Telecommunication in Jamaica

Introduction & History

People imagine that telecommunications means communications using only electrical or electronic technology, but that isn't so.

Telecommunication is communication over long distances, by means such as by newspapers, telephone, radio, satellite, television and the Internet.

The idea of telecommunication first came from the telegraph. The word telegraphy comes from Greek. "Tele" means distant and "graphein" to write. So the meaning is writing at a distance

The first form of modern telecommunication - the electric telegraph - sent electrical currents along wires.

On 24 May 1844, Samuel Morse sent his first public message over a telegraph line between Washington and Baltimore, and through that simple act, ushered in the telecommunication age.

By 1868 Jamaica began to use the telegram. The West India and Panama Telegraph Company was the major provider of telecom services in Jamaica and the Anglophone Caribbean in the mid 19th century. West India and Panama Telegraph Company is now Cable & Wireless today.

However there was limitation to the telegraph you need to put a physical piece of cable between the sender and receiver. That's almost always hard work and expensive - and sometimes impossible. The alternative is to use radio and a code.

Using electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves. The Radio was now used to connect people who are moving around - on a ship, on foot or in a vehicle.

In the right circumstances radio signals can be sent and received across great distances, but the range is not unlimited. Radio waves decline in strength over distance and are subject to interference from other sources.

Directing radio waves accurately is not always feasible; they tend to travel outwards along straight lines from the transmitter and did not follow the curve of the Earth.

By 1876 the introduced telephone using basic technology of the telegraph - electrical signals carried along copper wires - but in a different way.

For the first time, people could actually speak to each other while many miles apart. Having a conversation was much faster than sending and decoding messages

Just two years later in 1883 the telephone was introduced to Jamaica to the office and for commercial use. Unfortunately it took almost 100 years for the telephone to become available for the residents of Jamaica in 1978.

Wireless did...

... middle of paper ...

...communications.

Soon we will have more submarine fibre-optic networks that will link Jamaica to North America and the rest of the world. This type of technology is very affordable in comparison to existing services we have, hence more people will be able to acquire this service from an economical standpoint. These cables can withstand natural disasters that affect Jamaica, for example, hurricane Ivan, than that of other technologies, like satellites.

Several benefits will be gained from this, as Jamaicans will have competition in the routing of data and voice traffic into Jamaica, using non-satellite infrastructure, which is a significant achievement in the development of a knowledge- based society. The provision of the fibre-optic networks will significantly enhance the country’s emergency telecommunications infrastructure and its capacity to recover from disasters, which affect the region from time to time. With reasonable priced cables, entrepreneurs will be able to invest in the deployment of domestic fibre networks, bringing retail services close to businesses and households, thus ensuring the availability and affordability of the necessary computer hardware and software.