The Bell procedure ruled telecommunications within the usa and Canada for many of the 20 th century, yet its monopoly was once now not inevitable. within the a long time round 1900, usual citizens—farmers, medical professionals, small-town entrepreneurs—established tens of hundreds of thousands of self reliant phone structures, stringing their very own wires to convey this new expertise to the folk. controlled by means of opportunists and idealists alike, those small companies have been influenced not just via revenue but in addition by way of the promise of open conversation as a weapon opposed to monopoly capital and for defense of nearby autonomy. because the Bell empire grew, independents fought fiercely to preserve keep an eye on in their neighborhood networks and companies—a fight with an rising company tremendous that has been nearly totally forgotten.

The People's Network reconstructs the tale of the telephone's contentious beginnings, exploring the interaction of political economic climate, company method, and social perform within the production of contemporary North American telecommunications. Drawing from govt records within the usa and Canada, self sustaining mobile journals and guides, and the records of nearby Bell working businesses and their opponents, Robert MacDougall locates the nationwide debates over the which means, use, and association of the phone as a turning element within the heritage of knowledge networks. The competing companies represented dueling political philosophies: neighborhood as opposed to nationwide id and native as opposed to centralized energy. even if self sustaining phone businesses didn't win their struggle with colossal enterprise, they essentially replaced the best way telecommunications have been conceived.