It’s a Small World After All – The Impact of Telecommunications on 21st Century Globalisation
The impact of telecommunications on 21st Century globalisation
The telecommunications industry has developed vastly since the introduction of the conventional telephone back in 1876. Among all of the infrastructure sectors, the most dramatic changes and developments are thought to have taken place in the telecommunication sector.
Globalisation can be defined as the process of change, increasing interconnectedness and interdependence among countries and economies, bringing the world closer through better world-wide communication. This process is changing our world dramatically and quickly, affecting economic, social, political and cultural aspects of life. Globalisation is an ongoing process that is linking regions, neighbourhoods, people, cities and countries much more closely together than we have ever been before.
The world has become so quickly global and is showing no signs of slowing down. The ability to interact with the world so simply and cheaply is invading each part of our daily lives, whether it be in the home, workplace, school, or society as a whole. Technology such as the Internet, telecommunications, and travel has played a major role in impacting our culture. We now have the ability to communicate with the other side of the world at the click of a button. The means of doing this are developing all of the time and cover, Skype, SMS text messages, Multimedia messages (MMS), phone, Google+ and and many other IM platforms. Not to mention Voice Over IP (VOIP) Services, which allow you run telephone calls over the internet to anywhere in the world.
The cost of how we communicate has fallen considerably in the last few decades, from cheaper line rental to the rapid growth of the internet and mobile phones. It is no wonder that we communicate on the scale that we in the 21st Century currently do. We all live in a fast paced global society where the internet is very much at our fingertips. In the 21st Century the Internet has become one of the most powerful tools of communication.
The internet has given us the power to not only communicate easily internationally but to also shop, share photographs, retrieve information etc… Facebook and Twitter which have had a major impact on us and the way in which we communicate. Again the internet is the platform in which allows this kind of service to work the way it does do. Communication has become a major tool to connect us to the world. If we want to travel to Asia or learn about Russia the information is quite literally at our fingertips. Meetings can be held between delegates across multiple international destinations through the simple means of conference calling facilities and Skype.
In the last decade the telecom scene has been a very dynamic one, something which is more than likely only going to progress and develop even further.