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Do the Media Understand Telecommunications Christopher Lorenz ERICSSON REVIEW plans to publish from time to time articles of a general interest in the field of communications. The second article in this new series has been written by CHRISTOPHER LORENZ of the Financial Times in London, who is one of the best respected telecommunications writers in the world press today. Mr. Lorenz discusses some of the problems of the "unknown" telecommunications industry and the lack of recognition for what this industry contributes. And suggests that one of the solutions might be education and information of mass media as a means of improving the general public's understanding of telecommunications. achieved high levels of telephone penetration, and are trying to improve the usage of their installed assets. Greater understanding from the public can also help the organisation in other ways, such as reducing the barrage of impatience and complaint when something goes wrong. This applies as much to the occasional breakdown as to the impact of changing levels of telephone network investment on employment in the factories which make telecommunications equipment. UDC 654.1: 659.3 Many a telecommunications professional has asked me over the years why his industry is so poorly understood by the general public, as compared with motor vehicles or shipbuilding-or even more "difficult" subjects such as nuclear power, genetic engineering or astro-physics. After all, he usually argues, telecommunications is of prime social and economic importance. A mass of factors supports his argument: efficient telephone and data networks are vital to the very life of a modern industrialised economy; operation of the systems and their manufacture together employ several hundred thousand people in each of many countries round the world; massive annual investment in the business is required (often running into several billions of dollars); taken together with associated activities like computing and electronic components, telecommunications will account for more than six per cent of several gross national products in Europe by the early 1980s; and on the question of technological innovation, the telecoms man will argue that current advances in both switching and transmission are as exciting as anything the motor industry or even nuclear power have to offer. This concern with the need for greater public understanding is not just a question of giving the telecoms professional the widespread recognition he deserves, alongside the designer of cars, or nuclear physicist. In almost every country, greater public awareness could promote demand for all sorts of telephone services —an important economic factor to countries which are now installing extensive networks for the first time, just as it is for those which have already If administrations and manufacturers are to get their message across, they will first have to persuade the media (both press and broadcasting) that they are in an interesting business. This will become harder in the next few years, as more and more equipment is compressed into obscure small boxes of integrated circuits controlled by computer tapes and discs. Even with traditional technology, it is not an easy task. From a journalistic point of view, the most obvious problem about the telephone is that, in many countries, people perceive it as "just part of the furniture". It has been around for so long that it has ceased to be an interesting object for many people —unless it breaks down, that is. In the United States, to some extent, the telephone has been given a new lease of life as an object of public interest by the advent of competition since 1968 in parts of the telecommunications market. People's interest can hardly fail to be aroused when they are assaulted daily by the competing claims of various suppliers, and when their local shopping plaza contains at least one "Phone Mart" with a bewildering array of handsets in over a dozen colours. The competitive climate and the general public awareness it creates, stimulates the media to give telecommunications considerable "coverage". In Europe, by contrast, the media still generally turns its attention to telecommunications only when it is the subject of a major row, be this over the threatened admission or nationalisation of new suppliers (as in France and the United Kingdom in recent years), or the
39 CHRISTOPHER LORENZ Financial Times London latest cut in Post Office orders —and therefore inevitable unemployment in the suppliers' factories. It is significant, for example, that many national newspapers in Europe have virtually ignored the major underlying reason for repeated rundowns in suppliers' labour forces: the shift from labour-intensive electro-mechanical switching to semielectronics. Instead, they have concentrated on the spate of downward revisions in Post Office equipment orders. This is the drama of which popular journalism is made, but it usually oversimplifies any situation to the extent of damaging distortion. It also misses the chance to produce a fascinating study of a major industry undergoing a complete change in character. There are other, more constructive ways in which the media could be encouraged to "cover" telecommunications". For the writer, telecommunications consumption of national budget resources can be made an interesting theme (whether you think it is too large or too small). So can the efficient management of the telecommunications administrations. PTTs are some of the largest employers in many countries, too, but how many people understand how they go about their complex business The social aspect of developments in telecoms provide another obvious wealth of interesting material, whether in developing countries (basic telephony as well as prestigious satellite projects), or in the industrialised world. Here, one should not need to repeat the well-worn futuristic cliches about "working from home" or "the wired city" in order to provoke interest. Special services for handicapped people, or telephone audio conferencing (including its energysaving aspects) are down-to-earth examples. To the engineer, these themes may seem too lightweight, especially if his complaint is addressed more towards the lack of public understanding about the technological progress in which he is so closely involved, and which he may soon want to market in a new service. Of all the current examples, only videoconferencing has attracted widespread popular coverage by the media in a number of countries (this includes the view- or picture-phone). Electronic switching, waveguides and even optical fibres have received little more than the occasional mention in most general newspaper (my own is an exception). It is often impossible to write about an economic or organisational aspect of telecommunications without getting deeply into technological issues. Unless the journalist explains the technical principles and carrying capacity of optical fibres, for instance, he cannot hope to convey how important they may be in cutting transmission costs, providing greater bandwith, and therefore offering subscribers a whole new range of services at reasonable prices. But this need to use technology as a "lever" can become a barrier to writing about telecommunications at all. This is the crux of the problem. Many people—including some newspaper editors-are quite simply scared off by technology, some by the word itself, others by its complex (and sometimes disturbing) implications. Many editors also have an unfortunate habit of underrating the intelligence of their public. This compounds the problem facing a company or organisation which is trying to popularise telecommunications. A recent television programme about telephony is an ideal example here. Much of it consisted of pictures of workmen erecting telephone poles in beautiful countryside, though the programme had nothing directly, to do with the environmental effects of technology. Quite rightly, many telecommunications professionals were extremely disappointed by the film. Its shortcomings were partly explained by the fact that shots of people at work are easier and cheaper to take than those of technological equipment or processes. But the programme makers also assumed that viewers prefer watching objects they can immediately indentify, rather than those which are unfamiliar. Telephone exchange equipment is an obvious problem here. The film-makers also felt that switching equipment could not be made visually interesting unless large parts of it were
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Page 7 and 8: 3 STEN RIMBLEUS Stockholm Telecommu
Page 9 and 10: Fig. 4 (left) The operation and mai
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Page 13 and 14: 9 ABDULLAH AL-SABEJ Chief Engineer
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Page 25 and 26: 21 HENNING ANDERSEN VILLYK. PEDERSE
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Page 29 and 30: 25 Fig. 10 Simplified block diagram
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