From Benjamin Franklin to satellite: Celebrating 250 years of American communication

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere set out on a midnight ride to alert the minutemen of Massachusetts Bay that the British Army was advancing on Lexington and Concord. Two lanterns, hung in the old North Church, told the militia that the British would be coming by sea, giving them a warning that is thought to have played a crucial role in their victory. And, thus, the American nation was founded quite literally, in the ability to communicate.

Since then, the success of our vast nation has hinged on not just shared ideals, but also on the ability to communicate and connect people and communities separated by distance. Two hundred and fifty years on, communications have progressed from muddy post roads and horse-drawn mail routes to fiber-optic networks and low-Earth-orbit satellites connecting even America’s most rural communities. 

And while the journey to modern communications has been shaped by countless transformative innovations and the visionaries who brought them to life, they have all been driven by the same enduring goal of connecting Americans to one another — a goal we remember today as America celebrates her 250th anniversary. 

Long before smartphones, satellites and broadband networks, America’s founders recognized that communication was critical to the new Republic. Benjamin Franklin’s appointment as the first Postmaster General reflected the conviction that a reliable flow of communication would be essential both to the revolutionary cause and the nation that would follow. The postal system became one of the country’s earliest investments in connectivity, enabling the exchange of ideas and helping information travel farther and faster than ever before. 

The postal system was only the beginning. The telegraph effectively shrank a continent, allowing information to travel in mere moments and financial markets to function in real-time. The invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 transformed communication from the exchange of written messages to the exchange of voices, bringing with it a new level of immediacy and human connection.

Just as important as the inventions themselves was the infrastructure built to support them. The expansion of telephone networks, like the Bell System, transformed telephone access from a novelty into a national necessity, linking homes, businesses and communities nationwide — and wiring it end-to-end before the federal government broke up the monopoly in 1984. 

The breakup — and the competition it spurred — set the stage for America’s next great innovative leap: the internet. The biggest leap in communications technology in human history, it both accelerated communication and democratized it. For the very first time, almost everyone could, in theory, create and distribute information on a global scale, eliminating the distance between ideas and audiences. The internet also, however, exposed a digital divide in technology access that has defined the industry ever since. 

The convergence of the telephone and internet in the smartphone has done more to address the digital divide than any single policy or program. As the internet reached more Americans — including communities that landline and broadband infrastructure had bypassed — the push to democratize communication only intensified. For instance, when T-Mobile, a relatively new entrant with its 1994 founding in Bellevue, Washington, introduced free international talk and texting, it spurred the rest of the telecom industry to follow suit.

American technology also played a major role in connecting people during a particularly trying moment in modern history: the COVID-19 pandemic. Zoom, founded in San Jose, California only eight years before the first reported case of COVID in the United States, rocketed to near-ubiquity during the pandemic, normalizing video communication to the point that its name became a verb: “I’ll Zoom you.”

Satellite technology is pushing further still. Unlike their geostationary predecessors, low-earth-orbit systems deliver connectivity speeds and reliability that were unimaginable a decade ago, bringing broadband to ranchers in Wyoming and remote communities in the Smoky Mountains alike. 

Mobile carriers and their growing investment in satellite technology represent the latest chapter in a story that has always been about the same thing: ensuring that the benefits of communication reach everyone, not just those already connected. As the telephone connected households and broadband connected communities, schools and businesses, satellite has the potential to connect anyone, anywhere. 

Much as the transcontinental telegraph shrank the continent in the 19th century, satellite broadband is shrinking the world in the 21st, supporting emergency response, strengthening national security and extending economic opportunity to communities previous generations of infrastructure left behind. 

As we continue to pioneer this technology, projects like the satellite joint venture between AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are poised to continue the spirit of innovation, collaboration and some good old-fashioned competition in this new frontier. Two hundred and fifty years on, the ambition is the same as it was when Franklin took his post: making sure that no American is out of reach.

Paul Rosenzweig served as deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. He is a professorial lecturer at The George Washington University Law School and senior fellow in the Tech, Law & Security Program at the American University, Washington College of Law. He advises technology and telecom companies on cyber and national security issues.