Dialing to keep updated with the techonological age, we switch from fixed to wireless phones that will make life easier

Sanjeev Satgainya

Kathmandu

The world is a smaller place thanks to the development of communication technology. People have grown closer to each other. In the last 150 years, communication technology has seen many interesting developments.

The discovery of the first useful scientific principle regarding communication took place in the year 1820. Hans Oersted, a scientist from Denmark, while working with his students found out that there was a magnetic field around a wire carrying an electric current. If the wire is coiled then the magnetic field is found to be increased by the number of turns made. And when a piece of iron is inserted into the coil, it behaved like a magnet. Thus the concept of electromagnet was enunciated. This constitutes the idea of relay, which can make or break other electric circuits. And for the very first time the idea of telegraphy was propounded.

Professor Henry of New York discovered that it really could operate even when the wire is more than three kilometres long. Samuel Morse was a professional painter and an amateur scientist. He and his student Alfred Vail accumulated the existing ideas and this gave birth to a system to communicate over long distances, known today as Morse code. Morse Code actually consists of dots and dashes to represent the alphanumeric characters. The invention of Morse code was indeed a remarkable breakthrough in long distance communication.

Being a prominent and very important discovery in the field of long distance communication, telegraphy spread like wild fire. It was the heydays of industrial revolution. Industries were being established, railways were spreading, and business was expanding. Newspapers too were trying hard to get and send their messages and information from one place to another as quickly as possible. Telegraphy proved to be a boon to assist this boost. Almost all countries promptly tried and accepted this system of communication.

Sounds incredible, but people at that time were so pleased and excited with the telegraph, it was thought to be the ultimate achievement in communication. The situation remained the same until Alexander Graham Bell showed a better way. Bell’s family had an involvement in training the communicating techniques to the deaf and dumb with each other. During Bell’s attempts to devise an electronic gadget to assist this training, he serendipitiously invented the telephone in 1876.

Bell working with his colleague found out that the sound waves that impinge on a diaphragm as vibrations could be transmitted through circuits to result as reasonably good copy of the original sound. The discovery of telephone was a huge leap in the field of long distance communication. And since then, telephone has taken a giant leap.

The fixed telephones which we have been using till date are operated through Public Switching Telephone Network (PSTN). Necessity is the mother of all the inventions and people have always striven to invent new things and in due course came the mobile telephone system.

Nepal Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) started GSM mobile service in the country a couple of years ago. Keeping pace with the latest technologies is indeed difficult for our country though NTC has endeavoured to introduce the latest technologies to facilitate its customers.

With the service recently started by United Telecom, NTC too is planning to provide similar service to its customers. Sugat Raj Kansakar, deputy general manager, planning division, NTC shares, “After PSTN, we introduced GSM and now we are in row to bring CDMA technology.”

CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access. This is also a wireless technology which enables the customers to enjoy the facility of moving their telephone set at their own wish which was not possible in PSTN system.

Kansakar clarifies, “The technology should not be confused with that of GSM. In mobile, a customer has maximum freedom of carrying his telephone set and enjoy the communication whe-reas CDMA provides limited area of utilisation.”

The adoption of technology is not meant for easy communication only. In a country like ours where terrains and mountains create problem in expanding the PSTN system, which needs

cables, CDMA is a boon indeed. Kansakar says, “We can choose an area in terms of revenue generation and number of customers and establish a tower in that area. The single tower can cover a range of 15 to 20 kilometres distance to provide telephone facility, without cable problem.”

The implementation of this technology is thought of as budget effective and time saving for NTC in infrastructural development. “Cabling an area needs a lot of time and money. In comparison, establishing a tower does not take much and in terms of money also, it is cheaper.”

Implementation of technological advancement means an attempt to bring a nation comparatively equal to technologically advanced nations. “We don’t mean that we have narrowed the digital gap between Nepal and Japan but we can at least narrow the digital gap

between a village in Jumla and Durbar Marg. We want to provide the same facility to a person staying in Tumlingtar and as one in the Capital. This brings the country closer.”

Though most things have been finalised for the implementation of the CDMA technology, how much does one have to pay to enjoy the services and when exactly the service will be available is yet to be declared. “By next year, we will have made CDMA facility available to our customers courtesy NTC,” boasts Kansakar.