The emporium that Bell got and presently enjoys was due to the incentives provided by the authorities as well as the common voracious business operations. This assertion is the major issue that the author of The Invisible Empire: A History of the Telecommunications in Canada, 1846-1956 largely succeeded in elaborating through conclusive facts. After reading the book, one realizes that the author succeeds in explaining some of the issues he raises at the introduction part of the book, viz. the augmentation of currency during the Internet era. The growth of Internet connectivity to a huge industry has tagged along with how Rens had anticipated the telecom industry to develop.
Rens had forecasted that the minute number of stakeholders would gulp the increase of services. Bell’s colleagues used territorial acquisition techniques to expand their market power as well as frustrate competitors and introduce various infrastructures even without benefitting from the expansion. However, these tactics failed to help Bell’s colleagues to install local connectivity, and thus increase network value because the Internet mainly used a pre-designed rule of interconnection. The telecommunication industry in Canada has undergone disparate changes in its course of evolution as underscored in the book The Invisible Empire: A History of the Telecommunications Industry in Canada, by Jean-Guy Rens, which forms the subject of this paper.
Originally written in 1993, Rens’ book is often considered by telecom experts as a book that its reading is analogous to an escapade novel. Some analysts have compared the political as well as business battles to players in a volley contest. After reading the book, one can truly admit that the assertions of these analysts are utterly true. The Invisible Empire provides an evocative narrative that sums up to huge information about telecommunication progress and challenges in Canada. Over the past decades, one could allude that telecommunication researchers in Canada were not giving the country’s telecommunication background significant attention.
This insinuation was factual to some extent considering the amount of energy that was being invested in researching commercial media structures in comparison to the telecom industry. Very few communication institutions saw the significance of studying telecom history. The communication scholars often focused on economic as well as political issues that affected the commercial telecom structures and paid minimal attention to administrative issues. Nonetheless, the growth of the Internet as a channel of communication and an organized global regulatory development altered the attitude the communication scholars and they started refocusing their minds towards studying telecom infrastructure.
Through The Impossible Empire, Rens endeavors to provide further revelations after his predecessors like Martin and Babe concerning the telecom industry from the antique ages to the present. He artistically presents his narration through integrating anecdotal format with an insightful style that is ratified by university publishers. He succeeds in writing a book accompanied by adequate research as is evident with the number of bibliographies he presents at the end of the book. Moreover, to avert hypothetical outlines, he elaborates certain events extensively whilst other issues are given minute attention.
The book is divided into two main parts, viz. Pioneer Era: Inventions and Impediments, 1846 to 1915 and Creating Universal Service. The first section focuses on the history of boisterous Canadian telecom firms that had a global impact and how they were turned into local monopolies. The second part underpins how the monopolies mentioned in section one split the market, worked in unity to provide a complex service that was made up of various rules, technologies, as well as organizations
In the first section, Rens begins by narrating the birth and history of telegraphy. He states that some of the individuals that ought to be given the greatest appreciation in the field of telegraphy are Morse and Alfred, as they developed binary codes, which created ease of computer codes and eventually reduced the unfussiness in telegraphy. Later on, Rens observes that the first telegraph connection between Hamilton and Toronto had capricious timelines, so it made it hard for the mayors to arrive at their telegraph offices at the right time. Hence, the telecom engineers worked to introduce an immediate link between the two disparate geographic regions.
Despite this achievement, the author notes that the Canadian telegraphy was made with the exclusion of the public needs. The major aim of creating the telegraph lines was to inform the Toronto Newspapers of the ongoing developments in the United States as well as the variation in prices of the American grain market. Telegraphy gradually grew to become a channel of conveying Canadians with news programs (Rens, 2001, pp. 10-13).
The Invisible Empire reveals that Canada was unable to sustain the monopoly it had concerning the new technology mainly because the industrial capital of British North America discovered that telegraphy was a good investment. Although the telegraph structure was Morse’s idea, Canada had to import the transmission tools from Great Britain. How Rens typifies the birth of the telegraph is brief but comprehensive. He carefully enlightens the main challenges that faced the Canadian telecommunications industry starting from the birth of the telegraph.
The author asserts that two major opposing happenings affected the sector, viz. east-west expansion, and north-south expansion. In the east-west axis, the Montreal Telegraph had established a chain of companies. In the north-south, the collapse of the Overland project led to the termination of one of the most significant projects in British North America. Rens claims that if the projects had thrived, then the country would have been as successful as Russia and the United States. However, according to The Invisible Empire, the collapse of the Overland project brought to an end and epoch, which could alter the world with a solitary asset; that is, a pragmatic technology of telegraphy.
Rens’ description of telegraph wars is remarkable; he notes that the telegraph contest began when the industry had matured in Canada. The Montreal Telegraph had earned monopoly control of the industry thanks to the “one company, one line” theory. However, the Montreal Telegraph received some significant amount of competition from the Dominion Telegraph. The Dominion Telegraph launched a price war against the Montreal Telegraph whereby they introduced a fixed price of twenty cents for every ten words, which was five cents cheaper than their rival was.
Contrary to their expectations, the Dominion Telegraph experienced a huge loss to the extent that the stakeholders were compelled to lease their network to the Western Union. The rivalry between the two giants was extended to the telephone sector as they struggled to purchase patents from Bell. Nonetheless, the competition turned wild and Bell opted to repurchase his patents.
In section two, The Invisible Empire describes the development of the telephone industry in Canada. The author observes that in the nineteenth century, the printed word became popular because of the unity between steam and press. Behind the innovation of the telephone was Graham Bell whose cordial relationship with Canada helped the country to benefit highly from the technology. Rens provides descriptive narration of how studies in electricity benefited the growth of telephone technology.
He also gives an elaborate account of Graham Bell’s and Gray background coupled with how he worked to invent the telephone as a medium of communication. He asserts that after a series of challenges, Bell was in a position to develop the telephone technology whilst Gray was still devising various hypothetical ideas. In addition, when he officially presented his telephone in 1876 at a World Affair in Philadelphia, it drew the attention of several scientists and political representation contrary to his anticipation. Bell was even more excited when he succeeded to a long distance from Branford to Mount Pleasant, where he spoke with his uncle through the telegraph lines of the Dominion Telegraph.
The author goes on to explain the nature of the conflict between America and Canada concerning where Bell invented the telephone technology. In his explanation, Rens shows how there was more sufficient evidence to affirm that Bell was an American by the time he invented the telephone and not Canadian as several historians assume. The telephone technology only came and prospered in Canada because of the cordial relationship that Canada had with Bell’s father, Melville Bell. His father was granted an opportunity to own 75 percent of the Canadian telephone industry. Melville sought the assistance of Henderson, a Baptist Preacher, who had initially advised him to come to Canada.
Considering the background of these key stakeholders in the Canadian telephone industry, Rens explains how the two disapproved of their critics by expanding the telephone through shrewd administration. The writer also comprehensively elaborates on the challenges the industry witnessed such as poor leadership. The likes of Baker who took over after Bell had returned to the US were ineffective, but with the emergence of Forbes, Vail, and Sise as directors, the industry transformed. Alfred Sise also succeeded in merging the Canadian telephone Industry.
The Invisible Empire is also comprehensive in explaining the circumstances that led to Bell losing the battle of the Prairies. It asserts that Bell lost the battle mainly because of the population that was increasing at a high rate due to the incursion of immigrants.
This massive population upsurge underscored the need for colossal capital as well as energy investment in the telephone industry, especially its infrastructure. Bell attempted to outdo the anti-monopoly factor in Prairies that was preventing the company from maintaining its impressive achievement. Although he succeeded at first, he could not avert the wave. It was even surprising that the use of the telephone was the first technology to succeed in infiltrating the region without government goodwill. The initial technology, viz. the telegraph, only thrived in Prairies because most of the lines in the region were constructed after the government largely supported the initiative.
About the telegraph, the telephone received a wrong reception. Bell attempted to raise funds needed for the project, but no one was willing to buy shares in the stock market. Cultural hostility on products or ideas that came from the East contributed to this failure. In essence, the constituents unnecessarily criticized the industry. For instance, whilst they complained that they were neglected, in areas where Bell provided technology they complained of expensive rates. In a recap, Rens asserts that Bell worked in an unfavorable environment when he went to Prairies.
After reading The Invisible Empire, one is likely to question if the contemporary disparate dogmatic environment can be used as an explanation for the division among local and global providers; profitability ensnares that Bell, as well as his colleagues, evaded. Readers should examine if the philosophy used by Alfred Sise to propel technological growth in Canada is acknowledged by the current mobile telephony. Sise encouraged a philosophy of working first before thinking of things related to home. Readers should examine the mobile telephony belief in Sise’s sentiments; do they just construct novel infrastructure and improve the already established technologies.
The regulatory theories that were created through the Railways Commission in 1910 have manifested a marketplace that is largely controlled by congregated players. One of the most unique moments during the Railways Commission was when it compelled Bell to complete and produce internal information that was inaccessible to regulators (Rens, 2001, pp. 100-105). This emphasis on the duty of the industry supervision as well as market data has become popular in the contemporary world as regulators try to reestablish themselves. The latest statistics show that Canada is among the countries with the highest broadband, which reminds readers of the days that Canada enjoyed a prolonged monopoly during the early days of the telegraph and the telephone inventions.
Readers can easily note that the dominant theme in Rens’ book in telephone technology considering how he describes the Telephone Association of Canada. Moreover, it is amazing how he describes the significance of women laborers, structured labor, and politics in the development of telecom in the country. The artistic ability of Rens has helped him to not only examine the telecom industry progressively but also to appreciate its setbacks. In my opinion, the book is written artistically, and it captures all the critical elements of the disparate changes that the telecommunication industry in Canada has undergone in its evolution. The Invisible Empire is rich in information that can largely benefit telecommunication researchers and students.
Reference
Rens, J. (2001). The Invisible Empire: A History of the Telecommunications Industry in Canada, 1846-1956. Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen’s Press. Web.