Using Discretionary Telecommunications

The network telephone and broadcast video communications that blanket the nation are being exploited broadly for social purposes. Continuing technical effort can help reduce the cost and increase the flexibility of existing systems, thus making them even more attractive for such applications as improving education, increasing productivity, and delivering health care. Advances in technology can provide new opportunities, and there are promising results from R&D in broad-band transmission, image sensing, and graphic displays. However, there is no need to wait for new technology to use discretionary telecommunications for new social purposes. The biggest task is organizing institutions and procedures to use existing telecommunications effectively. And the most important measure of success for a novel application is likely not to be an abstract cost/benefit calculation, but rather the vital market place evaluation of whether anyone wants to support an operational version of an experimental system.