1. Telecommunications, the Internet, and Wireless Technology
Chapter 7
Telecommunications, the Internet, and Wireless Technology

2. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
What is a computer network?
Two or more connected computers
Major components in simple network
Client computer
Server computer
Network interfaces (NICs)
Connection medium
Network operating system
Hub or switch
Routers
Device used to route packets of data through different networks, ensuring that data sent gets to the correct address
This slide describes what a network is along with the components that you will find in a simple network (illustrated on the next slide.) Ask students to describe the function of a NIC. What is a connection “medium”? Ask students to describe the purpose of a hub, switch, and router.

3. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
COMPONENTS OF A SIMPLE COMPUTER NETWORK
This graphic illustrates the components of a simple network. While the NOS is shown as part of the server, note that, depending on the type of software, an NOS may also be designed to reside on client computers. Do some students have a home computer network? Ask them to describe the elements of the network.
Illustrated here is a very simple computer network, consisting of computers, a network operating system residing on a dedicated server computer, cable (wiring) connecting the devices, network interface cards (NICs), switches, and a router.
FIGURE 7-1

4. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
Components of networks in large companies
Hundreds of local area networks (LANs) linked to firmwide corporate network
Various powerful servers
Web site
Corporate intranet, extranet
Backend systems
Mobile wireless LANs (Wi-Fi networks)
Videoconferencing system
Telephone network
Wireless cell phones
This slide looks at the additional components one might expect to find in the network of a large company that has many locations and thousands of employees (illustrated on the next slide). Ask students what is meant by “backend systems.” Note that many firms are dispensing with traditional landline telephone networks and using Internet telephones that run on existing internal data networks and the Internet.

5. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
CORPORATE NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
Today’s corporate network infrastructure is a collection of many different networks from the public switched telephone network, to the Internet, to corporate local area networks linking workgroups, departments, or office floors.
This graphic illustrates the components of a large company’s network. Note the difference between the wireless LAN, which allows wireless access within the office, and the mobile Wi-Fi network, which allows Internet access to employees outside of offices. The advantage of telephone-based wireless systems is that they do not require a Wi-Fi hotspot to work, and in fact can connect users to the entire globe through their telephone networks. Cable networks – major competitors of telephone company Internet providers – do not really have a mobile option although Optimum Cable (Comcast) and several other firms are developing a Wi-Max capability that could potentially serve an entire metropolitan area. This development will take many years, and in 2010 many Wi-Max metropolitan experiments were behind schedule. Towerstream is one of the largest Wi-Max providers in the U.S. and in 2011 announced it was developing coverage for Middleton, Rhode Island, and starting an installation in Manhattan (New York City). You might ask a group of students to do research on Wi-Max in U.S. cities and report back to the class. Towerstream.com is a good place to start.
FIGURE 7-2

6. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
Key networking technologies
Client/server computing
Distributed computing model
Clients linked through network controlled by network server computer
Server sets rules of communication for network and provides every client with an address so others can find it on the network
Has largely replaced centralized mainframe computing
The Internet: Largest implementation of client/server computing
This slide and following two slides look at the main technologies in use today for networks: client/server computing, packet switching, and TCP/IP. Ask students what advantages client/server computing has over centralized mainframe computing.

7. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
Key networking technologies (cont.)
TCP/IP and connectivity
Connectivity between computers enabled by protocols
Protocols: Rules that govern transmission of information between two points
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
Common worldwide standard that is basis for Internet
This slide continues the discussion of the three main networking technologies in use today, and looks at the third, TCP/IP. Note that in a network, there are typically many different types of hardware and software components that need to work together to transmit and receive information. Different components in a network communicate with each other only by adhering to a common set of rules called protocols. In the past, many diverse proprietary and incompatible protocols often forced business firms to purchase computing and communications equipment from a single vendor. But today corporate networks are increasingly using a single, common, worldwide standard called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). TCP/IP actually is a suite of protocols, the main ones of which are TCP and IP. Ask students what these two main protocols are responsible for.

8. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
Signals: digital vs. analog
Modem: Translates digital signals into analog form
Types of networks
Local-area networks (LANs)
Campus-area networks (CANs)
Peer-to-peer
Topologies: star, bus, ring
Metropolitan and wide-area networks
Wide-area networks (WANs)
Metropolitan-area networks (MANs)
This slide looks at the types of networks that organizations use. Ask students what the differences are between digital and analog signals. Another example of the difference between analog and digital signals is the difference between vinyl records and digital CDs and MP3s. Ask students to describe and distinguish between LANs, CANs, WANs, and MANs, and also to talk about their different range of operation. Note that a network can be defined by the way the clients interact (client/server vs. peer-to-peer); the type of physical medium to carry signals (Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, etc.), and the way in which computers are connected and send signals to each other (topology).

9. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
FUNCTIONS OF THE MODEM
This graphic illustrates the differences between digital and analog signals, and shows how digital signals can be sent to other computers over analog cables such as telephone and cable lines which are analog. Note that digital signals are representations of the two binary digits, 0 and 1, and are represented logically as on and off electrical pulses (in reality as different voltages). Ask students what MODEM stands for.
A modem is a device that translates digital signals into analog form (and vice versa) so that computers can transmit data over analog networks such as telephone and cable networks.
FIGURE 7-5

10. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
Physical transmission media
Twisted wire (modems)
Coaxial cable
Fiber optics and optical networks
Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM)
Wireless transmission media and devices
Microwave
Satellites
Cellular telephones
Transmission speed (hertz, bandwidth)
This slide looks at the media involved in network transmission. Note that many of the telephone systems in buildings had
twisted wires installed for analog communication, but they can be used for digital communication as well. Also, today, telecommunications companies are starting to bring fiber optic cable into the home for high-speed Internet access.
Ask students what characteristic of microwave transmission means that transmission stations must be 37 miles apart.
Note that the transmission capacity of a medium (bps) is dependent on its frequency, which is measured in hertz, or cycles per second. Ask students to define bandwidth (it is the difference between the highest and lowest frequencies that can be accommodated on a single channel.)

11. Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World
BP’S SATELLITE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
This graphic looks at the use of satellites by BP Amoco to transmit seismic data from exploration ships to research centers around the globe via a mobile satellite link. Ask students about the circumstances where satellite communications is an advantage. Can they think of any satellite 2-way communication systems used by millions of car drivers in the U.S. in 2011? Answer: on board assistance systems like General Motors OnStar system, and many other manufacturers as well, use 2-way satellite networks to connect users to a central help facilitiy. Why not us the wireless phone networks? Answer: coverage is limited when compared to satellite.
Communication satellites help BP transfer seismic data between oil exploration ships and research centers in the United States.
FIGURE 7-7

12. The Global Internet History of Internet?
Internet Addressing and Architecture
The Domain Name System
Hierarchical structure
Top-level domains
Internet Architecture and Governance
No formal management: IAB, ICANN, W3C
The Future Internet: IPv6 and Internet2
This slide examines what the Internet is – ask students to describe it and what they use it for. The text refers to the Internet as the most extensive public communication system and the world’s largest implementation of client/server computing.
Ask students how they connect to the Internet. Do any of their families use dial-up (telephone/modem). Do any use satellite? Note that T lines are leased, dedicated lines suitable for businesses or government agencies requiring high-speed guaranteed service levels. Do students know that the Internet does not guarantee any service level, and only agrees to make a “best effort.”

13. The Global Internet THE DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM
Domain Name System is a hierarchical system with a root domain, top-level domains, second-level domains, and host computers at the third level.
This graphic describes how the domain name system works. Note that the “root” domain is the period that is used before the top-level domain, such as .edu or .com. Give students an example Internet address, such as myserver.myspace.com and ask them what the top, second-, and third-level domains are.
FIGURE 7-8

14. The Global Internet Internet services E-mail
Chatting and instant messaging
Newsgroups
Telnet
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
World Wide Web
VoIP
Virtual private network (VPN)
This slide continues the discussion about what the Internet is, here looking at the services, or applications, that the Internet supports. Notice that the Internet comprises many more services than just and the Web. Ask students which of these services, beyond and the WWW have they used, and if they have, to describe how it works. Students who have cable Internet telephones are using VoIP.
Other popular technologies that use the Internet as a platform are VoIP and virtual private networks. Ask students what the value to business is of each of these technologies. One benefit of VOIP is the ability to use unified communications.

15. The Global Internet Formats documents for display on Web
The World Wide Web
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language):
Formats documents for display on Web
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP):
Communications standard used for transferring Web pages
Uniform resource locators (URLs):
Addresses of Web pages
E.g.
Web servers
Software for locating and managing Web pages
This slide looks at one of the most popular services on the Internet, the Web, and the main protocols enabling the Web. The Web is an interlinked connection of Web sites, which are collections of Web pages linked to a home page. These pages are created using a text markup language call HTML, and transmitted to user’s Web browsers by HTTP. Web page addresses (URLs) are composed of the domain name of the web site and the file location of the individual web page. Ask students if any have created Web pages using HTML, and if so, to describe what this is like. How have they made the Web pages visible to others on the Web? There is a learning track available online that shows students how to create Web pages using basic HTML.

16. The Global Internet The World Wide Web (cont.) Search engines
Started in early 1990s as relatively simple software programs using keyword indexes
Today, major source of Internet advertising revenue via search engine marketing, using complex algorithms and page ranking techniques to locate results
Shopping bots
Use intelligent agent software for searching Internet for shopping information
This slide looks at how people find information of interest on the Web. The primary method is through search engines, which today act as major portals to the Web. Ask students where their initial points of entry are on the Web, and how they find information they are interested in. Most will be Google users, but ask if they have they looked at Bing, the Microsoft search engine that is showing some promise.
The text discusses how big the Web is, in terms of pages. Google visited over 100 billion web pages in 2010, but this doesn’t include the “deep Web” Ask students what the “deep Web” is. Web pages a available only to subscribers for a fee (“premium content”) do not allow crawlers to index the pages. Shopping bots are always fun to visit in class. Ask students what they might be interested in having you shop for, and then use one of the shop bots like Shopzilla or Pricegrabber.

17. HOW GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE WORKS
The Global Internet
HOW GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE WORKS
The Google search engine is continuously crawling the Web, indexing the content of each page, calculating its popularity, and storing the pages so that it can respond quickly to user requests to see a page. The entire process takes about one-half second.
This graphic illustrates in very high level diagram how Google works. At the foundation of Google’s search engine are two concepts – page ranking and the indexing of combinations of words. Ask students if they have a favorite search engine, and if so, why that search engine is their favorite.

18. TOP U.S. WEB SEARCH ENGINES
The Global Internet
TOP U.S. WEB SEARCH ENGINES
This graphic ranks the major search engines according to popularity, or percentage of total number of searches performed. Google is a clear favorite. Bing is Google’s only rival that has actually increased its market share, now about 10% and slowly growing. Is this due to the superiority of the Google search engine or does it involve other factors? Search engines may be a good example of a “winner take all” marketplace where one firm gains an advantage, and then quickly dominates the entire market. On the other hand, these concentrations of market power don’t last forever. Facebook in the space of a few years has nearly as many users as Google and potentially could rival Google in search and advertising related to search or other personal information.
FIGURE 7-14
Google is the most popular search engine on the Web, handling 72 percent of all Web searches.

19. The Wireless Revolution
Cellular systems
Competing standards for cellular service
CDMA: United States
GSM: Rest of world, plus AT&T and T-Mobile
Third-generation (3G) networks
Suitable for broadband Internet access
144 Kbps – 2Mbps
4G networks
Entirely packet-switched
100 Mbps – 1Gbps
This slide discusses the continuing revolution in wireless communication. Ask students to identify the wireless computing devices they use. (Cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, netbooks, laptops, ereaders, etc.)
Ask students what changes or improvements have happened in their cell phone service over the past two years. Have they purchased or upgraded a cell phone in that time, and if so, why? How many students are using 3G phones? How many 4G? The next complete evolution in wireless communication, termed 4G, will be entirely packet-switched and capable of providing between 1 Mbps and 1 Gbps speeds, with premium quality and high security. 4G technologies currently include Long Term Evolution (LTE, Verizon), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), and the mobile WiMax. Have students had any experience with these technologies?

20. The Wireless Revolution
Wireless computer networks and Internet access
Bluetooth (802.15)
Links up to 8 devices in 10-m area
Useful for personal networking (PANs) and in business to transmit data from handheld devices to other transmitters
Wi-Fi (802.11)
Set of standards: a, b, g, n
Used for wireless LAN and wireless Internet access
Use access points: Device with radio receiver/transmitter for connecting wireless devices to a wired LAN
This slide discusses the current standards in wireless networking. Ask students if they have any Bluetooth or wireless devices they use for computing. Many cars have Bluetooth support for cell phones. Note that in most Wi-Fi communications, wireless devices communicate with a wired LAN using an access point.

21. The Wireless Revolution
A BLUETOOTH NETWORK (PAN)
Bluetooth enables a variety of devices, including cell phones, PDAs, wireless keyboards and mice, PCs, and printers, to interact wirelessly with each other within a small 30-foot (10- meter) area. In addition to the links shown, Bluetooth can be used to network similar devices to send data from one PC to another, for example.
This graphic illustrates the uses of Bluetooth for a PAN. Bluetooth connects wireless keyboards and mice to PCs or cell phones to earpieces without wires. Bluetooth has low-power requirements, making it appropriate for battery-powered handheld computers, cell phones, or PDAs.
FIGURE 7-15

22. The Wireless Revolution
AN WIRELESS LAN
Mobile laptop computers equipped with network interface cards link to the wired LAN by communicating with the access point. The access point uses radio waves to transmit network signals from the wired network to the client adapters, which convert them into data that the mobile device can understand. The client adapter then transmits the data from the mobile device back to the access point, which forwards the data to the wired network.
This graphic illustrates an wireless LAN operating in infrastructure mode that connects a small number of mobile devices to a larger wired LAN. Most wireless devices are client machines. The servers that the mobile client stations need to use are on the wired LAN. The access point controls the wireless stations and acts as a bridge between the main wired LAN and the wireless LAN. (A bridge connects two LANs based on different technologies.) The access point also controls the wireless stations.
FIGURE 7-16

23. The Wireless Revolution
Wireless computer networks and Internet access
Wi-Fi (cont.)
Hotspots: Access points in public place to provide maximum wireless coverage for a specific area
Weak security features
WiMax (802.16)
Wireless access range of 31 miles
Require WiMax antennas
Sprint Nextel building WiMax network as foundation for 4G networks
This slide continues the discussion about wireless networking and Wi-Fi. Ask students if they have ever connected to the Internet through a hotspot at an airport, coffee shop, hotel, or other location. Was there any security? Ask students what other drawbacks, beside security, there are to Wi-Fi (roaming difficulties, interference). What are the potential benefits to WiMax – (broadband access in remote locations).

24. The Wireless Revolution
Radio frequency identification (RFID)
Use tiny tags with embedded microchips containing data about an item and location, and antenna
Tags transmit radio signals over short distances to special RFID readers, which send data over network to computer for processing
Active RFID: Tags have batteries, data can be rewritten, range is hundreds of feet, more expensive
Passive RFID: Range is shorter, also smaller, less expensive, powered by radio frequency energy
This slide introduces one of two wireless technologies having a major impact on business: radio frequency ID. Ask students for examples of where RFID is used today. The text provides the example of Wal-Mart using RFID to manage inventory and supply chains. Ask students how this works.

25. The Wireless Revolution
Radio frequency identification (RFID) (cont.)
Common uses:
Automated toll-collection
Tracking goods in a supply chain
Requires companies to have special hardware and software
Reduction in cost of tags making RFID viable for many firms
This slide continues the discussion of RFID technology. While the cost of RFID tags used to be too costly for widespread implementation, today the cost is about 10 cents for a passive tag, so RFID is becoming more cost-effective.
Ask students why special hardware and software is needed to use RFID. (To filter, aggregate, and prevent RFID data from overloading business networks and system applications. ) Also, applications will need to be redesigned to accept massive volumes of frequently generated RFID data and to share those data with other applications. Major enterprise software vendors, including SAP and Oracle-PeopleSoft, now offer RFID-ready versions of their supply chain management applications.

26. The Wireless Revolution
HOW RFID WORKS
This graphic illustrates how RFID works. Ask students if RFID poses any ethical problems.
RFID uses low-powered radio transmitters to read data stored in a tag at distances ranging from 1 inch to 100 feet. The reader captures the data from the tag and sends them over a network to a host computer for processing.
FIGURE 7-17