Abstract :
From the perspective of computer conferencing, the huge network of telephone technologies already in place constitutes an essential and valuable natural resource, to be mined as effectively as possible. In the absence of telephone connections, computers could communicate long distance only by the construction of new cable and/or the development of relay (radio) technologies, either of which would render computer conferencing economically unfeasible for virtually any purpose, especially educational. With a highly sophisticated international and national series of telephone networks readily at hand, computer conferencing becomes practicable from any place on the Earth near a telephone.
