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Submitted: October 19, 2008 - 8:00pm
Last updated: October 20, 2008 - 8:17pm
Last updated: October 20, 2008 - 8:17pm
Source:
Ars Technica
Author:
Matthew Lasar
Forty years ago the Federal Communications Commission issued one of the most important Orders in its history, a ruling that went unnoticed by most news sources at the time. It involved an application manufactured and distributed by one Mr. Thomas Carter of Texas. The "Carterfone" allowed users to attach a two-way radio transmitter/receiver to their telephone, extending its reach across sprawling Texas oil fields where managers and supervisors needed to stay in touch. Between 1955 and 1966, Carter's company sold about 3,500 of these applications around the United States and well beyond. In the end, however, Carterfone's significance extends far beyond the convenience that Thomas Carter's machine provided its users over a decade. It is no exaggeration to say that the our current telecommunications world was created, in good part, by the legal battle between Carter, AT&T, and the FCC's resolution of that fight—its Carterfone decision. The Carterfone saga starts as the appealing tale of one developer's willingness to stick to his guns. But it is really about the victory of two indispensable values: creativity and sharing.
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Comments
Dave Cosson
Matthew Lasar is correct that the Carterfone decision's significance extends far beyond Tom Carter's machine, and that the end result was to break the Bell System control over terminal equipment.
Nevertheless, the case was really about interconnection of networks, not terminal equipment. The "foreign attachment" provision of Tariff 132 permitted customers to attach their own equipment by either acoustic or inductive connection, whic was how the Carterfone connected. What it prohibited was "piece-out." If somebody, such as an oil exploration crew, wanted to talk between points A and C, but the phone company only had facilities between points B and C, the tariff prohibited the oil company from using its own two-way radio link between points A and B and interconnecting to get to point C. It was really economic harm that the prohibition was concerned with (i.e. if there were facilities between A & C, AT&T didn't want customers paying less than for the whole distance), although AT&T nevertheless argued technical harm.
A couple of minor corrections. GTE was not the sole remaining independent company, there were then a couple of thousand (and over a thousand still today), with nearly a 100 in Texas alone. Also, subscribers did not "buy" their equipment form the telephone company or Western Electric, the equipment was "furnished" as a part of the service. Western Electric would not even sell euipment to independent telephone companies, but that's another story.