ABSTRACT
As national economies develop and their industrial structures become increasingly interdependent, they rely increasingly on telecommunications to collect, exchange and transfer information. The effective use of information and information technologies has become one of the most important factors in the production of goods and services. Telecommunications have also become the main distribution channel for trade in information-based services. Telecommunications have developed very rapidly since the introduction of the telegraph by Morse in 1845 and of the telephone by Bell in 1876. Within a hundred years of the innovations, service became almost universal in the US and Europe. Exchange systems have moved from manual switch exchanges with human operators, through crossbar and electronic exchanges, to digital exchanges. The development of technology in information processing has led to the development of intelligent terminals with information-processing capacities. The development of telecommunication technologies has had a great impact on the world economy.
