Classroom Companion: Business

Information and 
Communication 
Technologies
Contents
2.1 
 Introduction – 18
2.2 
 Timeline for the ICT
Evolution – 19
2.3 
 Factors Constraining
Evolution – 24
2.4 
 Internet of Things – 27
2.5 
 Conclusions – 30
 References – 30
2

---

18
2
 
n Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
5
Explain how information and communication technology has evolved toward 
increasingly complex systems and applications.
5
Understand that the ICT evolution has followed three intimately coupled lines 
of development: evolution of basic hardware technologies, evolution of fixed 
and mobile data networks, and evolution of application protocols, software, and 
services.
5
Understand the impacts and potentials of the Internet of Things evolution.
2.1 
 Introduction
The evolution of information and communication technologies has followed three 
parallel timelines:
5
The innovation of technologies from simple telephone and telegraph systems to 
the Internet supporting social media, sensor networks, apps, and many other 
digital services.
5
The convergence of services in which the telephone and telegraph networks are 
replaced by the Internet (
7
Chap. 
3
).
5
The evolution of the telecommunications business itself from monopoly to com-
petitive markets (
7
Chap. 
5
).
In this chapter, we will look more closely at the technological evolution and post-
pone the other items to later chapters as indicated above.
The evolution that eventually led to today’s digital economy started with the 
invention of the transistor in 1947 (see 
7
Box 
2.1
). This device could be more 
densely packed, was much cheaper, used less energy, was easier to handle, and was 
much more reliable than vacuum tubes. The transistor, and the miniaturization 
capabilities it eventually offered, led to a technical evolution at a speed the world 
never had seen before.
In 2019, approximately 23 billion devices containing microchip CPUs (central 
processing units) were connected to the Internet, making the global information 
and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure the largest machine ever 
built. Moreover, the number of connections increases by 10% per year, correspond-
ing to a doubling time of 7 years. The forecast for 2025 is that more than 40 billion 
devices will be connected to the Internet (Cisco Visual Networking Index, 
2019
).