Jewish World Review June 8, 2004 / 18 Sivan 5764
Mr. Reagan's Computing Legacy
By Mark Kellner
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
On Jan. 19, 1979, almost two years to the day before he became President,
Ronald Reagan delivered a radio commentary about "the phone company," the
old American Telephone & Telegraph combine which held in its integrated
structure all the elements of telephony in this country, from local service
to long distance to equipment.
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JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
Following your heart
Mr. Reagan noted that a federal antitrust suit against AT&T apparently
ignored the relatively low cost of a coast-to-coast phone call: $1.30 in
1979 versus $9.50 in the 1930s. Phone service, he said, was private and
affordable, unlike his earlier experience with the family's Depression-era
"party line" phone connection.
"Today," he said then, according to the book "Reagan, In His Own Hand" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.), "the miracles we already have are going to be topped by [the] video
phone; there are recorder gadgets to take phone calls and messages when you
are absent, and now they talk of electronic mail. If the cost differential
continues at the present rate, it is possible the telephone may put the post
office out of business within the next 10 or 20 years."
Things unfolded a bit differently than Mr. Reagan envisioned video phones
are by no means commonplace but what did unfold owed a lot to Ronald
Reagan, his political philosophy and his actions. During the 1980s, it was
the Reagan administration that oversaw the divestiture of AT&T's local phone
units, settling that antitrust case he complained about in that radio
commentary. That divestiture began a wave of change in America's phone
network that led to massively lower prices for phone service overall,
especially long distance, but also for access to the phone network by data
transmission services. In turn, those lower phone costs helped fuel the
growth of CompuServe, America Online and other online services, paving the
way for today's Internet.
It was the Reagan White House that became the first to use personal
computers on a large scale, along with e-mail, the latter coming back to
haunt some staffers during the Iran-Contra investigation.
The first IBM personal computers rolled off the assembly lines in August of
1981, eight months after Mr. Reagan's inaugural, and at a time when
substantial tax cuts for individuals and businesses came along. Those cuts
helped make the IBM PC (as well as CP/M-based microcomputers, the Apple II,
and Tandy Corp.'s TRS-80 systems) affordable. An improving economy, where
inflation declined, also led many into software and hardware development and
birthed companies that eventually dominated the field.
There was also the public side of his involvement: in 1985, Mr. Reagan
presented the National Medal of Technology to Apple Computer co-founders
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, specifically for "their development and
introduction of the personal computer." He also lauded data processing
pioneer Grace Murray Hopper on her promotion from Captain to Commodore of
the U.S. Naval Reserve, hosting an Oval Office ceremony for her in 1983.
Mr. Reagan didn't start a telecom revolution by himself, of course. In 1987,
he named a then-36-year-old attorney, Dennis R. Patrick, to chair the
Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Patrick, his predecessor Mark Fowler,
and FCC colleagues such as Patricia Diaz Dennis and James Quello were at the
vanguard of regulating new telecommunications services and markets, opening
up the field for hundreds of companies and thousands of workers.
It wasn't the telephone, but rather the data that traveled over deregulated
and divested telephone circuits, that challenged the postal monopoly and
changed our lives. While the daily mail is still a part of American life, it
can truly be said that the digital revolution got a major push from the
actions of a former radio commentator named Ronald Reagan.
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