It’s the Phone: AT&T’s Construction of Landline and Mobile Telephony

• In Event: Constructing Memories: Comparative Historical Sociotechical Analysis of Media, Communication and Information

Abstract

Abstract: This paper explores mobile technology through a comparative analysis with late twentieth century landline telephone discourse. Specifically exploring the case of AT&T within the US, this paper analyzes how the discourse surrounding telephony offers special insights into critical understandings of “the phone”, as default definitions shift from landline to mobile. As landline phones became understood a public utility (Mueller, 1997), this paper reveals the ways that discourse has shaped the development of landline and mobile phone technologies. By examining organizational as well as discursive changes by AT&T over time, this paper demonstrates the shifts in framing “the phone” as a telecommunication technology versus an information technology, taking into account the significant regulatory implications for different classifications. The AT&T case, from landline to mobile, demonstrates the ways that innovation, interruption, and regeneration continue to occur and shape that which we call “the phone”.

References:
Mueller Jr., Milton L. Universal Service: Competition, Interconnection, and Monopoly in the Making of the American Telephone System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997.

Author

• Lee Humphreys, Cornell University