Many communications breakthroughs—including Telstar, the first communications satellite—have been achieved by researchers at Bell Labs in Holmdel, Whippany, and Murray Hill. Three Bell Labs researchers shared the Nobel Prize in physics (1956) for developing the transistor, a device that has revolutionized communications and many other fields. In 1876, at Menlo Park, Thomas Edison invented the carbon telephone transmitter, a device that made the telephone commercially feasible.
The first mail carriers to come to New Jersey were, typically enough, on their way between New York and Philadelphia. Express mail between the two cities began in 1737, and by 1764, carriers could speed through the state in 24 hours. In colonial times, tavern keepers generally served as the local mailmen. The nation's largest bulk-mail facility is in Jersey City. In 2001, 95.9% of the state's occupied housing units had telephones.
Because the state lacks a major television broadcasting outlet, New Jerseyites receive more news about events in New York City and Philadelphia than in their own towns and cities. In 2003 there were 60 major radio stations (8 AM, 52 FM) and 15 television stations, none of which commanded anything like the audiences and influence of the stations across the Hudson and Delaware rivers. In 1978, in cooperation with public television's WNET (licensed in Newark but operated in New York), New Jersey's public stations began producing New Jersey's first nightly newscast.
A total of 251,401 Internet domain names were registered in New Jersey in the year 2000.