These are interesting quotes from Andrew S. Tanenbaum, author of the book Computer Networks. Enjoy them:

Computer Networks – Pages 90 and 91: Talking about guided transmission media, specifically Magnetic Media:

The cost of an Ultrium tape is approximately $40… A tape can be reused at least 10 times, so the cost of the tape could be $4000 per box, per use. Let’s add another $1000 for shipping, and we have a cost of about $5000 to store 200 TB. This equals 3 cents per gigabyte. No network can beat this. The moral is: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.

Computer Networks – Page 131: Talking about telephone companies and that their ADSL service customers cannot be very far from the central office to contract it:

When they choose the speed they will offer, at the same time they choose a radius from their central offices beyond which they cannot provide the service. This means that when a distant customer tries to acquire the service, they might get the following response: ‘Thank you very much for your interest, but we cannot give you the service because you live 100 meters farther from the nearest central office. Could you move?’.

Computer Networks – Page 148: Talking about circuit switching:

In the early days of the telephone, the connection was established when the operator connected a jumper cable to the input and output plugs. By the way, there’s a small and surprising story associated with the invention of automatic circuit switching equipment: it was invented by the owner of a 19th-century funeral home, a man named Almon B. Strowger. Shortly after the telephone was invented, when someone died, one of the relatives would call the town operator and say: “Please connect me with a funeral home”. Unfortunately for Mr. Strowger, there were two funeral homes in town, and the wife of the other owner was the telephone operator. Strowger soon realized that if he didn’t invent automatic telephone switching equipment he was going to go bankrupt, so he chose the first option. For almost 100 years, the circuit switching equipment used throughout the world was known as the Strowger apparatus. (History does not record whether the now unemployed switch operator got a job as an information operator, answering questions like: Could you please give me the number of a funeral home?).