Connected

Overview

‘Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you.’It’s been almost 150 years since Alexander Graham Bell said these immortal words on the first ever phone call, to his assistant in the next room. Between 10 March 1876 and now, the world has changed beyond recognition. And telecommunications, which has played a fundamental role in this change, has itself evolved into an industry that was the sole preserve of science fiction.When the world’s first modern mobile telephone network was launched in 1979, there were just over 300 million telephones. Today, there are more than eight billion, most of which are mobile. Most people in most countries can now contact each other in a matter of seconds. Soon we’ll all be connected, to each other, and to complex computer networks that provide us with instant information, but also observe and record our actions. No other phenomenon touches so many of us, so directly, each and every day of our lives.A concise edition of John Tysoe and Alan Knott-Craig’s magnum opus, A History of Telecommunications, this book gives you the information you need to know about what keeps us connected and how we got here.

Author Biography

Alan Knott-Craig is the founder and chairman of Hero Telecoms, a South African broadband network operator. He is a well-known tech entrepreneur, having founded seven companies since 2003, including the award-winning NGO, Project Isizwe. He is the editor of the 2008 bestseller Don’t Panic! and author of Mobinomics and 13 Rules for being an Entrepreneur. Knott-Craig was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009, and Forbes listed him as one of the top 10 young Africans to watch in 2013. John Tysoe was born in 1951. After graduating with an honours degree in philosophy from Nottingham University, he became an equity analyst in the City of London, focusing first on technology and later, telecommunications. John left the City in 2003 to form The Mobile World, specialising in providing accurate, comprehensive data about all aspects of the telecommunications industry. John has four children and lives in England.