The
expansion in communications technologies and markets
since the founding of the IRE's Professional
Group on Communications Systems in 1952
has been dramatic indeed. In 1952
the
two most common communications devices in
American homes were the telephone and the
radio. Today, most Americans communicate
with each other over wireless telephones and
obtain their information through the Internet.
The dramatic development of communications in the
past half-century, and particularly the
exponential growth of cell phones and the Internet
in the past decade, points out two guideposts
for the future. From a technological
standpoint, the communications infrastructure of the
21st century will continue to rely on a mix of
wired and wireless systems. Communications
engineers will confront and solve a set of technical
challenges to provide adequate bandwidth and data
rates for the ever-growing numbers of
subscribers; customers will continue to demand
new services which will require more bandwidth and
higher speed. In the social realm, the
Internet and wireless telephony have jointly
demonstrated that communication is both a basic
human need and an indispensable part of modern
society. As
it begins its second half-century, the
members of the
IEEE
Communications Society are well poised to
meet the technical and social challenges of
communicating in the 21st century.
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