The Sky is the Limit!

Let’s go back in time! Just remember when you were born, when you were a child, even a teenager, think about how you used to communicate with someone who wasn’t just in front of you or living with you.

If you had just returned from school and realized that you forgot to tell your best friend on a Monday afternoon what were you planning to wear for next Saturday’s party , what would you’d done? I am sure if your friend did not live next door, you would have picked up the phone, call her and be on the phone for an hour and a half talking, just when you’d spent the whole day with her at school. Am I wrong?

Think about that person you met from Russia and that you got on with each other very well, but you were living in Denver so every time you wanted to communicate with her you knew that a phone call would have cost you half of your salary, and sending a letter would have finished in wondering if she have ever received it.

Do this things sound familiar to you? I think so. And if you have only suffered from those, you are lucky! Do not even think about natives communicating with smoke signals or drums!

Telecommunications are nowadays the most advanced industry in the world, with billions and billions of earnings every year.

Telephony has rapidly changed from the analog telephone, which still works, to the digital telephone, the cell phone, the blackberry, the I phone, etc… In such a short time we have seen many different technologies and devices developed as people we ever met in our life. Whenever you think you have acquired the latest “thing”, something new is launched in the market.

Technology does things easier, but also cheaper. Twenty years ago, in Argentina, for instance, those who wanted a fixed-line installed at home would have paid US$ 1.000 and waited for many months to have the technicians working in your home!. Now for US$50 and three days waiting, you’ll get it. On the other hand, cell phones companies used to charge you with US$ 1.500 only for the telephone itself, which actually was like a brick, so big, so heavy! The good thing is that you would have ever noticed if you forgot it somewhere because you would have felt 3 pounds less to carry! Today you only pay for the line, and the equipment is for free or for less than US$ 150. Besides that, it fits wherever, even in the smallest pocket and sometimes it is difficult for you to know if you are carrying it, it is so light!

In some countries, like Italy for instance, many people have more than one cell phone company and only one equipment, they only change the chip and get the advantage of different prices per minute offered by the different companies, depending the day, the hour, etc…

In many countries cell phones outnumber fixed-lines. That’s easy to understand, if you think in a house with four inhabitants, it’s probably that everyone has a cell phone, but there is only one or two fixed-lines at home.

The Internet, what an invention! Who will ever thought about receiving, or even writing, a hand-written letter instead of an e-mail? What is best, now you can contact your friend from Russia, and you can even watch her or call her without paying a dime! In that sense you might be thinking that the internet is leading the telephone companies to bankruptcy, but the good thing is that it isn’t, It is only pushing companies to create new products, new services, new technologies, to explore new markets, to give better services, better prices. You may also have to remember that Internet cannot exist without the telephone companies! It needs its networks.

The TV is also improving, now, the cable companies are offering not only, TV but also telephony and internet! The different players in the telecommunication market are playing not only in their own field, they are playing in their “neighbor’s” field!! See what’s next, it seems like the sky is the limit!