Communications terminal is an old term that disappeared for a decade or two and is
being reintroduced here, very possibly for no other reason than that it needs to be
discussed so that it can eventually disappear again—once it becomes ubiquitous.
First, a little history. When digital PBX systems were first released, manufacturers of
these machines realized that they could not refer to their endpoints as telephones—
their proprietary nature prevented them from connecting to the PSTN. They were
therefore called terminals, or stations. Users, of course, weren’t having any of it. It
looked like a telephone and acted like a telephone, and therefore it was a telephone.
You will still occasionally find PBX sets referred to as terminals, but for the most part
they are called telephones.
The renewed relevance of the term communications terminal has nothing to do withanything proprietary—rather, it’s the opposite. As we develop more creative ways of
communicating with each other, we gain access to many different devices that will allow
us to connect. Consider the following scenarios:
• If I use my PDA to connect to my voicemail and retrieve my voice messages (con-
verted to text), does my PDA become a phone?
• If I attach a video camera to my PC, connect to a company’s web site, and request
a live chat with a customer service rep, is my PC now a telephone?
• If I use the IP phone in my kitchen to surf for recipes, is that a phone call?
The point is simply this: we’ll probably always be “phoning” each other, but will we
always be using “telephones” to do so?