Wire Systems in Telecommunications - Essay Example

? Wire Systems in Telecommunications Introduction Man has ever been trying to express his thought through various means, methods and techniques. Communication has been an inbuilt capability of humans. History transpires numerous necessity oriented tactics that have been used by man for communication. He is still using these techniques. Initially, he was bound to serve his purpose through the medium of nature since he opened eye in its lap and there was no other techno logy or resources available for this purpose. Historical Background: Relationship to the Needs of the Society Native Americans, in ancient times, used a distinctive technique for communication called smoke signals. This may be termed as the first and foremost means of signal based communication. In this technique, columns or puffs of smoke were dispatched into the air in different shapes and frequencies on encoding side. On the other decoding side, signals would be perceived as desired by the signaler. These smoke signals cannot be declared or rated precisely a full language, but were typically used as short signals of communication. Some of the standard signals even retain information today. For example, one puff of smoke dispatched into the air was supposed to signal intended viewer’s attention. While, on the other hand, two puffs meant nothing dangerous and every thing is all right. Contrary to this, three puffs signal hazard, call for aid, or merely some expected trouble. The smoke was produced by putting together green branches or leaves of grass into the fire. In this practice, blankets are used to direct the smoke puffs. Beside this, important events were also discernible by smoke signals. These events constitute war, birth, marriage or death. There were also light and heavy signals in vogue, each meaning variegated things. One meant good event, while the other meant bad news. The popularity or authenticity of this system can be viewed from this fact that this smoke signals methods being the old form of Native American communication, are still used today by the strategic personnel. As far as the mechanism of production and comprehension of these signals was concerned, it was not random. Every thing was calculated and sensitive frequency oriented, though, not as sophisticated and digitalized calculated as contemporary technology. One can consider smoke signals as a visual telegraph. The viewer can see smoke signals over a stretched distance, and decode the smoke to interpret the nature of message. In order to create smoke signals, put a blanket over the fire. Afterwards, include grass and newly born green branches to generate more smoke. To launch a short puff of smoke, raise the cover hurriedly, then put it down again. For long puffs of smoke, intuitively manage to raise the cover for a longer but for tentatively accurate time. Coordinate and manage time and distance ratio with a specific speed to get the target or desired length of the puffs. Variation of puff sends a distinctive message. Smoke signals cannot be asserted as standardized. The users, then using the required code, always conclude the target for communication. In digitalized technology today, to log on means to enter a specific cyber account or to turn our computers on. In the same way, for smoke signals, the signalers also log on, by adding logs to this fire or smoke. Wire System Communication Advancement in Canada and US During the next decade we will see a change in the way we communicate with machines and the equipment that we use. The user will respond directly to questions that their equipment asks them with the technology having voice recognition of the user's voice. Improved shopping systems will help businesses order what they need while the persons are at home, on the road, or flying to a business venture. Live video will become a wave of the future replacing conventional communications. Some experts believe that virtual reality could take over the video feeds period. With the growth of technology in the communications industry many government organizations are implementing procedures and laws to prohibit unethical conduct. (Bray, 212) Along with more advanced technology there will unfortunately be more highly advanced computer hackers and viruses. IP Phones are also a common place in most businesses today. Simply put these are normal phones but instead of connecting to a normal RJ-11 phone jack they are connected to an RJ-45 Ethernet jack. IP phones are connected in a straight line to your router and have the essential hardware and or software within the device to transmit voice over the internet. Newer companies and call centers normally have IP Phones as part of their internal PBX system. IP Phones are more cost-effective for larger companies and have all the same features. They are also very simple for an IT department to setup as it is simply connected to their router or switch, where as a PSTN line is slightly more difficult to setup quickly. Mobile TV is typically streamed only over 3G networks. So the common agreement is that 3G streaming is a preface to the edifice of devoted mobile-TV broadcast networks that transmit digital TV signals on totally diverse frequencies to those utilized for voice and data. It appears that, watching TV while using any of these modern technologies requires a TV-capable handset. Even though, many new models were exposed in Las Vegas, no such handsets are however offered in Europe or America, and few in Asia. 3G is a pitiable solution for a large media occasion, like a mega and alarming breaking news story or a great championship sporting event. The carriers are going to have to move the traffic off the cell network eventually. This is accurately what went off in South Korea when carriers primarily moved out streaming video facilities there. Within a short span of eight to nine months, the network proved to be overcrowded with video data traffic. SK Telecom rapidly grasped that a new advancement and enhancement was required. So it built a separate satellite network to broadcast its mobile TV service. Additionally, new interactive services are also now possible and are becoming an important element for operator branding and subscriber retention. A few historical observations must be made here on telecommunications regulation. First came the Radio Act of 1927, which resulted from a perceived scarcity of electromagnetic spectrum as well as the perceived need to regulate its use in the public interest. But the line between regulation and censorship was thin and controversial, and by 1934 one of President Roosevelt's new deals was a new communications act. The goal of the 1934 Telecommunications Act was not to reform but to remove telecommunications regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and to bring that activity together with radio regulation under a new communications commission, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There were two parts to the new Act, one on telecommunications common carriers and one on radio -- the latter was a redraft of the Radio Act of 1927. In 1934 "telecommunications" meant either telegraphy or telephony. Broadcast technology could boast several hundred stations and thousands of receivers, but the public perceived radio and telecommunications as very different entities. The media of the two were different: telephone and telegraph involved wire; broadcast radio did not. The content of the two were very different, a fact that resulted from the application of public policy and the market's response to that policy. Telephony and telegraphy had begun as wire-based services. The content of the wire was analogous to the print on letters carried by the post office, and the wire was analogous to the post roads. Thus common carrier legislation seemed appropriate to telephony and telegraphy before it became wireless. Because most carriers were monopolies, at least locally, the law required them to serve their customers in a common and impartial way. And like the law of the press, the law of common carriage was intended to protect free expression. With radio broadcast, however, a different and much less coherent body of law emerged. Unlike the law of the press, which sought to preserve freedom, and unlike the law of common carriage, which fostered equality of service, the law of wireless broadcasting was one of deliberate regulation and control. Radio technology was unlike anything American lawmakers had ever encountered. Congress considered only four choices: (1) create a government monopoly over radio (as had happened in Europe); (2) apply common carrier law to radio; (3) leave radio unregulated like printed publishing; or (4) make radio a regulated commercial activity. Congress chose the last option for several reasons: (1) because of the political undesirability of a government monopoly; (2) because of the impracticability of applying right-of-way law to a broadcast medium; and (3) because Congress viewed literate communications more permissively than it viewed mass communication. Also separating radio from telecommunications in the public view was the content. By 1934 radio had become commercialized. Radio receivers were built for a mass market and sold at a price the public could afford. Advertising dollars were required, however, to pay for the broadcast stations. The state of the art of 1934 electronics restricted the content of radio to voice, music and Morse code, in a bandwidth of less than 20 kilohertz (equivalent to the fidelity of the best human ear). Unknown to the general public, radio was also used for communication among ships and airplanes. Morse code was used in the worldwide transportation industry just as it had been used in common carrier railroad days, except that it also played an important role in navigation. Amateur radio operators, too, communicated around the world with radio, first in Morse, and later in voice as well. Up until 1934, the public did not consider radio a technology conducive to common carriage. But after 1934 there was a fascinating ebb and flow among the electronic media responding to changes in price, technology and public demand. The movie newsreels epitomized the evanescence of the electronic media collision. Eventually television would reign in the public eye. As electronics refined communications, the government -- always in the name of pluralism -- enforced separate communications modes. For example, the government prevented the Bell System from entering into Western Union's telegraphy. The mailgram, delivered ironically over its last miles largely by AT&T circuits, was the result. Computer data transmission over AT&T circuits broke the traditional separation and motivated competition among Satellite Business Systems, International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), MCI and others. Other government-enforced separations, such as domestic versus international communications, dissolved. The government initially imposed artificial distinctions between domestic and international satellite communications also, but today that artificial barrier is breaking down. Between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s, the government labored to keep computing and telecommunications separate. But computer timesharing, electronic mail and database services diluted those artificial regulations. Cable television cross-ownership is now the public bulldozer of artificial public policies. Cable companies wanted to be neither broadcasters nor phone companies and suffer the constraints of common carrier status. In the 1970s the FCC cooperated by preventing the broadcasters and the phone companies from acting as cable companies in addition to carrying out their traditional activities, and let cable companies monopolize. Today cable is organized as a broadcast system with fewer restrictions, not as a common carrier, although cable companies represent themselves as entertainment businesses only. Apart from the entertainment function, cable companies represent a potential media revolution. First, cable companies have escaped common carrier regulation. Second, the technology of cable does not suffer the broadcast spectrum scarcity. In fact, anything that the public would want to consume by way of communications, including digital data, can be conveyed through a single cable coming into the home or office. The traditional services of the radio, telephone, television and data carrier can all come through the same single medium and its business representative. In the tumult of new technology, back-and-fill legislation, new consumer demands and cross-ownership of media, the public has lost sight of the possibilities for private use of radio technology for a public good. Conclusion In 1934 "telecommunications" meant either telegraphy or telephony. Broadcast technology could boast several hundred stations and thousands of receivers, but the public perceived radio and telecommunications as very different entities. The media of the two were different: telephone and telegraph involved wire; broadcast radio did not. The content of the two were very different, a fact that resulted from the application of public policy and the market's response to that policy. Telephony and telegraphy had begun as wire-based services. The content of the wire was analogous to the print on letters carried by the post office, and the wire was analogous to the post roads. Thus common carrier legislation seemed appropriate to telephony and telegraphy before it became wireless. Because most carriers were monopolies, at least locally, the law required them to serve their customers in a common and impartial way. And like the law of the press, the law of common carriage was intended to protect free expression. With radio broadcast, however, a different and much less coherent body of law emerged. Unlike the law of the press, which sought to preserve freedom, and unlike the law of common carriage, which fostered equality of service, the law of wireless broadcasting was one of deliberate regulation and control. Radio technology was unlike anything American lawmakers had ever encountered. Congress considered only four choices: (1) create a government monopoly over radio (as had happened in Europe); (2) apply common carrier law to radio; (3) leave radio unregulated like printed publishing; or (4) make radio a regulated commercial activity. Congress chose the last option for several reasons: (1) because of the political undesirability of a government monopoly; (2) because of the impracticability of applying right-of-way law to a broadcast medium; and (3) because Congress viewed literate communications more permissively than it viewed mass communication. The technology of data telecommunications can be recapitulated in two parts: media and protocol. There are four telecommunications media: wire, such as copper wire, that conveys digital information at frequencies from direct current to a few kilohertz; coaxial cable, used in cable systems, that conveys digital information at radio frequencies; and optical fiber, which carries data at visible and greater light frequencies. The last medium is futuristic, but it shares with the other two media the requirement of a right of way. Works Cited Bray, John. Innovation and the Communications Revolution from the Victorian Pioneers to Broadband Internet. London: Institution of Electrical Engineers, 2002. Read More