Cast your mind back 15 years to the turn of the millennium. You would go on holiday with your family or friends, you would pick out a snazzy postcard, you would write a heartfelt message, and you would drop it in the post for those who couldn’t make the trip. For a wandering educator such as yourself, this may be a pleasant trip down memory lane – for the students of today, this would probably be met with “But why wouldn’t you just send a selfie?”

What was the norm as little as a decade or two ago has quite quickly become a novel antiquity. Telecommunications have already completely transformed the way we keep in touch, but the revolution isn’t quite over just yet.

Public telephone boxes across the world are currently undergoing a revolution. Thanks to the widespread proliferation of the smartphone, public phone booths are basically redundant – in London, they’re only really used as a tourist photo opp. Instead of tearing these up and paving over the hole, these payphones are finding new uses as Wi-Fi hotspots and “Solarbox” phone charging points. We’ve even seen a few phone booths turn into goldfish bowls (boxes?) in Osaka, purely for the sake of art.

While the goldfish are certainly amusing, it’s the Wi-Fi and phone charging which are really useful. Tourists visiting major cities around the world can now recharge their phones and call home at the same time at no massive cost, thanks to this innovative repurposing. Rather than risking roaming fees and making international calls though a cell tower which can be horrifically expensive, international call cards and VOIP offer a low cost alternative. Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, is basically the technology behind internet phone calls, an idea which 15 years ago would have been in the realm of science fiction. Today, it’s just a matter of loading up your favourite social media app – there’s half a chance that it has VOIP built in as standard.

While these apps are perfect for social calls while out and about, wandering through foreign cities, they aren’t really ideal for the business world. Fortunately, business telecommunications have changed just as rapidly over the years, too. Where 20 years ago when fax was commonplace, we can now scan and email documents in seconds at zero cost and at a fraction of a space required. On top of this, there are now a number of services which offer the ability to make cheap calls to the USA, India, or any other country in the world at a fraction of the price you’d get with companies like BT. These calls can be anything from calling a delivery driver in another country to follow up on a delay to hosting a conference call with several people from several countries at once. Once again, what was once science fiction has become the norm.

While we’re a good few years away from the holodecks and holophones from your favourite StarFranchise, we’re already making strides in the world of VR and AR technology. With the way telecoms have already changed how we keep in touch on a global level, it’s exciting to see how communication will change in the years to come.