U.S. leadership in telecommunications did not come by accident—success at the physical, network, and applications levels was made possible by the U.S. investment in decades of research and the concomitant development of U.S. research leadership in communications-related areas. Telecommunications has been and likely will continue to be an important foundation for innovative new industries arising in the United States that use telecommunications as a primary technological enabler and foundation. Recent examples of innovative new businesses leveraging telecommunications include Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, and Google.
The telecommunications industry is a major direct contributor to U.S. economic activity. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that just over 3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic income (GDI) in 2003 was from communications services (2.6 percent) and communications hardware (0.4 percent)—categories that are narrower than the broad definition of telecommunications offered above. At 3 percent, telecommunications thus represented more than a third of the total fraction of GDI spent on information technology (IT; 7.9 percent of GDI) in 2003. In fact, the fraction attributable to telecommunications is probably larger relative to that of IT than these figures suggest, given that much of the GDI from IT hardware (particularly semiconductors) could apply to any of several industries (computing, telecommunications, media, and electronics, for example). If one assumes IT to be the sum of computers (calculating), computers (wholesale), computers (retail), and software and services, the total GDI for IT is
The societal importance of telecommunications is well accepted and broadly understood, reflected in its near-ubiquitous penetration and use. Noted below are some of the key areas of impact:

Telecommunications provides a technological foundation for societal communications. Communication plays a central role in the fundamental operations of a society—from business to government to families. In fact, communication among people is the essence of what distinguishes an organization, community, or society from a collection of individuals. Communication—from Web browsing to cell phone calling to instant messaging—has become increasingly integrated into how we work, play, and live.
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