ABSTRACT

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

CONTENTS (Volume II)

A.

PUBLIC MESSAGE SERVICES CHRONOLOGY (1844 Through January 1979)

Developed by Steven Watson and Sharon Kirby.

B.

EXECUNET CHRONOLOGY WITH BRIEF INTRODUCTION (July 1975 Through

June 1978), Developed by Sharon Kirby.

Page

iii

V

vii

xiii

C.

Ꭰ.

E.

F.

G.

SPACE INDUSTRIALIZATION CONCEPT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS,

by Copper Wilson and Roland Weiss.

FINDINGS ABOUT INFORMATION SOURCES AVAILABLE AT THE FEDERAL

COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION AND ELSEWHERE, By Sharon Kirby and James Bell.

POTENTIAL USES OF INFORMATION AND POTENTIAL MEASURABLE ISSUES,

Developed by Steven Watson, James Bell, Sharon Kirby, Paul Nalley

and Roland Weiss.

POTENTIAL USERS OF INFORMATION, Developed by Sharon Kirby.

FCC NEWS RELEASE ANNOUNCING END OF WESTERN UNION MONOPOLY AND

CONDITIONAL APPROVAL OF GRAPHNET ́S APPLICATION FOR DOMESTIC

SERVICE (CC Docket Nos. 78-95-96).

1844

1856

1861

1880s

1910

1929

1934

1943

1945

PUBLIC MESSAGE CHRONOLOGY

"Public message telegraph service is ordinary telegram
service, in which the carrier. . .accepts either written
or oral messages at a public office or via the public
telephone network, transmits those messages to its public
office in another city, and delivers the messages either
in written or oral form to the designated recipient. No
customer terminal equipment is required. Unlike the
customer using public long distance telephone service, the
telegram customer does not subscribe in advance to any
service and get his premises connected to the network."
Graphnet Systems, Inc., 64 FCC 2d 1023 (1977)

First telegraph line established between Baltimore and Washington.
Western Union is authorized by acts of the Wisconsin and New
York Legislatures to provide the service.

A transcontinental system is established.

The Postal Telegraph Cable Co. becomes a domestic competitor with
Western Union.

The Mann-Elkins Act established the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulatory authority over telephone and telegraph communications.

Western Union's regular telegram service hits its peak. Main
competitor becomes Postal Telegraph.

The Communications Act is passed and the Federal Communications

Commission created.

Congress adds domestic merger section 222 to the 1934 Communications Act. The purpose of this legislation is to assure that the merger of Western Union and the Postal Telegraph Co. would not violate antitrust laws.

FCC holds hearing (Docket 6517 10 FCC 148 [1943]) and finds that the public interest would be best served by a monopoly in the domestic public telegraph service. Certain "natural monopoly" conditions of the market were cited. The House Interstate Commerce Committee's general preference for a competitive market structure is overcome by the financial difficulties faced by the Postal Telegraph Co. and by the need to assure a sound telegraph industry to meet the contingencies of war. Western Union granted monopoly.

Western Union telegram service hits second peak and enters declining period. There begins a growth of leased telegraph services--which in 1977 only constituted approximately 28 percent of Western Union revenues.