The evolution of telecommunications technology

The telephone network today is the result of many years growth. Technology has enabled this growth to occur, and simultaneously allowed a steady reduction in the real cost of service and an increase in the level of performance. Technology will continue to facilitate the economic growth of the network, and with the evolution to digital will enable a much larger variety of information to be carried. Managing this broad range of capabilities requires more than traditional hardware and even software technologies. The real leverage will come from a broader class of "'soft" technologies that goes beyond language and operating systems to encompass system architecture, protocols, and databases. This paper will address the potential evolution of the network with respect to both hard and soft technologies. The trends in these technologies and in the network itself are leading towards a high-performance transport layer, with added intelligence layers to define the transport capabilities for a variety of services.