Wiring the World / THE NEW AGE OF GLOBAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS : Hello, World! Diga, Allo, Da!

“So far out of town you couldn’t find a phone.” That old lament makes little sense nowadays when you can’t get that far out of town. There are phones on planes, in cars and on boats. And, as ever, in our teen-agers’ rooms.

In Los Angeles, automobiles no longer have full-sized spare tires but they do have cellular handsets. Secretaries wear lightweight headsets like tiaras, simply unplugging them when they leave their desks. Talk may not be cheap, but it’s easy.

Even in distant corners of the world, most travelers no longer have to line up at the national PT&T; office--Post, Telephone and Telegraph--to call home and wait two or three hours for the privilege. Now, even in remote outposts, someone might have a portable satellite phone available to bounce your message to mom. And all you’d need is a small rectangle of plastic.