Feature: World Telecommunications Day and the information milestones here

When Alexander Graham Bell was connecting and trying out several experiments in his small room in Massachusetts in the 1876, for what came out to be the birth of the electric telephone, little did he know that his invention would spread like wild fire to impact the entire globe into what is today’s most efficient device of communication. The telephone has over the years been evolving with various innovations from the phone manufacturers inventing edge-cutting trends matching the times. After the invention of the first cellular phone by Joel .S. Engel and Richard .H. Frenkiel of Bell labs in 1947, the trend spread like wild fire. A year after, the wireless telephone services was available in more than 100 cities. 1979 saw the launch of the first cellular network in Japan while in 1983 the Bell labs in Illinois opened the first commercial cellular system and the rest is history. As we speak, the telephone mostly the mobile phone genre has become more of a necessity in people’s lives and an all round friend in times of need. Mobile phones have saved billions and billions of money which would have been lost if a person didn’t have that instant communication facility with immediate feedback. Immeasurable profits have been made on phone and business empires built because of the easy and efficient communication medium created by a mobile phone. Therefore as African countries today join the rest of the world in celebrating the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day (WTISD), even the gravest pessimist can not fail to point out the invaluable impact this fraternity has had on our society. This day having the aspects of telecommunication and information, it implies that focus is put on the comprehensive field of communication and information exchange. This calls for an insight into other important information sharing and transmission channels. Internet which is today regarded as one of the most widely used information exchange mediums and storage was invented in 1969 by US army base members who were seeking for a way of storing and interlinking their security information with other bases courtesy of a project called Arpanet. The years after 1969 saw many computers linking to Arpanet and adding to its information data base. In the years which followed, a series of internet tools were introduced among which include the famous e-mail which was introduced in 1971, internet relay chat in 1988 and the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1991. The first World Wide Web browser was introduced in 1993, and this revolutionalised the way information was stored, presented and searched on the internet which led to a 103-fold increase of users, this was followed by others like Netscape navigator, internet explorer and mozilla which has become famous currently. Just a decade ago, there were 182 million people subscribed to the internet and these were mainly concentrated in developed countries, but a survey done early 2009 revealed that there are 1.5 billion internet users currently. Internet has increasingly influenced realms of scientific, entertainment and educational usage, which aspects can not be ruled out from people’s lives today. Every passing day the number of internet users browsing in pursuit of educational material and research increases, these touch a wide range of disciplines such as health, sports, science and others and this has impacted a lot in the world’s stock of knowledge analysis hence wisdom creation. Currently the internet is awash with facilities offering a wide range of interactive websites which people of all age groups today are religiously fascinated with, among these include facebook which is a page where people meet and interact instantly with a wide range of friends, this website has attained so much prominence in that some people have organized meetings and conferences on facebook. Other websites include yahoo messengers, tagged, meebo, hi5 and others all which offer instant chatting. It is because of this strong bond and wide usage people have are increasingly experiencing with internet and the cyber fraternity that the International Telecommunication Union(ITU), the umbrella body and regulator of the cyber environment decided to address the concerns of the users and secure the cyber village. The purpose of the WTISD is to help raise awareness of the possibilities that the use internet and other technologies (ICT) can bring to societies and economies as well as bridging the digital divide. 17th May marks the anniversary of the sighing of the first international telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telecommunication Union. The ITU Cyber Security agenda was presented at the high level segment ITU council in 2008 and it was endorsed by heads of states, ministers and international organizations world wide to see to it that the cyber users are secured from cyber predators. According to information obtained from ITU’s official website, in this year’s theme, WTISD aims at ensuring that children can safely access the internet and its valuable resources without fear of falling prey to the unscrupulous predators in cyber space. According to a recent survey, more than 60 percent of children and teenagers talk in chat rooms on a daily basis, and three in every four children are willing to share personal information and 1 in every 5 children will be targeted by a cyber predator, this poses a danger. Currently, at least one out of three people with emails has received a duping message from internet predators which ends in asking for the prey’s account number to deposit money there, and what normally happens is that those cyber conmen deplete a person’s money. Fortunately, such dangers are not yet experienced here and we are enjoying more advantages than disadvantages. Thanks to Graham Bell, every important person is just a phone call away. E-mail: gahimore@yahoo.com