Eric's Beijing Diary

One of the most significant transformations of the information age is the switch that has taken place between television and telephone. In the old days, television was mobile, at least in so far as connection with the source of communication was concerned. But telephones were fixed. There were no mobile phones. Occasionally, you would see a picture of a special police car that had a mobile phone setup, but they were very cumbersome and expensive. In the late sixties, cable television started to become popular. At the time I didn't think it would be a good thing, because it seemed to be too limiting. But it hasn't turned out that way. Now you never see "rabbit ears," and the "snow" that characterized reception from a distant TV tower would not be tolerated. I remember in the seventies when the first mobile phones came out. They were a take off from Agent 86 on the "Get Smart" television program, who had a dial phone in his shoe.

Now, the switch is almost complete. TV has become stationary, and communications have become mobile. Makes more sense that way, I guess. Today, I got a call from Anne Marie on her cruise ship in Hawaii. Clarity of the picture was good, but not much to see, because it was dark outside. But the audio was pretty good, and, of course, it was free, because we were communicating computer to computer. We would say that we were communicating "over the internet," but in fact, much of modern international phone communication is over the Internet these days. Before I started using my laptop for international calls, I would buy cheap phone cards. I say "cheap," because the cost per minute was below the conventional rate for China. But the cost per minute calling from China to America is quite a bit more than the cost of calling the other direction. My point, though, is that even when I used phone cards, I was using the Internet. They were IP (Internet Protocol) phone cards. The reason IP phone cards are cheap, is because the cost for the company handling the connection is so low. The Internet is free, once you get connected. So when you use your laptop, you're cutting out the middleman, but the basic mode of communication is the same: Voice-over IP, not conventional analog communication.