telecom

Susan Crawford talks at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center about her book Captive Audience. She argues that deregulation and consolidation left a few telecom companies in control of American internet access, so people pay too much for slow service.

A short film about the Erlang language, showing telecom systems built from lightweight processes and demonstrating hot code swapping. It is an edited version of the original Ericsson video.

Tobias Engel's 31C3 talk shows how weaknesses in the SS7 telephone signaling network let companies and attackers locate, track and manipulate phones from anywhere in the world, with precision down to about 50 meters.

BobbyBroccoli documentary on the rise of Nortel Networks, once the dominant Canadian telecom giant, during the dot-com era. It is part one of a two-part story.

John Oliver's 13-minute Last Week Tonight segment explains the 2014 net neutrality fight over cable companies creating unequal internet speeds. It uses comedy to make a dull regulatory topic engaging and tells viewers how to comment to the FCC.

A documentary on how Cornwall became a hub for the world's communications, from the first transatlantic radio signal to modern undersea fibre cables. It describes how cable landing stations and the systems are put together.

A 12-minute film in which Erlang's creators demonstrate the language's fault tolerance and live-system features, including phoning each other to show it working. This version has fixed audio.

A 1984 AT&T film showing the live cutover of a Glendale, California central office from step-by-step switching to an electronic switching system. Installers prepare the site and then cut cables in a coordinated operation.

Lily Tomlin's classic 1976 Saturday Night Live sketch as telephone operator Ernestine, mocking the monopolistic Bell phone company with the line 'We don't care. We don't have to.' It is a one-minute parody of arrogant corporate indifference.

Bill Gurley's talk at the All-In Summit 2023, titled 2,851 Miles after the distance between Washington and San Francisco. He describes how incumbents use lobbying and regulation to entrench themselves, followed by a conversation with the hosts.