A prognosis of mobile telephone communications

In attempting to prognosticate on the “Unseen Future of Vehicular Communications,” the theme of this 12th annual PGVC National Conference the author is well aware that extrasensory perception techniques, premonitions or just plain crystal-ball gazing may not suffice as prerequisites for this dissertation. It is recalled that not so many years ago, Dr. Frank B. Jewett, the renowned scientist and former President of Bell Telephone Laboratories, was once asked to define the ultimate objective of telephone communications. He replied in essence that when you can take out of your pocket a device the size of a watch, dial the number of a particular individual who may be anywhere in the world, and if he did not answer, you knew he was dead; that is the ultimate objective.