Orwell's Revenge (37 page)

Perhaps the most vivid illustration of this convergence is cellular telephony, made possible by the synthesis of radio, telephone, and computers. The key problem with the early radio telephones, which persisted until the 1980s, was that there just didn't seem to be enough spectrum available to allow simultaneous use of very many of them. A few dozen stations pretty much fill up the dial of a radio— and radio telephone requires radio stations in pairs to sustain two-way conversation.

In the 1940s, researchers at Bell Labs proposed an ingenious solution. Radio telephones should be low-power, short-range devices. The same frequencies could then be used again and again (just as they are with cordless home telephones); a radio conversation at East Forty-second Street would not interfere with another one on the same frequency on West Fifty-first. A city would be divided into many separate “cells,” each one served by its own low-power transmitter. The capacity of a cellular system could then be increased almost indefinitely by
shrinking cells and increasing their number. But cellular telephony required, in exchange, highly sophisticated transmitters and receivers, and massive coordination among cells to “hand off” calls and coordinate frequencies as the car telephone on Forty-second Street moved toward Fifty-first. No one had the technology to perform this—until the advent of microelectronics.

After the FCC finally approved commercial cellular telephone systems in 1982, the market grew explosively. The new exchanges—mobile telephone switching offices—secured the right to interconnect with the established landline exchanges. By 1990, entrepreneurs and regulators were considering a second generation of over-the-air telephone systems—personal communications networks (PCNs)—based on microcells, with base stations linked to either private or public exchanges. Each new cluster of exchanges that appeared on the scene opened up new possibilities for service from competing networks. Cellular companies have quickly recognized the advantages of clustered service and established dedicated links between their own exchanges and those of the long-distance carriers. PCN operators have turned to cable companies to provide transport among the transceivers that will be used to support their service.

A less visible but equally revolutionary merger of radio and telephone technologies has occurred below ground, during almost exactly the same years as cellular systems were being deployed above. This too evolved directly from technological developments set in motion at Bell Labs several decades earlier.

The development of coaxial cable and microwave transmission marked a major advance in the continuing quest for ever more capacious, reliable, secure transmission systems. For telephonic purposes, microwaves represented an important advance over ordinary radio because they operated at much higher frequencies, capable of carrying much more information over focused paths. Push the frequencies higher still, and you get ultra-high-frequency radio waves, better known as light. A light beam can be shaped and modulated to carry information in much the same way as Marconi's radio waves, but in vastly larger amounts. It is best transmitted in a wave guide, similar (in principle) to those developed by Bell Labs in the 1930s. Extremely pure, hair-thin strands of glass serve admirably.

Fiber-optic systems represent today's pinnacle of telecommunications technology the finest merger (so far) of radio, telephone lines, and electronics. Integrated circuits provide the highly sophisticated transmitters and receivers at each end of the line. The telephone line itself is now a strand of glass. The radio wave is now a beam of light, generated by a laser. A single strand of glass can transmit thousands of simultaneous telephone conversations, or
hundreds of color television signals.

Fiber is now rapidly replacing copper, coaxial cable, and microwave everywhere in the telephone network, except (so far) in the short last stretch to the user's home. But competing local carriers have begun deploying independent fiber-optic systems in larger cities across the country, aiming to replay the MCI history again, with a new technology (fiber instead of microwaves) in response to enormously rapid increases in demand.

•  •  •

In the 1950s, competitors searched for forgotten comers in the shadow of B&B, where they might peddle such things as cardboard punch cards or plastic Hush-A-Phone cups. But that old world, Orwell's world, the world of computer and communications monopolies, will not be seen again in our lifetimes. The loose ends and the forgotten comers have taken over. The battle of the cardboard card and the plastic cup have been won; computers, telephones, and televisions are now riddled with slots, ports, jacks, joysticks, mice, and SCSI interfaces, and surrounded by compact disks, videocameras, VCRs, scanners, screens, optical character readers, facsimile interfaces, sound synthesizers, projectors, and radio antennas. The plugs and jacks and sockets have taken over the telescreen world; the Ministry is dead. Every unfilled plug, every unconnected jack, is a loose end, a new entry into the network or an exit from it, a new soap box in Hyde Park, a new podium, a new microphone for poetry or prose, a new screen or telescreen for displaying private sentiment or fomenting sedition, for preaching the gospel, or peddling fresh bread.

My telecommunications work has been generously funded by the Markle Foundation and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. I am deeply indebted to Bill Hammett for his most patient support and encouragement.

Janey Huber Reacher provided extensive help with the fiction parts of this book, particularly the scenes of London. My friends and colleagues Michael Kellogg and John Thome read and provided invaluable comments on early drafts. The three of us are also coauthors of
Federal Telecommunications Law
(1992) and
The Geodesic Network
(1993), in which we jointly developed, albeit at a more down-to-earth level, many of the ideas presented in
Orwell's Revenge.
I am also indebted to Fred Siegel, Lewis Bateman, and Martin Kessler, who all read and commented on various drafts of the book. Fred Siegel in particular offered encouragement when I needed it most.

In the summer of 1992 I was invited by John O'Connor to present my views in a lakeside talk at the Bohemian Grove. The feedback and expressions of interest I received from John and the very generous audience there gave me the stamina to complete what I might otherwise have abandoned.

Some months later, George Gilder kindly read my manuscript and
put me in touch with Erwin Glikes, editor of The Free Press. Erwin agreed to take a chance on my unorthodox creation. He then patiently steered my book through a raft of lawyers and agents, on both our side of the Atlantic and Orwell's. Erwin Glikes died suddenly in May 1994, as my book was going to press. I am forever in his debt.

I am indebted as well to Erwin's assistant at The Free Press, Marion Maneker, who helped see the book through to completion. My copy editor, Beverly Miller, suggested many useful changes, and meticulously cleaned up the notes. The book's elegant design was the work of Carla Boke. Loretta Denner of The Free Press patiently coordinated the production. My mother, Dorothy Huber, and my research assistants, Karin Albani, Olga Grushin, Laura Haefner, Penny Karas, Lynn Kelley, Rosemary McMahill, B. J. Min, T. J. Radtke and Gary Stahlberg, Jr. helped proofread the manuscript; my secretary Danelle Lohman worked many long hours to put it in final electronic shape.

Finally, I am grateful to Orwell's literary executors at A. M. Heath & Company (London) for their agreement to let me use Orwell's work as I have. The estate is receiving a share of the royalties earned on this book, which of course it fully deserves.

I have cited wherever possible paperback editions that are readily available.

Down and Out: Down and Out in Paris and London.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1933.

Burmese Days: Burmese Days.
1934. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1962.

A Clergyman's Daughter: A Clergyman's Daughter.
1935. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1960.

Aspidistra: Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
1936. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956.

Wigan Pier: The Road to Wigan Pier.
1937. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1958.

Homage to Catalonia: Homage to Catalonia.
1938. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1952.

Coming Up for Air: Coming Up for Air.
1939. Penguin Books, 1990.

Lion: The Lion and the Unicorn.
1941. Penguin Books, 1941.

Animal Farm: Animal Farm.
1946. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1946.

1984: Nineteen Eighty-Four.
1949. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

The Orwell Reader: The Orwell Reader.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956.

Essays,
I:
George Orwell: A Collection of Essays.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1946.

Essays,
II:
The Orwell Reader: Fiction, Essays, and Reportage by George Orwell.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956.

Essays,
III:
The Penguin Essays of George Orwell.
Penguin Books, 1984.

Essays, IV: George Orwell,
Decline of the English Murder and Other Essays.
Penguin Books, 1953.

Broadcast: Orwell, The War Broadcasts.
W J. West, ed. Duckworth/British Broadcasting Corporation, 1985.

CEJL,
Vols. 1-4:
The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell.
Martin Seeker & Warburg, 1968.

Shelden: Michael Shelden,
Orwell: The Authorized Biography.
HarperCollins, 1991.

Preface

last two digits interchanged:
Shelden, p. 433.1 refer to the book as
1984
rather than Orwell's original
Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The whole point of
Orwell's Revenge,
after all, is to rewrite Orwell in ways large and small.

New York Times reported:
Shelden, p. 430.

the New Yorker and the Evening Standard:
Shelden, p. 430.

one context or another:
“Charles Dickens” (1939),
Essays,
I, p. 91.

not so much a book, it is a world:
“Charles Dickens,” p. 91.

quote him unconsciously:
“Charles Dickens,” p. 92.

name to the English language:
“Rudyard Kipling” (1942),
Essays,
I, p. 126.

whole attitude to life:
“Books v. Cigarettes” (1946),
Essays,
III, p. 349.

the Washington Monument:
“Charles Dickens,” p. 91 (“Nelson Column” in the original).

beneath is rotten:
“Charles Dickens,” p. 96.

out of bed every morning:
1984,
p. 296.

occasional bomb crater:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 30.

out of bedroom windows:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 31.

and enormous faces on posters:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 176.

telling you what to think:
Coming Up for Air,
p. 186.

unbreakable system of tabus :
1984,
p. 70.

denouncing you to the secret police:
Homage to Catalonia,
p. 147.

who disgusted him horribly:
Cf. “Inside the Whale” (1940),
Essays,
I, p. 210; “The Art of Donald McGill” (1941),
Essays,
I, p. 115 (in a totalitarian society art must therefore concentrate “on the un-heroic in one form or another”).

mutability of the past:
1984,
pp. 27, 157, 214.

and became truth:
1984,
p. 35.

well then, it never happened:
“Looking Back on the Spanish War” (1943),
Essays,
I, p. 199 (in the original, “the Leader, or some ruling clique” or “the Leader” instead of “Big Brother”).

in 1984 is doublethink:
1984,
p. 36.

and accepting both of them:
1984,
pp. 215-216.

the reality which one denies:
1984,
pp. 215-216.

above a junk shop:
At another point, Winston and Julia meet in the belfry of a mined church.
1984,
pp. 129, 131. The church is borrowed from
Homage to Catalonia,
p. 213.

overthrow the Party:
Resistance is necessary, O'Brien says, though hopeless.
1984,
p. 177. Or, as Orwell has already put in
Wigan Pier,
p. 158: “[E]very revolutionary opinion draws part of its strength from a secret conviction that nothing can be changed.”

the arch-traitor Kenneth Blythe:
It's Emmanuel Goldstein in the original
1984,
of course. The Blythe, like the Orwell, is a river in England.

the middle of 1984:
The Book-of-the-Month Club wanted to cut them when it released
1984
in the United States. Orwell refused, risking the loss of 40 pounds sterling; as Orwell's authorized biographer reports, “the integrity of the book meant more to him than even this enormous sum.” Shelden, p. 430.