This book describes the stage-by-stage creation and development, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, of the remarkable global communications technologies that have profoundly transformed the way that people live and work.

John Bray was Director at the British Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, and later at the British Telecommunications Research Laboratories, Martlesham Heath, UK. He began his career with the British Post Office as an Assistant Engineer working on short-wave radio and went on to develop microwave radio relays for intercity communication. This led to the building of the BT Tower in London. In the 1950s, he studied telecommunications in the US, visiting Bell Labs and the Federal Communications Commission. He was responsible for the building of the BPO Satellite Communication Earth Station at Goonhilly Downs in Cornwall, which carried the first television transmission to the US via the TELSTAR satellite in 1962. He was Chairman of the Radio Consultative Committee of the International Consultative Committee of the ITU. In retirement he continued to work as Visiting Professor and external examiner at Imperial College London and UCL. His life-long work in telecommunications was recognised with a CBE, awarded in 1975.

• Chapter 1: Introduction


• Chapter 2: Creators of the mathematical and scientific foundations


• Chapter 3: The first telegraph and cable engineers


• Chapter 4: The first telephone engineers


• Chapter 5: Inventors of the thermionic valve


• Chapter 6: The telegraph-telephone frequency-division multiplex transmission engineers


• Chapter 7: Pioneers of radio communication


• Chapter 8: Pioneers of sound radio broadcasting


• Chapter 9: Pioneers of television broadcasting


• Chapter 10: The engineers of the early multi-channel telephony coaxial cable systems: the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable


• Chapter 11: The first microwave radio-relay engineers


• Chapter 12: The inventors of the transistor and the microchip: a world-wide revolution in electronics


• Chapter 13: The creators of information theory, pulse-code modulation and digital techniques


• Chapter 14: The pioneers of electro-mechanical and computer-controlled electronic exchange switching systems


• Chapter 15: The first satellite communication engineers


• Chapter 16: Pioneers of long-distance waveguide systems: an unfulfilled vision


• Chapter 17: Pioneers of optical fibre communication systems: the first trans- Atlantic system


• Chapter 18: Inventors of the visual telecommunication systems


• Chapter 19: Information technology and services: data communication


• Chapter 20: Growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web


• Chapter 21: The development of the mobile radio service


• Chapter 22: Telecommunications and the future