Thirty years before the telephone was patented, the company that would become Unitel Communications Inc. carried the first telecommunications message of any kind in Canada. On December 19, 1846, a telegram was sent from Toronto to Hamilton by the Toronto-Hamilton-Niagara and St. Catharines Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company. It was the birth of the telecommunications industry in Canada, an industry which has played a critical role in the development of the country.

In the 1800s, Sir John A. Macdonald recognized the need for a railway to bind a young Dominion together. This iron link formed the economic infra-structure of Canada during the 19th century. Side by side with the iron rails went telegraph lines keeping the railway running smoothly and providing critical links between growing communities in the vast new nation.

Technicians monitor Unitel's network 24 hours a day at the Network Management Control Centre in Toronto

The iron lines of the last century and the endless miles of telegraph wire have been replaced in importance by their invisible microwave and fibre optic successors. With the advent of the Information Age, telecommunications has become a key industry for Canada and a major force behind the development of a global economy. These changing needs have required changing technologies and services; throughout, Unitel has adapted and flourished.

Unitel was the first to:

• offer transcontinental telegram service via an all-Canadian route
• provide TELEX in North America
• build a nationwide broadcast network, used by CBC
• use a dedicated computer network for the transmission of messages
• develop a dedicated Fax network

Today Unitel’s telecommunications networks are sophisticated electronic highways carrying computer data, voice conversations and images at the speed of light on fibre optic lines and through micro-wave networks.

Many sectors of the Canadian economy depend on Unitel, including the banks and financial companies, the transportation industry, retailers, publishers and broadcasters, governments and the health care sector.

Unitel’s facilities are also part of many services that affect our everyday lives: booking an airline reservation or using an automatic bank teller machine is made possible by linking powerful central computers to service computers that use Unitel’s data networks. Unitel’s networks are also used to link police forces across the country so that they can coordinate their efforts. Vital air traffic communications also use sophisticated telecommunications networks provided by Unitel.

Canada has been a world leader in the introduction of computerized telecommunications systems, high-capacity transmission media such as satellites and fibre optics and in the development of national digital and cellular networks.

The next stage is building a competitive tele-communications industry capable of responding to the challenge of global competition. Unitel has taken the first step— proposing a competitive long-distance telephone service like those enjoyed by Canada’s major trading partners — a step to keep Canada at the forefront of telecommunications.