ah." I didn't listen very carefully; I was already completely sold on the technology. Slick marketing had claimed another victim. PicturePhone was never out of my mind over the next few months. I could hardly wait for the day when the green and white New York Telephone truck would pull up in front of our home and the technician would expertly install a PicturePhone on the family's official bill-paying desk. Yeah, right. It would be a long and fruitless wait, of course. Even Touch-Tone dialing, another emerging technology aggressively touted by AT&T at the fair, didn't arrive in our home until 1976. I wouldn't have another PicturePhone-like experience until 2002, when I installed a Webcam on my PC and had a five-minute chat (in color!) with my brother. I haven't used the technology since. I, TELECOM JUNKIE Although the Bell System Pavilion entered history before I reached my 11th birthday, the structure and the exhibits it housed made a profound and ever- lasting impact on me. Ma Bell's fancy showcase awakened within me an inter- est in-and a love of-telecommunications that I have carried with me throughout my life. The idea of sending human intelligence through wires, or the air, appeals to me in a way that I cannot adequately explain. In September 1966, a year after the fair and after the pavilion closed forever, I met Jonathan Bird, who helped me get my first hands-on experi- ences with telecommunications technologies. Jon, a year-and-a-half older than me, was a radio amateur-a ham. We became close friends (best friends, really), and he introduced me to the glorious universe of electronics, trans- xviii INTRODUCTION mitters, receivers, and radio propagation. That's why I've dedicated this book to Jon, WA2MJK. If he were alive today, I'm sure he would get one hell of a kick out of pocket-sized mobile phones, the Internet, GPS, satellite TV, and all of the other fantastic technologies that are now an integral part of daily life. Now, even more exciting telecom technologies are on the way. Although the first years