Intelligent Networks

3

Services Networks Explosion

3.1 Introduction

Network service is an age-old offering. Telephone service has been in vogue since the era of A.G. Bell and his early telephone starting in 1874. These earlier networks provided bidirectional telegraphic connectivity and rudimentary voice communication over metallic transmission lines. When the monopoly of the Bell System was finally broken by the consent decree imposed by Judge Greene (in the early 1980s) resulting in numerous independent Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), the expansion of network services became a common practice to make these RBOCs more profitable and competitive. Providing basic telephone services was rendered the obligation of a regulated entity.

Many momentous changes ...