The future of international telecommunications [Introduction to the following four papers]

It is clear that today, with the rapidly growing volume and importance of international message telephone traffic, the rapid increase in international customer-to-customer record services, and the great improvements in quality and quantity of transmission available in wideband cables and satellites, the organizational structure and philosophies of operation of the past are not optimum for the 1960´s and 1970´s. The Executive Branch and the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have just completed a study of the subject. A report has been submitted by the Intragovernmental Committee on International Telecommunications to the Commerce Committees of the Congress. In the conduct of this study the Government contracted with Stanford Research Institute (SRI) to assemble much of the factual background data, summarize the information, make extensive analyses, and draw certain conclusions. The following group of papers draws on that study and other background information to describe certain situations of the United States´ overseas carriers and to present some techniques developed and analyses conducted during this extensive study. It is not the purpose of these papers to draw conclusions or to discuss the findings and conclusions of the SRI study or the recommendations of the Intragovernmental Committee´s report but to present some of the background facts and analyses which are germane to understanding the current state of United States overseas communications and charting its future.