IEEE Communications Society History

Top row, L-R: Bernard Goldberg (USA ERDC), Walter Lyons (Long Island PTG-CS), William M. Mazer, Wilson C. DeAndrades (Baltimore PTG-CS), Richard M. Emberson (IEEE), Ransom D. Slayton (Teletype, PTG-CS Newsletter editor), unidentified, A.C. Peterson (BTC), Roger McSweeny (RCA), Richard C. Kirby (NBS), Schlaikjer[?] (ITT) Gunther Karger. Bottom row, L-R: C.A. Strom, Ivan S. Coggeshall, R. Benoit, David S. Rau (RCA), Prof Jones (Georgia Tech), John Worthington, R.M. Marks, Andre Clavier (ITT). Possibly taken at NATCOM 9, 1963.

L-R: David Rau (RCA), Gunther Karger (Bell Labs), Ransom D. Slayton (Teletype)

Communications society Presidents 1972 thru to 2009.

The IEEE Communications Society: A Fifty Year Foundation for the Future, 1952-2002

Standing on the Shoulders of Predecessors: Communications Engineering before 1952

In May 1844 Samuel F. B. Morse opened the first telegraph line in the United States. His famous transmission of the phrase "What hath God wrought" from Washington to his assistant Alfred Vail in Baltimore ushered in an electrical communications revolution which continues unabated today. Morse and Vail's work showed that communications engineers have been at the forefront of the electrical engineering profession since its origins in the 19th century. Thus, forty years of advances in communications technology lay behind the formation of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) in 1884. The founding members and first officers of the AIEE reflected the centrality of communications to the new profession of electrical engineering. Over half of the founding members worked for telegraph or telephone companies or for firms supplying equipment to them, and the first president of the AIEE was Norvin Green, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company. AIEE vice presidents included Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; Thomas Edison, who made his reputation and first fortune as an inventor of telegraph equipment; and two veteran telegraph electricians.

However, soon after the founding of the AIEE in 1884, the locus of technical innovation shifted from the telegraph industry to the new technology of electrical power. Furthermore, university trained engineers working for large research laboratories and engineering departments superseded inventor-entrepreneurs like Edison and Bell. By the turn of the twentieth century, the membership and leadership of the AIEE both reflected these two trends in the profession. Although the AIEE tried to be an organization which reflected the full diversity of electrical engineering, power engineers had come to dominate it by 1900. The AIEE allowed "Special Committees" to be formed in areas of technical interest, which in 1905 came to be called "Technical Committees." Most of the Committees were concerned with aspects of power engineering, but in 1903 a Committee on Telegraphy and Telephony was formed. The AIEE's leaders also recognized the growing importance of radio communications, and in late 1912 approved a new Radio Transmission Committee. This committee, however, never formed, because the AIEE leadership could not find a chairman for the committee. Furthermore, the issue had already become moot: earlier in 1912 a group of wireless specialists had formed the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE).

The original fields of interest of AIEE were electrical communications and power engineering. Electronics engineering evolved from the radio field and expanded greatly during World War II, overlapping into the communications and (to a lesser extent) the power fields. Methods were developed to foster cooperation and interchange of information among members of each of the original Institutes with their narrow common interests. The AIEE formed "Divisions" with "Communications" as one major entity. No special organization was chartered, although separate Technical Committees (TCs) reviewed papers for, and conducted sessions at broad-based AIEE Conferences. Most of these papers were later published in the AIEE Transactions.

The IRE came into being because engineers in the new fields of radio and electronics did not feel at home in the AIEE, dominated on the one hand by power engineers and on the other by telephone and telegraph specialists. After World War I, radio communications and other types of electronics continued to expand at a greater rate than power engineering and wire communications, an expansion reflected in the robust growth of IRE membership. However, electronics also changed the state of the technical art in traditional fields of engineering like power and wire communications. So, perhaps to encourage membership by electronics engineers in those areas, in 1925 the AIEE Technical Committee on Telegraphy and Telephony became the Technical Committee on Communication. Although the AIEE tended to focus on wire communications and the IRE on wireless communications, there was significant overlap in membership. For example, Arthur E. Kennelly, famous for his work on ionospheric radio propagation, was both president of the AIEE in 1898-1900 and of the IRE in 1916. Michael Pupin, a Columbia University physics professor (the Pupin Building, which houses Columbia's physics department, is named in his honor) highly regarded for his work on transmission lines, was president both of the IRE in 1917 and of the AIEE in 1925-1926. As early as 1922 Kennelly suggested merging the two organizations. Although such a merger would not occur for forty years, the two societies sponsored some overlapping meetings in the coming years.

A major reason why the two organizations did not merge in the 1920s was that the IRE had little incentive to do so. It continued to grow so quickly that it started its own Technical Committee system in 1937. The first six such committees (Broadcast, Electroacoustics, Radio Receiving, Television & Facsimile, Transmitting & Antennas, and Wave Propagation) show the importance of communications among IRE members. World War II and its aftermath led to further expansion and diversification of electrical engineering as a whole, and in particular in wireless communications and other electronics. As a result, the IRE continued to grow at a much more rapid rate than the AIEE. To stem this trend, in 1947 the AIEE revamped its organization and grouped their Technical Committees into Divisions. In 1950 the AIEE formed the Communication Division, originally consisting of Committees for Communications Switching Systems, Radio Communications Systems, Telegraph Systems, and Special Communications Applications. In the remaining years before the AIEE/IRE merger, the AIEE Communication Division added Committees on Television Broadcasting (1951), Communication Theory (1956), Data Communication (1957), and Space Communication (1960).

The IRE Professional Group on Communications Systems, 1952-1964

Meanwhile, the IRE allowed the formation of semi-autonomous Professional Groups as a way to deal with the increased growth and complexity of their field and organization. In the early 1950s, two IRE members, John L. Callahan and George T. Royden, were instrumental in organizing a new Professional Group in the field of communications. On 25 February, 1952 this group, the IRE Professional Group on Radio Communications, came into formal existence. At first the new Group limited its scope to radio in order to avoid direct competition with the AIEE in the field of wire communications. Within a few months, however, the IRE Board of Directors recommended that the new Group expand its scope to cover all forms of communication and to change its name to the IRE Professional Group on Communications Systems (PGCS). In September 1952 the Group did so and expanded its scope to include "communication activities and related problems in the field of radio and wire telephone, telegraph and facsimile, such as practiced by commercial and governmental agencies in marine, aeronautical, radio relay, coaxial cable and fixed station services." This broadened scope welded together and gave a common home to the several Technical Committees which had dealt with various facets of communications engineering since 1937. This group, the forerunner of the IEEE Communications Society, thus had an official founding date of 25 February 1952 and was the 19th such IRE Group to be formed. George T. Royden was the first Chairman of the Group, with Murray G. Crosby, John L. Callahan, and John Hessel serving as Vice Chairman, Secretary, and Treasurer respectively.

The Group began with just under 600 members in 1952 and almost immediately established chapters in Washington, San Diego, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Cedar Rapids (home of Collins Radio) to accommodate its rapidly increasing membership. By early 1955 Secretary John Callahan felt that PGCS had passed through its growing pains and had reached maturity as one of the important Groups in the IRE. Later that year the Administrative Committee (AdCom) formulated plans to publish a newsletter to keep its far-flung and growing membership informed of Group activities. The group started producing its own Transactions the following year. PGCS sponsored sessions at major IRE conferences and conventions, and developed its own special conferences. The first such conference was the Aeronautical Communications Symposium, AEROCOM, held for four years in the Rome-Utica, New York area. Renamed the National Communications Symposium, NATCOM, it continued for another five years ending in 1963. Meanwhile, cooperation with the AIEE Communications Division had developed, and a series of joint National Symposiums on Global Communications, GLOBECOMs, were held at various U.S. sites. By the end of 1957 the Group had a membership of just over 2500, and a year later it had eleven active chapters around the country. In 1958 PGCS established two annual awards, an Achievement Award and an award for the best article in the Transactions. PGCS selected Dr. Harold H. Beverage as the first recipient of the Achievement Award and co-authors Robert T. Adams and B. M. Mindes for the Transactions Contribution Award. Also in 1958 the Board considered ways to increase membership by encouraging non-US engineers to join and by allowing AIEE members to affiliate with PGCS. These membership initiatives, coupled with the importance of communications engineering, helped PGCS to reach the impressive figure of just over 4200 members in 1962, just before the IRE-AIEE merger.

One of the first actions of the new Group was to inaugurate an ambitious array of conferences, such as the annual Aeronautical Communications Symposium (AEROCOM) held for its first four years in the Rome-Utica, NY, area. This conference was renamed the National Communications Symposium in 1959 and it continued under its new name until 1963. PGCS also co-sponsored conferences with other IRE Groups and with the AIEE. Most importantly, PGCS co-sponsored the first GLOBECOM with the AIEE Communications Division in 1956. GLOBECOM continued to be a successful conference, and the 1961 meeting hosted 610 registrants, 240 speakers, and 25 exhibition booths. At the end of 1957 the Group began planning for a conference on modern electronic communications to be sponsored jointly with the Professional Group on Vehicular Communications. By 1959, with a membership of over 2700, the Committee decided that both the quantity and quality of technical papers were high enough to support two PGCS national meetings a year.

The new Group grew dramatically and began planning for a wide range of activities. Perhaps its most far-reaching decision was to begin publication of the IRE Transactions on Communications Systems, the forerunner of today's IEEE Transactions on Communications. At first, PGCS issued two Transactions issues per year, but because of the increasing volume of submissions the publication schedule increased to three issues a year in 1955 and four a year in 1959.

As early as 1956, the PGCS Administrative Committee explored ways to make the Group a professional home for engineers working in all fields of communications. In that year PGCS leaders viewed the overlapping fields of interest among the 23 IRE Professional Groups as both a problem and an opportunity. A. C. Peterson sent a letter to the Chairmen of the other 22 Groups asking them to meet to discuss this overlap and what to do about it. 18 of 22 Group chairmen replied, 13 expressing interest in attending such a meeting and 5 declining to attend. PGCS's AdCom looked favorably upon a proposal to merge PGCS with other Professional Groups like Antennas and Propagation, Marine Communications, Vehicular Communications, and Microwave Theory and Techniques.

Although nothing came of this effort, the AdCom again in 1960 took up the issue of the proliferation of Professional Groups. AdCom Chairman Capt. Christian L. Engleman noted that IRE officials had become concerned with the explosion of the Groups, which now numbered 27 with several petitions pending. While Engleman credited the Professional Group system with keeping the IRE "free from internal explosion," he and other IRE officials now worried that the proliferation of these groups "threatened" the IRE "with mediocrity because of dilution." Engleman cited the decline in attendance at Professional Group chapter meetings and conferences as signs of this problem. PGCS, in particular, had "seen the formation of other groups that have slowly taken away bits and pieces of our broad interests in Communications Systems." The Professional Group on Military Electronics (PGMIL), for example, "took away much" of PGCS's activity in military communications. Engleman suggested expanding the scope of PGCS, merging it with Professional Groups in closely related technological areas, and renaming the merged Group either the "Professional Group on Communications and Electronics Systems" or the "Professional Group on Electronics Systems." As a first step the PGCS AdCom initiated discussion with the PGMIL AdCom regarding a merger. On 20 March 1961, the PGCS AdCom narrowly approved (by a vote of 7-6) a motion agreeing to the merger. Although PGMIL declined to enter into the merger, the two Groups continued to work closely together on jointly sponsored conferences. While no mergers took place between PGCS and other IRE Professional Groups, these discussions in the 1950s and early 1960s showed that the Administrative Committee sought ways to overcome professional over-specialization by making PGCS the central organization for engineers working in the general field of communications. This willingness to accommodate a wide range of activities would prove valuable when the PGCS and the AIEE's Communications Division merged in 1964.

IEEE Group on Communication Technology, 1964-1972

When the AIEE and IRE agreed to merge on 1 January 1963, leaders of the new IEEE decided that the IEEE would use the IRE Group structure. They also decided for historical purposes that IEEE Societies would be considered to date from the founding of their predecessor IRE Professional Group. Thus, the official founding date of the IEEE Communications Society is 25 February 1952, although the IEEE Communications Society adopted its current name in 1972.

While the IEEE came into existence on 1 January 1963, the AIEE Communications Division and the IRE Professional Group on Communication Systems did not formally merge until 1 July 1964, a full 18 months after the formation of the IEEE as a whole. At the date of this formal merger, the new IEEE Group on Communication Technology had just under 4400 members. Seven former AIEE Technical Committees continued operations under the new Group, with previous IRE members joining Technical Committees reflecting their particular interests. The Technical Committees reviewed papers for a new IEEE Transactions on Communication Technology that was distributed free to all members, and organized and moderated sessions at various conferences. Ransom D. Slayton was the first Publications Chairman, Editorial Manager, and Transactions Editor (all one job!) in early 1964.

Although the merger between the AIEE and IRE was quite beneficial to the engineering profession and the members of both Institutes, the merger did create some difficulties for the new IEEE Group on Communication Technology. Much of these difficulties arose because of the different characters and concerns of the AIEE and IRE generally. Communications engineers affiliated with the AIEE tended to be more interested in wire communications like telegraphy and telephony, while IRE members were active in newer fields of communications. As a result, many former AIEE members felt that plans for a merged Group on communications slighted the fields of telephony and telegraphy. Difficulties with merging the technical groups and committees of the IRE and AIEE delayed the formation of a unified new Group on Communication Technology (ComTech) for a year and a half after the formal merger of the IRE and AIEE. However, the hard work and dedication of David Rau of RCA, chair of the IRE PGCS, and Leonard Abraham of Bell Labs, chair of the AIEE Communications Division, made the newly merged ComTech a success. On July 1, 1964, 18 months after IEEE was formed, the AIEE Communications Division and the IRE PGCS merged to form the IEEE Group on Communication Technology (ComTech) with 4400 members. Seven former AIEE Technical Committees continued operations under the new Group, with former IRE members joining the TCs that focused on their particular interests. A new TC on Communication System Disciplines - Communication Systems Engineering - was formed by ComTech members with special systems interests. The TCs reviewed papers for a new IEEE Transactions On Communication Technology (distributed free to all members), and they organized and moderated papers sessions at various conferences.

The new ComTech continued the tradition of technical excellence begun by its predecessor organizations in the IRE and AIEE. Engineers working in all facets of communications found a congenial home in ComTech, which contained eight technical committees: Communication Systems Disciplines, Communication Switching, Communication Theory, Data Communication and Telegraph Systems, Radio Communication, Space Communication, Telemetering, and Wire Communication. As this list showed, ComTech's technical concerns reflected the growing impact of new technical fields and of a globalizing economy.

Indeed, the theme for the GLOBECOM VI conference in Philadelphia in June 1964 was "The Marriage of Communications and Data Processing." The following year GLOBECOM VII, held in Boulder, Colorado, became also known as the First Annual IEEE Communications Convention. Under the leadership of ComTech member Richard Kirby of the National Bureau of Standards (Kirby later became director of the ITU for Radio, a position he held for 20 years), it was quite successful, with 885 paid registrants and nearly 200 papers presented in 48 sessions; ComTech also earned a surplus of about $4000 on the meeting.

The ComTech Group sponsored the Seventh GLOBECOM in 1965, calling it the First Annual IEEE Communications Convention.

A year later, in 1966, the conference was renamed the IEEE International Conference on Communications, or ICC. Its theme was "Communications in the Computer Age," and a variety of IEEE Groups - ComTech, Information Theory, Audio, and Space Electronics and Telemetry - participated. ICC has been held annually ever since, usually in late spring or early summer. The name GLOBECOM re-emerged in 1980 as the name of a second major annual conference. Also in 1966, ComTech sponsored 11 sessions at the annual IEEE International Convention. These sessions reflected the diverse fields of expertise of ComTech's members, and the topics ranged from traditional wire communications concerns like switching to cutting-edge fields like data communications and advanced techniques in radio communications. In 1967 the International Communications Conference (ICC), held in Minneapolis, adopted a new name, the International Conference on Communications. More important than this name change, the conference had a wide range of technical activities, a range best shown by the nine Groups which participated along with ComTech: Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vehicular Communications, Audio and Electroacoustics, Circuit Theory, Aerospace and Electronics, Information Theory, Electromagnetic Compatibility, Computer, and Broadcasting. ICC is held in late spring or early summer, and in 1984 went overseas for the first time (to Amsterdam).

In 1969 the IEEE Technical Activities Board considered a restructuring of the various IEEE groups. ComTech AdCom looked favorably upon this restructuring, and at first considered a grouping which would have placed ComTech in a technical cluster, or Division, along with four other Groups (Broadcasting, Broadcasting and TV Receivers, Aerospace and Electronic Systems, and Electromagnetic Compatibility). This new Division would have consisted of 21,600 members, and ComTech with its membership of 8100 would have made up the largest Group. Upon further discussion, however, the AdCom decided to pursue the idea of a cluster consisting of the Communications Technology, Aerospace and Electronics Systems, and Information Theory Groups. If this cluster could not be worked out satisfactorily, the ComTech AdCom directed Chairman Frank D. Reese to discuss a merger with the Aerospace and Electronics Systems Group (AES). While this merger did not occur, ComTech continued to work closely with AES. For instance, ComTech and AES collaborated on a joint Committee on Satellite and Space Communications and AES participated in ComTech's ICC. At the 7 December 1970 meeting, the AdCom expressed "much optimism" about ComTech's close relationship with AES.

Also in 1969, Richard Kirby, then Vice Chair of ComTech, asked Professor Donald Schilling to become Publishing Editor of the Transactions and Newsletter. When Schilling took over that position - one which he held until 1980 - he appointed a new editorial board, one which was responsible to the Editor, and not to the Technical Committees. In 1970, Schilling took over complete responsibility for all ComTech publications, and he introduced a series of special issues of the Transactions dealing with special topics of interest to ComTech members, such as: Communications in Japan, and Computer Communications. When Schilling took over the management of publications, the Transactions was a bi-monthly publication of 900 pages; by 1973 it had become a monthly publication of 1500 pages. In March of 1973, Schilling introduced the new Communications Society magazine. Alan Culbertson, President, presented a guest editorial, as did Martin Nesenbergs, who was magazine editor. The Magazine's publication requirements were that an article contain no equations, and could be understood by a large portion of the membership. This first "Magazine" contained only a single article on the "Impact of the ASCII Code'" It contained no advertisements. Today, the Magazine contains numerous excellent articles and is sought after as a place to advertise.

The IEEE Communications Society Takes Shape, 1972-1984

The ComTech Group also took a major role in technical sessions at the general IEEE International Conventions and the National Electronics Conference (NEC) held annually in Chicago. When the latter was canceled suddenly in 1971, ComTech joined the IEEE Chicago Section in co-sponsoring a one-time Fall Electronics Conference (FEC) that proved to be successful. ComTech's membership more than doubled from 1964 to 1972, from 4400 to just under 10,000. In addition, ComTech had over forty chapters in the United States and Canada by the early 1970s. Its robust membership, coupled with the growing importance of the Group within the IEEE, prompted many of ComTech's leaders to petition the IEEE for elevation to Society status.

As early as June 1970, the ComTech AdCom discussed a transition to Society status, and in March 1971 Chairman Richard Kirby appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Technical Planning and Liaison headed by Ransom Slayton to investigate the impact of this on the Group. William Middleton came up with many of the structural and operational concepts. Slayton, who later served as ComSoc's parliamentarian for many years, drafted the constitution and by-laws of the new Society. Kirby and Slayton were optimistic that other Groups in closely related technical fields (such as Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Electromagnetic Compatibility, Broadcasting, and Broadcasting and TV Receivers) would become part of a new Communications Society with an expanded scope. In June 1971, however, Kirby reported that these Groups had expressed "some interest," but a "watch and see attitude prevails." In light of this lukewarm interest on the part of other Groups, Kirby recommended proceeding with the petition for Society status while retaining ComTech's present scope to avoid overlap with other Groups. Kirby believed that the scope could be expanded at a later date to accommodate Groups who desired to join. The AdCom unanimously agreed with Kirby's recommendations and resolved to petition IEEE Technical Activities Board for elevation to Society status on the basis of the existing ComTech scope.

The IEEE quickly granted this petition, and the new IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) began operations on 1 January 1972 with 8636 regular and 1182 student members. The list of officers at the first formal meeting of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Communications Society on 20 March 1972 was:

President, A. F. Culbertson
Vice President, A. E. Joel, Jr.
Secretary, A. B. Giordano
Treasurer, D. L. Solomon
Vice President-Technical Affairs, W. B. Jones
Vice President-International Affairs, R. C. Kirby
Director-Publications Dept., D. L. Schilling
Director-Meetings and Conferences Dept., W. E. Noller
Director-Administration Dept., E. J. Doyle
Past President & Chair, Advisory Council, F. D. Reese

Since its formation in 1972, ComSoc has embarked on an ambitious program of technical conferences and publications. In 1972 the Telemetering Conference became the National Telecommunications Conference (NTC), which soon became a highly successful meeting. For example, the 1974 NTC held in San Diego had more than 1000 attendees and it earned a surplus of over $8000 for the society. Although ComSoc emphasized technical excellence, it did not neglect the social opportunities this conference afforded. In discussing planning for the 1975 conference in New Orleans, for instance, Richard L. Shuey of the ComSoc Meeting and Conference Department told the Board of Governors, "We are continuing to stress technical quality. Because of the setting, however, the social program will be given abnormal emphasis." In 1980 ComSoc's two major conferences, ICC and NTC, each attracted about 1500 registrants. Earlier, ComTech had been sponsoring the annual IEEE National Telemetering Conference (NTC). Interest in this area was declining, however, while the need for a second annual communications conference was becoming evident. Thus, the Telemetering Conference became the IEEE National Telecommunications Conference (still called NTC) in 1972. The Telemetering Technical Committee was discontinued in 1974, but two new Technical Committees were added at the same time. A number of other TCs started operations in the ensuing years, each with a specific field of interest. Several Technical Committees have changed their titles and scopes during the years--some more than once--due to expanding and changing interests. In 1982, the conference was expanded to international scope, becoming the IEEE Global Communications Conference, with the earlier GLOBECOM acronym revived. In 1980 NTC became international in scope and ComSoc renamed it the IEEE Global Communications Conference, or GLOBECOM. The conference continues to provide excellent technical content as well as social opportunities and in 1987 it took place overseas for the first time, in Tokyo. Since then, GLOBECOM has been held in Singapore, London, Sydney, and Rio de Janerio. In this period ICC also became more international and in 1984 it was held overseas for the first time in Amsterdam.

In 1981, Donald Schilling became President of ComSoc. He formed the IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), which began in 1982 in Boston as an expanded version of the existing Spread Spectrum Conference. Although the new MILCOM embraced all military communications, it continued to focus on spread-spectrum communications techniques for its first several meetings. By 1986 nearly 1500 engineers attended the conference held that year in Monterey, CA, and the conference generated $40,000 for the Society.

Data communications had come into its own as an important field by the early 1970s, and, beginning in 1974 ComSoc, the IEEE Computer Society, and the Association for Computing Machinery jointly sponsored the annual Data Communications Symposium. In 1981, Schilling decided to have a joint IEEE ComSoc -- IEEE Computer Society sponsored conference, INFOCOM, which focused on computer and data communications. The first INFOCOM, held in Las Vegas in 1982, was moderately successful. Although actual attendance was about 400, half of the anticipated attendance, the meeting earned a modest surplus and its excellent technical content ensured that it would be held again on an annual basis. INFOCOM augmented, but did not replace, the existing Data Communications Symposium. The growing importance of the application of computers and database systems to communications and network management in the 1980s also lay behind the 1987 inauguration of the IEEE Network Operations Management Symposium (NOMS). ComSoc's two major conferences, ICC and GLOBECOM, had been cosponsored since their infancy. In 1981, Schilling, with the ComSoc AdCom, took over complete control of these Conferences. Other confrences include IM--International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (formerly ISINM); WCNC--Wireless Communications & Networking Conference (formerly ICUPC); International Phoenix Conference on Computers and Communications (IPCCC), Optical Fiber Communications Conference (OFC), etc. Additionally, between 1990 and 1998 ICC collocated with Supercomm in alternating years. Participation in other international, regional and local conferences on a lesser scale is also widespread.

Following a general social trend among scientists and engineers in the 1970s, communications engineers also became concerned with the social implications of their work. In March 1972 ComSoc member Mischa Schwartz attended an International Symposium on Communications and Society in Philadelphia. This meeting brought together communications engineers and social scientists concerned with the social impact of technology. Because the audience displayed a high level of interest in this area, Schwartz urged AdCom to form a special Technical Committee to investigate the social impact of telecommunications. Schwartz took the lead in this area and chaired a meeting in March 1974 of 16 interested engineers. The committee explored several ideas for future direction, including a special Transactions issue, solicitation of support from the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering, and collaboration with the World Future Society. On the strength of this broad interest ComSoc added a Technical Committee on the Social Implications of Communications Technology, and by 1975 ComSoc had also added Technical Committees on Educational Services and Technological Forecasting and Assessment. In addition, the ComSoc Communications Policy Board became actively involved in regulatory and social issues during the early 1970s. One initiative was to sponsor an IEEE educational seminar on telecommunications technology for government regulators and officials. Special issues of the Transactions also reflected this concern with the social impact of technology; a special issue in 1974 had the theme of "Effects of Communications on Society," and it was followed by a 1976 issue on "Communications in Developing Nations ". A 1975 membership survey filled out by 236 members showed that about 40% of the membership wanted "sessions of social consciousness" included in ComSoc conferences, that ComSoc "should itself become more active in the direction of social consciousness," and that ComSoc "should push IEEE" to "move in the direction of increasing social consciousness." Indeed, in 1980 ComSoc itself became briefly embroiled in a controversy over an IEEE award given to William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor. Shockley had gained notoriety for his views on eugenics, including his assertion that Army IQ tests demonstrated that blacks were less intelligent than whites. In June 1980 a ComSoc member wrote to request that ComSoc disassociate themselves from this award. The ComSoc Board, however, declined to take action in the case.

Since 1972 the new IEEE Transactions on Communications, with vigorous leadership and an independent Editorial Board, quickly developed a leading position among technical journals in its field. Within a few years its frequency of publication accelerated from quarterly to bimonthly to monthly, and it featured special issues from the start. By the mid-1980s it had a non-library circulation of nearly 15,000, a respectable figure for a technical journal. By 1981 ComSoc's leadership debated splitting the Transactions into several different magazines based on areas of technical interest in order to accommodate the increase in the number of submitted and published papers. Indeed, in 1982 ComSoc spun off the well-respected IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC). JSAC soon went from quarterly to nine issues per year. In addition to this impressive array of periodicals, ComSoc began sponsoring publication of books dealing with communications technology through the IEEE press in 1975, when four books were released.

Along with these impressive technical publications, ComSoc also began publishing the IEEE Communications Magazine. This magazine evolved from the original IRE PGCS Newsletter, sent free to all members, to a full-fledged magazine in 1973. The magazine features articles of general technical interest as well as news of the Society. In 1979 Donald Schilling hired a full-time managing editor, Carol Lof, and under her leadership and the guidance of key volunteers such as Donald Schilling and Joseph Garodnick, the magazine quickly increased its annual page number from just above 100 to about 175. In the first year of her editorship advertising increased 400% as well. The Magazine became a monthly in 1983. By 1984 advertising revenue had increased more than tenfold, to over $100,000 and the number of non-library subscriptions stood at just under 20,000. A readership survey in the Spring of 1985 showed that readers gave it high marks for the quality of its articles. The survey found that nearly 90% of subscribers scan or read the magazine on a regular basis, a figure which was much higher than all of the magazine's peer publications such as EDN and Data Communications.

In addition to its roster of conferences and impressive list of publications, another sign of the technical vigor of the Society was the recognition which its members received. Between 1970 and 1981 ComSoc members won 10 IEEE Field Awards and 7 IEEE Medals. The National Academy of Engineering also recognized the fundamental contributions of ComSoc members in this period, electing in 1980 Richard W. Hamming, Karl Uno Ingard, Leonard Kleinrock, Tingye Li, and Jacob W. Schaefer. In 1981 Amos Joel and Paul Green joined them.

While ComSoc continued to grow in the early and mid 1970s, its growth was not as robust as ComTech's had been in the 1960s or as rapid as the growth of the telecommunications industry generally. A 1975 survey found that most ComSoc members highly valued their membership for the technical content of the Society's publications and conferences. A healthy 88% responded that they "definitely" or "probably" would keep their membership current. However, the survey noted one disturbing trend: the remaining 12% responded that they would "maybe" or "probably not" retain their membership. Indeed, ComTech had noticed a high dropout rate, of about 10%, among the members as early as 1970. Most of the members who left were recent college graduates who remained as group members for about two years. One significant cause of this high dropout rate among younger members was the perception that ComSoc continued to emphasize older forms of communications technology like telephony and did not pay enough attention to newer fields.

ComSoc's leadership in this period also sought to attract and retain a second group of communications engineers, international members. In 1972 ComSoc's Board set up an International Activities Council headed by Richard Kirby to foster the development of the Society's activities, membership, and member services outside of the U.S. The major objective of this Council was to explore the formation of an International Federation of Electrical Communication Societies with the purpose of sponsoring regular international conferences. Kirby also secured passage of an amendment to the ComSoc constitution to permit engineers outside of North America to obtain International Affiliate Membership. This membership, open to all members of recognized national engineering societies, gave non-North American engineers the advantages of ComSoc membership without requiring them to join IEEE. (In 2000, the IEEE Communications Society had more than 860 affiliate members.) In 1980 and 1981 the Board of Governors approved the formation of three International Committees to serve the needs of members in, respectively, Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Asia and the Pacific; and Latin America. In addition, ComSoc added more technical content dealing with international aspects of communications. Conference organizers solicited and accepted more non-U.S. papers at ComSoc sponsored meetings, and the Transactions carried more articles with an international scope. In August 1972 the Transactions issue was a special issue on communications in Japan. This issue was so successful that editor Donald Schilling moved forward on special issues in 1974 on communications in Europe, in 1975 on communications in the U.S.S.R., and in 1976 on communications in Latin America and in developing countries.

To increase the membership the AdCom sought to attract more students and recent graduates, international members, and engineers working in cutting-edge fields of communications. These measures to attract and retain members paid off: membership grew at the healthy rate of 9% a year after 1978, and ComSoc enjoyed a growth rate within the IEEE second only to that of the IEEE Computer Society.

Lackluster membership growth in the mid-1970s also caused concern over Society finances. In 1975 Treasurer David L. Solomon expressed alarm concerning the possibility of a one-year deficit of approximately $30,000 by the end of the year. The deficit was a result of higher-than-anticipated expenses and a decline in income from membership fees. Indeed, the need to cover operating deficits in this period depressed ComSoc's financial reserves from $236,000 in 1978 to $125,000 in 1983. Corrective actions AdCom took included a more aggressive promotion of the benefits of ComSoc membership, limiting the number of pages of the Transactions to 1200 a year in 1979, and raising conference registration fees. By 1976 ComSoc's financial picture had improved to the point where AdCom raised the number of pages of the Transactions to 1400 a year and in 1982 to 2100 pages. In 1982, Transactions and the Journal were "unbundled" from the dues structure and made available to the membership at moderate subscription rates, thereby keeping the basic dues to a minimum. Both periodicals are, of course, offered to the technical public at a higher, non-member rate, the proceeds providing a substantial portion of the financial base of the Society.

By the mid 1980s ComSoc's initiatives to grow the membership had paid off, and the Society regained its firm financial footing. By 1984 ComSoc had just under 20,000 members, the third largest number of members among all IEEE Societies, and its membership growth rate stood second only to that of the Computer Society. ComSoc and its members were well poised to meet the regulatory and technical challenges of the 1980s and 1990s.

The IEEE Communications Society in an Era of Technological Change and Globalization, 1985-2002

In December 1982 the ComSoc Policy Board, under the leadership of Robert W. Lucky, undertook an exhaustive examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the Society in order to formulate its future direction. The Board discovered that ComSoc was a quite successful society in many ways. The size of its membership, about 15,000, and its international character were both solid signs of success. ComSoc journals were prestigious and well-respected, and the Communications Magazine enjoyed a growing popularity. ComSoc meetings and conferences - four main meetings and a variety of specialized workshops - were also signs of success. About 10% of ComSoc members attended at least one conference a year. Despite these successes, the Policy Board noted that ComSoc faced two general problems. Although ComSoc's membership grew at an annual rate of about 3%, this growth was far less than the growth of the telecommunications industry generally and of the number of communications engineers specifically. The Policy Board speculated that this lackluster growth was occurring because of a related problem: ComSoc was not keeping up with the sweeping technical and business changes in the telecommunications industry. Indeed, the Board noted, "The leadership of ComSoc is telephony oriented. By and large our technical programs follow the structured discipline of public telephone network engineering. That is not a broad enough base on which to attract the engineering practitioners in new fields" like satellites, computer networking, and fiber optics. ComSoc's major task, therefore, was to reorient itself so that it would "become unquestionably the dominant Society for communications engineering not only in telephony but in the other emergent fields."

To reflect the new directions which communications engineering was taking in this period, the ComSoc Board revised the Society's scope at the end of 1985 to "embrace all aspects of the advancement of the science, engineering, technology and applications for transferring information among locations by the use of signals." In this period ComSoc also sought to stimulate more interest in its activities among managers and engineers in industry. A 1986 report of ComSoc's Policy Board, responsible for long-range planning, took heart that its membership was growing at 10% annually, well over the IEEE average of 4%. However, Frederick T. Andrews, head of the Policy Board, sought ways for ComSoc to "bring in more membership from outside the communications R&D community which dominates ComSoc today." Andrews recommended a greater emphasis on issues of interest to industry, such as quality assurance and network management. Similarly, many ComSoc members who worked in industry found that the Transactions were "somewhat theoretical and of marginal value to working engineers." As a result, in 1988 the Board of Governors investigated ways to make the Transactions more relevant to engineers in industry and considered the formation of a new magazine aimed at this audience. The need to reach out to engineers and executives working in the communications industry has continued to be a concern; in 1998 a survey revealed that ComSoc was strongest among academic researchers and weakest among industry executives.

In 1988 a committee chaired by Richard Skillen continued the work of the previous committees headed by Lucky and Andrews. Skillen and his colleagues sought to build a strategic vision for ComSoc for the next decade or so. The so-called Skillen Report identified several problem areas and opportunities for ComSoc's future. Skillen and his co-workers found that ComSoc attracted new members at its targeted rate of about 20%, but that it also lost members "at a record rate," resulting in an "unsatisfactory" growth rate of only 5%. Much of this attrition occurred because ComSoc was "not adequately bringing student members into full membership status." Indeed, nearly 100% of new college graduates failed to renew their ComSoc memberships within two years of graduation, an unacceptably high attrition rate. Another major concern was that many of ComSoc's Technical Committees "are weak and must be revitalized." The issue of member retention was neither new nor surprising, and the Board of Governors recommended that a survey be distributed to the membership to identify ways to attract and retain members and that a new staff position should be created for the purpose of membership development. The Board of Governors also resolved to give the Technical Committees greater autonomy and influence in the activities of the Society. Indeed, the Board recommended that "they should move in the direction of becoming de facto mini-societies."

In 1991 ComSoc wrote a Five Year Strategic Plan which carried forward the work of the Skillen Report. On the positive side, ComSoc had an active membership of 32,000, second only to the Computer Society, with an annual growth rate of 8% making it the fourth fastest growing Society in IEEE. ComSoc finances were in excellent shape, with an annual budget of nearly $5.5 million, a surplus of $1.8 million, and reserves of $1.4 million. Still, the Strategic Plan called for ways to retain existing members and to attract new and younger members. The report recommended that the Society focus on emerging technologies like software, wireless, photonic systems, and computer networking. By so doing, the report forecast that ComSoc would grow by 37,000 members in the next decade.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ComSoc leadership recognized the Society's growth as a sign of its continued success. Yet they were aware of the need to attract and retain younger members and non-U.S. engineers. In addition to greater coverage of emerging technical fields, the excellent content of the Communications Magazine and more non-mathematical exposition in the Transactions helped to stem the dropout rate among younger engineers. In 1991 ComSoc set up an ambitious membership retention and recruiting program; Executive Director Carol Lof estimated that ComSoc had spent as much as $100,000 on membership recruitment and retention in 1992 alone. In 1997 ComSoc set up a Young Members' Committee under the direction of Vice President-Membership Affairs Roberto de Marca.

Through the years the Communications Society Technical Committees have developed their own specialized small-group meetings called "workshops." These workshops provide interaction among engineers working at the "cutting edge" of new developments, while respecting proprietary interests. (Most do not issue symposium records.) Many are listed in the IEEE Communications Magazine Conference Calendar and the IEEE Spectrum Calendar of Coming Events. Another service to Communications Society members is the presentation of Tutorial Sessions at conferences whereby new information on "hot topics" is disseminated to attendees, supplementing the standard paper sessions at the meetings. The IEEE International Workshop on Quality of Service was launched in 1993.

Maurizio Decina

In 1994 President Maurizio Decina and Vice President for Technical Affairs Stephen Weinstein reflected on the present status and future direction of ComSoc. They noted with satisfaction that the Society had "advanced the state of the art" in traditional fields of communications engineering like "switching, transport, modulation, protocols, control and operations systems," the "foundation elements" of the modern communications and information infrastructure. However, they continued, ComSoc and communications engineers have received scant credit for recent advances like the explosive growth of the Internet and wireless communications. "Perhaps," they concluded, "we should admit that we have not had the breadth of vision to integrate our in-depth contributions to component subsystems into a broader perspective on information networks that could be recognized and appreciated beyond our own community." To help instill this broader perspective ComSoc launched Technical Committees on Personal Communications, Broadband Delivery and Access Systems, and Gigabit Networking.

In addition to younger engineers working in newer fields of communications, ComSoc also sought to attract and retain more international members. Indeed, by the early 1990s, ComSoc boasted the largest growth rate for international members among all IEEE Societies. During the 1980s and early 1990s the percentage of U.S. members was decreasing while the percentage of European and Asian members was increasing. By 1996 over 40% of ComSoc's members were from outside the U.S., up from about 27% in 1978. Similarly, by 1988 non-U.S. authors presented 30 to 40% of the papers at GLOBECOM and ICC, ComSoc's two major conferences. During the late 1980s and 1990s the globalization of the telecommunications industry and of ComSoc's membership required the Society to serve better its growing overseas membership. Indeed, the opportunities and problems associated with the globalization of ComSoc were the central concerns of the IEEE-ComSoc Strategic Plan issued in May 1992. To accommodate its growing international membership, ComSoc held more of its conferences overseas, improved distribution of Society publications to overseas members, opened offices in Brussels and Singapore, and signed Sister Society agreements with technical societies in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Vietnam. ComSoc's globalization initiatives were a major concern of Maurizio Decina when he was president of the Society in 1994-1995. He recommended a continued expansion of collaboration with sister societies and to open more regional offices.

In 1996, ComSoc developed an independent web site permitting global access to ComSoc information. Society news, publications, conferences, information on standards, and electronic initiatives can be found easily. The site is updated frequently and includes e-mail contacts for ComSoc officers and staff.

A 1999 IEEE member survey discovered that nearly two thirds of ComSoc's members worked in private industry, with only 12% and 9% working in education and government, respectively. The major reason for joining was to obtain ComSoc publications. The major technical focus of nearly half of the respondents was the Internet, with about 40% of the respondents citing computer network communications and personal communications as their major technical interest.

ComSoc publications in this period reflected these changes in communications technologies and in the technical interests of the Society's members. In 1987 ComSoc started the bimonthly IEEE Network-The Magazine of Computer Communications, and by 1989 the journal became self-sustaining monthly publication with a circulation of 12,000. In 1993 the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking was introduced, followed in 1994 by IEEE Personal Communications Magazine (now IEEE Wireless Communications), and in 1997 by the IEEE Communications Letters. The Personal Communications Magazine covered all technical and policy issues relating to all forms of wired and wireless communications, with a particular focus on mobility of people and communicating devices. The latest addition is the IEEE Communications Surveys, the Society's first electronically published journal. Furthermore, ComSoc began co-sponsoring several journals with other IEEE societies, including: IEEE Internet Computing, IEEE Multimedia Magazine, IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, and IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. An additional publication, the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, was "spun-off" in 1982. It soon went from quarterly to a nine-issues-per-year distribution and became a monthly publication in 1999 with the addition of the Wireless Communications Series. In 2002 the WCS became the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, published quarterly.

Charles Stewart

Another sign of the growth and maturity of ComSoc was the inauguration of a paid professional staff to manage the Society's day-to-day affairs. ComSoc's first staff member was Carol Lof, who became editor of the IEEE Communications Magazine in 1979. In December of 1989, the Communications Society moved from its former publication offices on Second Avenue to new offices at 345 East 47th Street. In 1990 Lof earned a promotion to the post of Executive Director of the Society, and managed a staff of ten. In January of 1995, Lof was succeeded by Alan Ledbetter, who was unfortunately struck by a car in New York City traffic, in March of 1996, and badly injured. Charles Stewart finished the year as acting Executive Director, with Ledbetter advising. The current Executive Director, Harold Tepper, manages a staff of approximately twenty-five people.

The IEEE Communications Society at Fifty

By 2002, the Communications Society was the IEEE's second largest professional society. ComSoc's growth in the past several decades has been impressive indeed. When the IEEE Group on Communications Technology began operations on 1 July 1964, it boasted 4400 members. Within a decade this figure had doubled; when ComSoc was elevated to Society status in 1972 its membership was 8800. Since then, ComSoc has grown by a factor of six, reflecting the increasing importance of communications to both the global economy and the engineering profession. At the end of 2001, more than 62,000 ComSoc members all over the world participate in 21 Technical Committees, can avail themselves of fourteen technical publications, and can attend nine ComSoc-sponsored conferences. As it enters its second half-century, ComSoc's wide array of publications, conferences, and technical interests are well-positioned to help engineers to meet the challenges and opportunities of communications in the 21st century.

IEEE Communications Society Officers

For a full list of officers and previous board of governors members, see: IEEE Communications Society Officers and Board of Governors

ComSoc Acronyms

AdCom - Administrative Committee
AEROCOM - Aeronautical Communications Symposium
AES - Aerospace and Electronics Systems Group
AIEE - American Institute of Electrical Engineers
ARPA - Advanced Research Projects Agency
ARPANET - ARPA Network
AT&T - American Telephone and Telegraph
BBN - Bolt Beranek and Newman Corporation
CERN - Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Comsat - Communications Satellite Corporation
ComSoc - Communications Society
ComTech - Group on Communications Technology
FCC - Federal Communications Commission
GLOBECOM - IEEE Global Communications Conference
ICC - IEEE International Conference on Communications
ICCC - International Conference on Computer Communications
IMPs - Interface Message Processors
INFOCOM - Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies
Intelsat - not spelled out - International Satellite organization?
IP - Internet Protocol
IPTO - Information Processing Techniques Office
IRE - Institute of Radio Engineers
ISPs - Internet Service Providers
ITU - International Telecommunications Union
JSAC - IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
MCI - Microwave Communications, Inc.
MILCOM - IEEE Military Communications Conference
MILNET - Military Network
NCSA - National Center for Supercomputing Applications
NOMS - IEEE Network Operators Management Symposium
NTC - National Telecommunications Conference
NTT - Nippon Telephone and Telegraph
PC - Personal Computer
PGCS - Professional Group on Communications Systems
PGMIL - Professional Group on Military Electronics
RBOCs - Regional Bell operating companies
RFC - Request For Comment
SABRE - (not spelled out)
SAGE - Semi-Automatic Ground Environment
SAIC - (not spelled out)
TASI - Time Assignment Speech Interpolation
TAT-1 - Transatlantic Telephone Cable
TCP - Transmission Control Protocol Telenet - (not spelled out)
TENEX - (not spelled out)
WELL - Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link

Newsletter issues

The original IRE PGCS (Professional Group Communications Systems) Newsletter evolved into the IEEE ComTech Newsletter (offered free to members) which then became the IEEE Communications Society Newsletter. In 1975 the Newsletter was expanded into IEEE Communications Magazine with the addition of general technical interest features, the cost being partially subsidized by advertising. Two years later, the magazine was offered to the general public (non-members) by subscription. It became a monthly publication in 1983. In 1994, the "Global Communications Newsletter" was initiated as a regular feature of Communications Magazine. In 1997, the magazine went online with IEEE Communications Interactive. In 2008, the magazine editor introduced a new column titled 'History of Communications', edited by Mischa Schwartz.

Directories

Archival documents

External Links