Abstract :
In the past, men viewed different modes of communication, such as telegraphy and telephony, as being fundamentally different in kind, a view that has been dispelled by technological advances and especially by the communications theory of Shannon. The way is now open to achieve a universality in electrical communications systems analogous to that of the human nervous system in which different sensory functions¿vision, hearing, taste, etc.¿are served by uniform nervous transmission lines that differ only in the different types of sensory transducers in which they terminate. There are technical problems and challenges in achieving a future universal communication system that will serve all man´s needs, but there are also other obstacles rooted in obsolete social and legal concepts.
