ABSTRACT
Broadcasting’s earliest development was slow. It had many technolog-ical challenges and required the application of fundamental wirelessdiscoveries. Although 30 years passed between the first theorizing about wireless in 1865 and Marconi’s first practical system experiments, our concern is mostly with the subsequent rise of wireless communication from an isolated invention to a widespread, practical innovation. Even after it was in use, people in many nations saw it only as a point-to-point medium that could straddle natural barriers and operate more cheaply than the wire telegraph or telephone, a goal that has being met only in the last few years with the development of cellular and PCS (personal communication service) telephones. Few then thought that the absence of privacy protection from listeners-in would one day become one of radio’s strongest advantages.
