Today the
Communications Society is the IEEE's second largest
professional society. ComSoc's growth in the past
several decades has been impressive indeed.
When the IEEE Group on Communications Technology
began operations on 1 July 1964, it boasted 4400
members. Within a decade this figure had
doubled; when ComSoc was elevated to Society status
in 1972 its membership was 8800. Since then,
ComSoc has grown by a factor of six,
reflecting the increasing importance of
communications to both the global economy and
the engineering profession. At the end of 2001, more
than 62,000 ComSoc members all over the world
participate in 21 Technical Committees, can
avail themselves of fourteen technical publications,
and can attend nine ComSoc-sponsored
conferences. As it enters its second
half-century, ComSoc's wide array of publications,
conferences, and technical interests are
well-positioned to help engineers to meet the
challenges and opportunities of communications in
the 21st century.
