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Transmission Line: From Barbed Wire to High-speed Interconnect

Long before Facebook and Twitter, there was a more primitive type of social network. Hailing from the Old West, it allowed distant communities to meet remotely to share music, spread news, and to just gossip. The non-proprietary, ad hoc network was an unwitting model of democracy and free speech. Unfortunately however, it collapsed--overwhelmed by commercial pressure. The long-forgotten social revolution, and extremely basic technology, was built on barbed wire fences.

Barbed wired fences appeared in the United States in the 1860s and their success, in the control of cattle, swept across the North. However, the South, fearing that the product may harm their cattle, was hesitant to buy the fad at first but ultimately succumbed. Ironically, the barbed wired fence is associated with the cowboy, but unfortunately, it also sounded their end.

As with all communications systems, getting connected, particularly in remote areas, is always a challenge. In the early 1900s, the Bell Telephone company was focusing all efforts on connecting urban areas and like the telephone companies of today, had little interest in connecting remote communities, due to the cost of the infrastructure.

However, an enterprising rancher figured that the West was already sprawled with wire--barbed wire--and discovered that if you hooked two Sears or Monkey Ward telephone sets to a barbed wire fence, he could talk between the telephones as easily as between two city telephones connected via an operator's switchboard. A rural telephone system that had no operators, no bills--and no long-distance charges--was born.  

But that lack of broader connectivity eventually doomed the ad hoc network. The commercial phone system's ubiquity, and especially their coveted connection to distant cities, eventually dominated. By the 1920s, the barbed wire telephones and the networks they helped spawn had disappeared.

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Editor's Note: This column originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of The PCB Design Magazine.