Information technology and services: data communication

The advances in telecommunications outlined in earlier chapters have removed the barrier of distance and reduced the costs of transmission so that users and databanks can be remote from one another. The microchip has enabled vast amounts of data to be stored, rapidly processed and accessed at costs that continue to fall. It is now clear that information technology will have an increasing influence on the way people live and work, the quality of their lives and the economic prosperity of nations. By reducing the need to travel to communicate the environment itself may benefit.