Progress marches on with the old discarded and the new celebrated. Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator has recently announced that BT, the UK incumbent, no longer has to provide a fax service under its universal service obligations.

The use of fax machines in offices around the world reached its zenith in the 1980s and 90s but fax has a very long history stretching back to the time when the telegraph was the Internet of its day.
But now, the fax machine’s beeps and screeches are set to become a relic of the past.

And so to the future: Virgin Media is trialling a 5G NR (new radio) service that covers Snowdonia, a rural mountainous area in Wales. Due to the extreme landscape, communications for mountain rescue teams and those walkers and hikers who required assistance is problematic.

The challenges of operating in this environment were overcome by using a Dragon unmanned aircraft system from Snowdonia Aerospace to provide 4G and 5G coverage. Apart from telephony, the airborne network will allow picture sharing, video calling, and the all-important location information.

No doubt Giovanni Caselli, who developed the first commercial fax service between Paris and Marseille in the 1860s, would have been impressed.

PTT doesn’t provide online courses covering fax transmission but, we do offer several courses covering mobile communications including 5G including “Introduction to mobile systems“.