How many of you spent thousands to buy an 80's model cell phone? Spent another few hundred for labor to have it moved between vehicles? Replaced it every few years as new technology, retail discounts, and programmed obsolecense(sp) took control of your technology budget?
Twenty plus years after the initial cellular calls were made in the USA, the technology is still evolving, and we replace our toys at regular intervals. Telephone, the wired kind, have been a constant for a good part of recent history. That stability is what made AT&T the giant it could grow in to. The capacity to control the market, and the equipment to be used for interconnection.
We could still be beating on rocks with sticks, sending smoke signals, pulling a string tight between two tin cans, etc, but, Mr Bell received a patent for a technology that has metamorphisized, but remained constant. Wired telephone is near the end of its life span, that is a given. As technology moves on, yes, in much the way we went from 2 pair key systems into the digital single pair systems, the wires will no longer be required.
Switching methods will advance, transmission means will progress, wireless has more practicality than wired comm over VoIP.
