Japan and other Asian countries are not so promising. These “sceptics” developed so-called “2.5G” technology, obliged to use the “.5” or “1/2” terminology to fit it in between 2G and 3G.. 2.5G does not require such an expensive change to 2G base radio equipment, and the mobile handset is less complex than 3G, but it still provides a medium bit-rate packet data capability to existing 2G base systems. We will discuss GPRS and EDGE, two 2.5G technologies related to GSM, in a future lecture. There is also a small but growing possibility that the industry will ultimately skip over 3G CDMA in favor of a so-called 4G technology. In particular, OFDM, a technology with extremely high spectral efficiency, already used in ADSL, WiFi and other high bit rate digital systems, is promising. This is a complicated techno-economic question. If the decision was in your hands, which technology would you develop with limited funds?
In some cases the “fastest” (highest digital bit rate) wireless data system is not the best overall choice because the number of simultaneous users per cell or the cost of the system per conversation is not favorable. The ratio of the data bit rate (bits/second) of a system to the corresponding radio bandwidth (in Hz) is called the spectral efficiency of that system. A system having high spectral efficiency typically works satisfactorily (exhibiting a low BER) only when the ratio of signal power to the sum of noise and interference power is relatively large. This in turn requires that the system be operated with fewer simultaneous “conversations” in each cell. A better unit for comparing one cellular system with another is thus either: spectral geographic efficiency= number of conversations per cell · bit rate of a conversation/ radio bandwidth ·cell area . or, even more financially oriented: economic spectral-geographic efficiency = number of conversations per cell · bit rate of a conversation/ radio bandwidth · cell area · cost . Both equations refer to a “fully loaded” system at its maximum traffic level. The cost in the latter equation can be either equivalent capital present cost, or equivalent recurring cost (e.g., per month) of all the apparatus (and other operating expenses) involved in supporting one cell. Electrical “noise” is a fundamental undesired random variation or fluctuation in electric current or voltage, primarily due to the random thermal motion of electrons. When noise current waveforms are made audible via an earphone or loudspeaker the sound is like a hiss or like applause from a large audience or the sound of frying food on a stove. Electrical “interference” is caused by a man-made source that, in theory, can be turned off (for example, a neon sign). The major interference source in cellular radio systems is the radio signal transmitted by other radios that intentionally use the same radio frequency in a different geographic “cell.” Some authors occasionally use the term “noise” to cover both types of undesired signals.
Originator-pays-for-air-time in a wireless-destination call (with no cost to destination cell phone) was promoted in North America during the late 1990s as a major way to increase North American wireless subscriber population. Many people in the telephone industry believed that wireless subscriber population would increase substantially if subscribers did not have to pay “air time” for incoming calls. Despite glowing forecasts for such billing in the industry, it was almost totally rejected by originator callers in first marketing tests. It was never put in place permanently, despite the fact that much resources had been consumed to prepare and test the software and announcement system for this billing method. Curiously, many wireless networks outside North America traditionally use this billing method. Per minute or per-call pricing is also common for wired public telephone systems outside North America. To facilitate such billing when calls to a cell phone have a higher price, all wireless telephones in such a country are assigned one (or more) distinct wireless “area code(s)” (examples: 07- in the UK, 04- in Australia, 02- in New Zealand, 06- in Austria, France and the Netherlands, 05- in Israel, 015-, 016- and 017- in Germany, 9- in Ecuador, etc. )
Consumer electronic devices with multiple options or capabilities have been historically notorious for human interface complexity. The late comedian, Johnny Carson, confessed that he had a video cassette recorder (VCR) that was blinking “12:00” for the 9 years he owned it! He could not determine how to set the clock. The human interface of modern video recorders and players today are much improved, taking advantage of “on screen programming.” This is not true “computer programming,” but is the selection of the desired options from a sequence of menus displayed on the TV screen Many wireless telephone handsets today have many features and also have a sequence of menus that appear on a display screen to prompt the subscriber to set the options desired. Some wireless subscribers have complaints regarding the complexity of these menus, but several well-designed human interfaces are in use. Analogous to the user complexity issue in telecommunications, we remark that one of the things (aside from the obvious: high price!) that limits the growth of the “general aviation” market (for small aircraft typically owned by the pilot) is the complicated human interface between the aircraft and the pilot. The cockpit of even a small aircraft is stuffed with many different gauges and indicators (called a “clock shop”) that the pilot must continually monitor. Long, rigorous and costly training is needed to qualify for a pilot’s license and periodic medical examinations are required to keep the license. By comparison obtaining and keeping an automobile driver’s license is almost trivially simpler and quicker. Aircraft accidents are all investigated in detail and findings are used to improve aviation safety, while most automobile accidents ae not investigated at all. But when we consider that an automobile ride is 10 times more likely to result in fatality than an airplane journey of the same distance, some safety experts have suggested that driver licensing should be much more rigorous as well. In contrast, some aircraft marketers would like to have the requirements for piloting aircraft to be as fast and simple as an auto driver’s license, with the new generation of general aviation aircraft equipped with high-reliability computer control of every aspect of flight, to make air travel as safe and simple as can be. Aside from being an interesting point regarding human interfaces of technical systems, it also reflects how the public has become unconcerned about the high level of automobile traffic fatalities. Ref. For accidents/million passenger miles statistics: http://www.benbest.com/lifeext/causes.html
Focus groups and market trials are sometimes provide very accurate forecasts, but sometimes they are completely wrong. Some reasons for these discrepancies, like the “xxx effect” are understood by psychologists, but despite this knowledge many people in marketing focus groups say they will buy a product at a certain price, but in fact when given that real opportunity they won’t. Sometimes a good executive decision agrees with the formal product projections, and sometimes the opposite occurs as well. Focus groups and market trials sometimes provide very accurate forecasts, but sometimes they are completely wrong. Some reasons for these discrepancies, like the “ Hawthorne Effect, ” are well understood by industrial and marketing psychologists, but despite this knowledge many panel members in marketing focus groups say they will buy a product at a certain price, but in fact when given that real opportunity they won’t buy. The Hawthorne Effect was first described in the 1920s, when the Western Electric Company, then the manufacturing unit of the AT&T Bell System, brought in industrial psychologists to study the effect of ambient light level on the productivity of assembly line workers of its Hawthorne Works factory in suburban Chicago. The psychologists found that both increasing and decreasing the light level increased productivity. Neither change continued to increase productivity after weeks passed and the workers became accustomed to being studied and interviewed by the psychologists. The conclusion was that the workers were responding to the personal attention and not indicating their innate preferences. There is always a possible hazard with focus groups and other market projection methods involving contact, or even observation of the subject by the researcher that the Hawthorne Effect will distort the true forecast.
14 12 Sometimes a good executive decision agrees with the formal product projections, and sometimes the opposite occurs instead. It is very difficult to separate accurate from inaccurate business forecasts. When faced with forecasts that contradict common sense or each other, some executives call in additional consulting experts to advise them about future technology and products. Even then, different “experts” may contradict each other as well! Your instructor earns more income each year as a technological consultant than as a professor, but he still wants people in industry to understand how and why a technological conclusion is reached instead of merely choosing one consultant’s opinion over another. Therefore one objective of this course is to give each student enough scientific and technical background to allow them to research the subject and to form their own conclusions.
Many national telephone and postal systems are under the control of a government agency typically known as the department of Posts, Telegraph and Telephone (PTT). Although the objective of postal systems and telegraph-telephone systems is communication, the means and methods of the two kinds of telecommunication are so different that few resources are shared within such a PTT organization, and the telecom and postal systems have been separated in many countries with almost no negative effects. Electromagnetic waves guided by conductive metal wires are fundamentally the same as optical waves carried via fibers. They both involve rapidly alternating polarity of the electromagnetic field, but they differ in the number of oscillations per second. They differ so much that two quite distinct technologies have developed to use them, and they are now both used side by side in the telecom industry. It is interesting to note that electromagnetic waves have no “mass” or weight (Physicists say that photons, the “particle” model for electromagnetic waves, have “zero rest mass”). Some physicists have proposed (perhaps in jest) that telecommunication be carried via a beam of certain sub-atomic particles such as neutrinos. The proposed advantage of this is that neutrinos pass through everything. The great disadvantages are that extremely large and power-hungry apparatus is needed to produce neutrinos, and they are very difficult to detect (receive).
15 13 Historians report that Morse, a well-known artist and professor of art at New York University, learned from conversations with a physics professor about electric current.He conceived the idea of telecommunication by means of turning an electric current on and off in a time pattern of short (dot) and long (dash) intervals. The first version of his system printed the dots and dashes on a roll of paper tape, but technicians quickly realized that they could hear the sound patterns of each character and write them down manually.
An electro-mechanical repeater was a replacement for a hman repleater. A human telegrapher could write down the received message and then he or another teelgtapher cold repeat it by sending via the next link in the path from origin to destination. OF course, the human method delays the repeat of the message n most cases, and may introduce errors. From this historical beginning, we use the name “repeater” for any device that “regenerates” a stronger signal, retimes and reshapes the signal waveform; the classic functions of a repeater. Modern repeaters (particularly the Erbium-doped laser repeater used for certain optical fibers merely” amplifies (regenerates or makes stronger) the optical signal. Interesting historical note: Most counties in the state of Texas are approximately square, 30 miles on each side. This was done to make a 30 mile (50 km) telegraph link feasible from the center of one county to another in an adjacent county, without a repeater. Texas also required every county to build its county court house within 3 miles of the county center point. In the mid 19 th century many telegraph companies merged into the Western Union Corp., the first nationwide business and the first telecom monopoly.WU played an important role in the development of the telephone by not buying the patent when first offered. WU was bought and then sold by AT&T in the early 20 th century. WU discontinued telegram service in 2006 and now is primarily in the money transfer business.
15 13 Alexander Graham Bell and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, were both speech teachers specializing in teaching deaf people to speak understandably. During the 19 th century many diseases affecting the ear, such aas Scarlet Fever, were untreatable. A much larger percent of the population was deaf than today, although even today between 22 million and 24 million Americans are totally or partially deaf. Alexander Melville Bell invented a phonetic alphabet called “visible speech.” It used an “alphabet” of pictogram symbols that were mostly simplified cross-sectional drawings of the mouth and throat. When A. Graham Bell became wealth due to the income from the telephone, he subsidized having special moveable printing type custom made for these symbols and then for publishing the book Visible Speech , which was widely distributed (SMU’s library has it). It was not generally used by speech professionals, however. They have mostly used the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) invented at that same time by other speech experts. We will discuss it in a later lecture. Some people believe that Alexander Melville Bell is the living person that author George Bernard Shaw had in mind when he wrote of Prof. Henry Higgins in the book Pygmalion (later adapted by A.J.Lerner and F. Lowe into the musical play and film “My Fair Lady,” in which a speech teacher teaches a poor English girl with a lower-class accent to speak like a high-class lady, and thus makes her acceptable as a member of British high society. However, Shaw was well acquainted with several “dialecticians and grammarians,” and so some other historians say that Higgins is modeled on Daniel Jones, British author of a phonetic dictionary of the English language.
16 14 A.G.Bell studied the way sound, an oscillation fluctuation in local air pressure, was produced by the mouth. He realized that many sounds can be viewed as equivalent to the simultaneous presence of several sine waves at different frequencies. This was very similar to the behavior of a device he had invented to send simultaneous multiple telegraph signals over the same wire. Therefore he understood what was happening when he spoke near the set of vibratory metal reeds in his “transmitter” and receiver and the sound of his speech was heard in another room by his technician, Thomas Watson. Gardner G. Hubbard, father of one of Bell’s deaf students (and later Bell’s wife), was financing Bell’s development because Hubbard had a long term desire to compete with WU. Today we would say that Bell was trying to make a frequency division multiplexer for telegraph signal waveforms, and discovered that it could also transmit speech waveforms as well. A US patent comprises a “specification” that describes how the invention works in a “preferred implementation” and also several claims that describe more precisely what the inventor claims to have invented. After the patent application has been filed in the Patent Office, no change can be made to the specification, but typically the claims are modified/added/removed as part of the negotiation between the patent examiner and the inventor or his/her attorney.
17 15 Most historians agree that an offer to sell the Bell patent to WU was made, but none believe that the letter available on the web site is the true report of whatever group or committee WU assembled to evaluate the Bell Telephone patent. However, it has been a popular document since it shows just how wrong experts can be about the future of an invention. Note particularly that several of the complaints in this letter are absolutely correct, but later inventions by others have mostly corrected these problems or have reduced their severity.
18 16 WU was in a strong position with Edison’s microphone patent, but many historians conclude that WU still disliked Hubbard, and did not see long term big money coming from this telephone invention. Several historians have said that WU’s big mistake was not their refusal to buy the patent in 1876, but in failing to follow through by getting into the telephone business when they had the Edison microphone patent several years later.
19 17 Today it is illegal for to pay a firm or person not to compete with yourself, since the result will be an illegal monopoly. On the other hand, the owner of a valid patent has a time-limited (20 years) right to legally prevent others from making, using, selling, importing, etc. devices or services that use the patented invention. If others want to make, use, sell, etc., the patented product, they must make a mutually acceptable agreement, typically a payment of a relatively small “royalty” to the patent owner, on each unit sold.
20 18 The Kingsbury commitment was the first of several settlements between the Bell System (as At&t and its subsidiaries was long known) and the US Department of Justice, Anti-Trust Division.
21 19 This is a very abbreviated list. For many years in the 20 th century, Bell Laboratories, the central research and development division of AT&T filed more patent applications than any other company, although IBM took that prize some years.
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