Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition.

Dennis Gabor, "Inventing the Future", 1962

The number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected.

Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972 (source: The Open Group)

32 bits should be enough address space for the Internet.

Vint Cerf, 1977

There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.

Ken Olson, President, Digital, 1977 (source: The Sunday Times, 12 December 1999)

640k ought to be enough for anybody.

Bill Gates, 1981 (source: The Sunday Times, 12 December 1999)

Speak up son, you're mum's on the line.

Portishead Radio Operator speaking to Prince Andrew during the 1982 Falklands conflict.

Other excellent stories regarding Portishead Radio can be found here

OFTEL is confident that the National Code Change in 1995 will make available sufficient extra capacity which, if managed properly, means that it will not be necessary to impose any national code changes in the UK in the foreseeable future.

OFTEL consultation document "Numbering: Choices for the Future", June 1993

Our greatest fear is that the Internet will become a vehicle of free distribution of information.

Ken Wasch, President of the Software Publishers' Association, 5 September 1995

I've been reading that some people can send faxes across the country cheaper than the mail. That's very threatening.

Marvin Travis Runyon, US Postmaster General, quoted in Barrons, Dec 11 1995

There are more telephone lines in Manhattan than in all of Sub-Sahara Africa.

New Internationalist, December 1996

Of course it looks messy. I have learnt over my four years in this job that numbering is much more complex than I thought it was.

Don Cruickshank, Director General of OFTEL, quoted in The Daily Telegraph, Jan 22 1997

A common bond reached through electronic proximity may help stave off future flareups of ethnic hatred and national breakups.

Michael Dertouzos, 1997

Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.

Last message in Morse Code by the French Maritime service, Jan 31 1997, quoted in Mobile Communications International, September 1998

There are a whole family of sounds that are inappropriate, particularly in restaurants. The unwilling belch or flatulence are only the tip of the iceberg. Any parent or member of a fraternity knows the variety and imaginativeness with which diners can willingly create 'inappropriate' noises. The ringing of a mobile telephone fits into this family of inappropriate sounds, almost regardless of its volume.

Rich Ling, a sociologist working at Telenor R&D, in Telectronikk (a Telenor publication), Volume 94 No.2 - 1998

700 million telephone lines were installed in the first 100 years of telecomms; 700 million more will be installed over the next 15-20 years.

Ben Verwayen, Lucent Technologies, 1998

There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone.

B. Stroustrup, AT&T, (inventor of C++)

It seems unlikely that TCP/IP will remain in continuous use for anything like as long as the century and a half managed by Morse Code, its distant digital ancestor.

The Economist, Jan 23, 1999

Until three years ago, we'd receive reports of two new ghosts every week. But with the introduction of mobile phones 15 years ago, ghost sightings began to decline to the point where we are receiving none.

Tony Cornell, Society for Psychical Research, quoted in the Sunday Express Oct 14, 2001. Source: Telecoms Heritage Journal, First Half 2002.

France Telecom SA researchers say they have designed a fully working underwater telephone booth.

The Wall Street Journal, Nov 26, 2001