Looking Back, Moving Forward

Memorial Day weekend also marks the 200th year anniversary of the first official telegraphic message sent over a long distance.

On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse famously telegraphed, “What hath God wrought!” from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, the first official telegraphic message sent over of a long distance. Coincidentally, 18 years later to the day, Abraham Lincoln would send nine telegraph messages to Union generals, becoming the first President to regularly use electronic communications. Eighty years ago, Congress passed a law largely to deal with the network revolution Morse unleashed -- the Communications Act of 1934, which established the FCC.

Fast forward to today, and the Commission is grappling with the transition to the next network revolution -- the digital revolution that is being fueled by ubiquitous high-speed connectivity and increasingly powerful computing devices. June’s open Commission meeting will be highlighted by an update on our efforts to facilitate the transition from the circuit-switched networks of Alexander Graham Bell to a world with fiber, cable and wireless Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

Soon, the Commission will receive a status report on proposed experiments and how best to deploy next-generation networks, while preserving enduring values like universal access, competition and consumer protection. The Commission will also hear a presentation on progress made in processing Low Power FM applications from the October 2013 window.