The new equipment that made this possible also made other changes possible. Computers had been useful tools for calculating and measuring. Now they were smaller, using less power, yet becoming more powerful. They held more information than human memories, and could be connected by telephone. The age of computerised telecommunications had arrived.
Computers transmit information with such speed that they are widely used in business.
The switches to link these machines also need great speed. Switching was forced to become computerised, by the demands of the network. So computers linked computers in a web of telecommunications, switching messages with a speed and accuracy that was almost magical. In 1967, Australia received new messages from space - further than ever before. Satellites in special orbits transmitted signals from North America, and a year later the Australian network was linked to a global service, using the OTC Earth Station at Moree.