Communication Solutions, LLC history

Samuel Morse sent the first message from an electrical telegraph in 1844, from Washington, DC, to Baltimore.

In 1858, Queen Victoria sent the first transatlantic telegram to President James Buchanan in just sixteen hours, and Buchanan’s response arrived in ten, as opposed to the twelve days it would have taken via ship and land.

In just six years, twelve thousand miles of cable crisscrossed the United States; by 1861, Western Union had finished work on the first telegraph line that reached the East Coast from the West.

However in 1876, one man, Alexander Graham Bell, did succeed legally by securing a patent for his version of the telephone, and so he is remembered best in association with this invention.

Then came the radio (1896), which marked the beginning of broadcast media and allowed keynote speakers to reach mass audiences.

In 1897, he got a patent for his invention and explored ways to use radios for communication.

Because it allowed continuous, up-to-date news and entertainment for people regardless of their income or literacy levels, it became immensely popular. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received a United States patent for radio technology in 1904, three years after he claimed to have sent the first transatlantic radio signal.

By 1907, just over a decade after the first motion picture was released in France, two million Americans were going to the movies at nearly eight thousand movie theaters nationwide.

The first long radio broadcast only came in 1916, from Tufts University.

Compared to today’s high-tech sets, Baird’s invention was quite slow, showing only about twelve frames per minute, but it was remarkable nonetheless. It was a Scottish man named John Logie Baird who was successful in showing moving images on a screen in 1925.

In 1927 came the first television.

The first television broadcast, in 1928, marked the beginning of a new era of mass consumption of news and entertainment.

In 1929, at its apex, Western Union transmitted more than 200 million telegrams.

The first TV images were halftones, and then black and white, before color was finally introduced in 1953.

In 1956, phone conferencing was invented, allowing boardrooms everywhere to connect to branches and clients across the world.

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite.

Since the launch of the first communications satellite in 1962, satellites have been an integral part of global communications.

Though videoconferencing was introduced at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, advancements in it weren’t really made until the 80s and 90s, when systems became more affordable and internet protocol (IP) technology enabled video collaboration via desktop.

In 1971, the first email was sent by Ray Tomlinson, an American programmer.

In 1973, he developed a type of mobile phone.

Where things became really appealing to users during this era of UC was when VMX, an early voice mail leader, offered an “email reader” feature on their voice mail system in 1985.

Clearly, this was a precursor to current UC definitions and solutions, though those 1990’s products and applications would not be called UC by today’s standards.

Short message service (SMS), the first form of text messaging, debuted in 1992 in the United Kingdom with a “Merry Christmas” from a software developer to a Vodafone employee.

By 1995, companies were merging in an effort to create a more unified communication experience.

In 1997, Microsoft partnered with a VMX/Octel/vMail division to produce what became Octel Unified Messaging.

RIM BlackBerrys (Yep, remember those?): The final notable UC event in the mid-years was the introduction of the 1999 RIM BlackBerry product.

In 2000, AT&T began offering text messaging on cell phones in the United States.

At the beginning of the century, smartphones came on the scene (2001). These devices gave almost instant access to the internet, email and more.

Facebook got its start at Harvard University in 2004 and eventually evolved into one of the most influential social media websites.

Then, Polycom introduced its first high-definition video conferencing system to the market in 2006.

Early 2010s: It was the early 2010’s where instant messaging and chat usage really skyrocketed for larger businesses.

In 2011, Mitel announced that it would integrate its virtualized Unified Communicator® (UC) Advanced client software with VMware View™ 5, enabling Mitel and VMware to deliver soft phone and mobile device integration into a desktop virtualization environment.

Data by West, One of the Largest UC Providers in the USA (2016)