~1850: russia: 450km, five words per minute. (cables laid in shallow stretch of water and on land) 1866: neufundland - scotland: 4000km. 40 words in 21 minutes (source: max jüllig, die kabeltelegraphie, 1884)

the 1980s and its slogan: "internet in the sky“: 1980s: european satellite projects: stella (satellite transmission experiment linking laboratories, a cost 11bis project), universe (a uk project) and finally satine (a cost 11ter project, carried out by CERN, RAL, Desy, Saclay, CNUCE, TU Graz, UC and TC Dublin, JRC Ispra): 8mb/s
1990s: iridium, a motorola project. loved by the technitians, hated by the management: bankrupcy 1998: costs: $ 6Bill sold for $ 25Mill to the boeing company on behalf of dod.
1995: 840 satellites, up- 100mb/s, downlink: 720mb/s; but the teledesic network never came true as bill gates and craig mccaw dreamed of it in approx. 1990 ...

TELRIC-BS – TELRIC-Blank Slate – This is the label economist and former regulator Alfred E. Kahn has given to the FCC’s pricing formula for UNEs. The BS component stands for “blank slate,” because he argues that regulators ignore the ILEC’s actual costs and instead adopt the costs of a hypothetical, most efficient new entrant.

UNE – Unbundled Network Element – The Telecommunications Act of 1996 required the incumbent to make access to its network available to competitors at technically feasible points. Unbundled network elements comprise loops, the network interface device, local circuit switching, dedicated and shared transport, signaling and call-related databases, and operations support systems.

Alfred E. Kahn, who has long analyzed the regulation of U.S. public utilities, underscores the key point in his colorful depiction of the rule as “TELRIC-BS.” The appended acronym is said to stand for “blank slate,” which captures perhaps the key pricing element: costs are determined by regulators to be what a most efficient network would incur if built today. Since prices are periodically reset and costs, driven by technological advance, tend to fall over time in telecommunications networks, network owners will predictably recoup less than the costs they incur when the facilities they create are rented in future periods. Alfred E. Kahn, Letting Go: Deregulating the Process of Deregulation or Temptation of the Kleptocrats and the Political Economy of Regulatory Disingenuousness, Institute of Public Utilities and Network Industries (Michigan State University, 1998). See also Robert S. Pindyck, Mandatory Unbundling and Irreversible Investment in Telecom Networks, NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH WORKING PAPER w10287 (Feb. 2004). | sending the right signal (application/pdf, 897 KB) : promoting competition through telecommunications reform, a report to the u.s. chamber of commerce, September 22, 2004

once upon a time, more precise in the 1981, german companies were making use of fiber and setting up a test bed for something they called bigfon:

several islands for some 350 selected subscribers in 6 cities were choosen, to study the technical feasibility of the system, to clarify operational problems in a 3-year trial period, and to work out profitability forecasts for large-scale production.

the subscribers needs where identified as:

Videophone connections 1 (5 MHz, colour; alternatively for TV

TV 2 to 4 channels with free access to 12 programs

Stereo radio 24 channels or 4 channels with free access to 24 programs

besides of siemens, ant, aeg-telefunken and kabelwerke rheydt there was a company involved with the great name: "telefonbau und normalzeit" which was renamed in telenorma and later acquired by bosch ...| telecommunications in europe