Bride and Marconi minimized the rivalry between wireless competitors in testimony before a 1912 Congressional inquiry into the Titanic disaster. The Senate concluded that wireless communications at sea should be operational 24 hours a day, and called for regulation of the American radio industry that resulted in the Radio Act of 1912. The law restricted amateur use of long-wave frequencies and included a provision through which the U.S. adopted SOS as its standard distress call. SOS remained the international distress call until 1999, when large ships stopped using Morse code in favor of the satellite-based Global Maritime Distress and Safety System.
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