X OVERVIEW

In this introductory topic, we examine the present state of technology deployed

to support a range of communication services. The topic begins by considering
just what makes a technology, and then by taking an historical perspective to
examine some aspects of the evolution of communication technology over recent
years. Key developments are highlighted, with a special emphasis on relating
developments in computer technology to those in communications technology.

Broadband technology, wireless data communications and the Internet are then
identified as the three key areas of development in the immediate future, and
each of these areas is introduced in turn. These topics comprise a broad overview
of the areas this course will later cover in much more detail. The purpose here is
to give you a general map of the field, which should help you keep the big
picture in mind throughout the course as you evaluate specific technologies in
more detail.

Finally, a short topic on the convergence of communications technologies
completes your overview of the course.
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OBJECTIVE
At the end of Topic 1, you should be able to:
1. Describe the present state of technology in the communications
industry.
2. Discuss the limitations of existing technologies and the demand for
new technologies.
3. Summarize recent developments in the areas of broadband, wireless
data communications, and the Internet.
X
Introduction
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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Throughout this topic and the topics that follow, you will find that you need to
do a lot of reading from a wide variety of sources. You may be more accustomed
to some of the other courses in the communications technology degree stream
that are wrapped around one or two textbooks. Here you will find that no one
textbook exists that can cover the exciting and diverse areas this course will
address. This means you will need to concentrate on reading critically,
evaluating the materials you encounter, and considering their currency,
relevance, and reliability. You will be guided throughout the course in making
the most of what you read, and in acquiring and practising these critical skills.

Most of the readings you will need for this topic are included as hard copies in
your course materials. For some readings and activities, however, you will find
that you need to access the Internet, so you should look ahead in the topic to see
when such access will be needed as you are planning your study.

Good luck as you begin your study!
X INTRODUCTION
We will begin with a brief discussion of the relationship between systems,
products and technologies. We then examine the historical development of
communication systems. From this we identify a number of important
technologies that have revolutionized the industry: broadband technology,
wireless technology and the Internet. These three technologies represent the most
important areas of development in the near future.
SYSTEMS, PRODUCTS AND TECHNOLOGIES
As you know, a typical communication system is made up of many products,
and a product is typically a combination of hardware, software, and services. In
most cases, a number of different technologies go into the development of a
product.

By emerging technology, however, we mean a technology that has an
innovative element and may have a profound impact on the industry. Yet it is
important to realize that of all the innovative technologies that have emerged in
the past, very few of them have made it to success. Some will be quickly
superseded by another emerging technology. Others may not even make it to the
market because of their high cost or unreliability or any of a number of other
reasons.


TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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An example of a successful technology that has emerged in recent years is GSM.
CT-2 provides a good example of a technology that did make it to the market but
was very short-lived. At the unsuccessful end of the spectrum is an example of
an innovative technology that did not make it to the market place: the circular
wave-guide. You are probably familiar with the former two examples. As for the
circular wave-guide, it promised a lot of advantages, but it was superseded by
fibre optics, and is now an obscure footnote in communications technology
history.

When a new product emerges, therefore, we very often associate it with a certain
key technology that has made it possible. For example, when a digital mobile
telephone network was introduced, , we associated the new digital mobile
handset with GSM technology. GSM was considered to be innovative and an
emerging technology at the time. Nevertheless, you must understand that there
were other equally important technologies that went into the making of such
mobile handsets:
li-ion technology for the handsets lightweight battery;
smart card technology for the SIM card in the handset;
encryption technology to ensure security;
surface mount technology for the miniature circuit board;
LCD technology for the display;
and many others.

This topic will not attempt to identify every communication technology that has
surfaced and even succeeded in the past. Instead, it will highlight several
important technologies that have reshaped the communication industry. By
looking into past technologies through the comfortable perspective of hindsight,
we can analyse and identify the factors that led to the success or failure of some
emerging technologies in the past. This will help you to scrutinize future
emerging technologies so as to anticipate their chances of success.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES
In the past, research and development of telecommunication was primarily
driven by the military and space industries. Later on, many of these technologies
found their way into civilian applications. For example, microwave technology
was originally developed for radar used in World War II. Wireless
communication was originally conceived for the battlefield. CDMA also has a
military origin. Satellite communication is the direct result of developments in
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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space programmes, as well as defence industries. ARPANET, upon which the
Internet was based, was developed for the US Department of Defense.

The end of the Cold War not only enabled some of the military technologies to be
transferred to civilian use, but also forced technologists and companies to shift
their focus to developing products for the civilian market. Thus in the 1980s and
1990s, the rapid technology progress in micro-electronics, computers and
communications can be attributed in part to this shift in focus.

Traditionally, every communication system served a specific purpose and was
built upon a dedicated infrastructure based on a certain transmission medium.
Telephone was for distant verbal communication and was originally based on
wireline communication, with long distance trunk circuits and local loops made
up of copper cables. Television was broadcast as radio waves in free space or
distributed through a network of cables. As technology progressed, new
techniques were adopted in a communication infrastructure. New services and
applications will continue to evolve. In the case of the telephone system, it now
carries voice, fax and computer data. Television systems now carry video, high
quality digital audio and data.

At this point we will take a closer look at several technologies that have made a
big difference in recent years.
Digital communication technology
One of the most important developments in the past 30 years has been the
changeover from analogue to digital representation of signals.

Telephone system designers were quick to adopt digital techniques for use in
trunk circuits. Up to now, however, the basic subscriber loop is still analogue,
even though the changeover to digital local loops is gradually taking place.

Lets put this situation into historical perspective. If you think about it, digital
transmission was an emerging technology some 40 years ago. In the intervening
years, it has indeed successfully replaced analogue transmission in one aspect of
most telephone systems: telephone trunk circuits. On the other hand, it has been
slow for over four decades in replacing analogue transmissions in the subscriber
loop.

Thus you can see that an emerging technology can eventually be successful in
one application, while it can also be a complete failure in another application,
even if those applications are quite closely related, as is the case here. This is
because apart from cost and technical merits, there are other factors which
TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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determine whether an emerging technology can be applied to a product and
make an impact on the industry.

The following activity encourages you to start thinking about what some of those
factors might be.
Optical communication technology
Optical fibre has been another important technical development in the last 40
years. When optical fibre was conceived, it was competing with another
emerging technology: the circular wave-guide. Both technologies offered wide-
band capability. In the end, optical fibre was applied successfully to trunk
circuits in telephone systems, while the circular wave-guide was a complete
failure.

Why did this happen?
The competition between optical fibre and the circular wave-guide hinged
mostly upon technical merits. Optical fibre can be bent without significant loss in
performance. On the other hand, even a slight bend in a circular wave-guide
leads to substantial signal attenuation. The circular wave-guide was clearly the
loser in this technology competition because there was not an accompanying
technology to lay wave-guides in perfectly straight lines.

Now that optical fibre has successfully replaced copper in trunk circuits, it has
reduced our reliance on satellite communication through the use of submarine
fibre links. In another application, optical fibre was also successful in its
deployment as network backbone connections in the form of FDDI.

Optical fibre is therefore an example of a technology that is successful in a variety
of applications.
Data communication, networking, and the personal
computer
An independent development, apart from telephones and television, has taken
place in recent years: the massive exchange of data via computer networks. In the
networking subject, as you remember, LANs and WANs were discussed, and, as
you learned, the most important technologies for such networks are the switches,
the network protocols, and the transmission media.


X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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The adoption of digital transmission in the trunk circuits made it possible to
integrate voice and data services in telephone networks. This development
marked the beginning of the convergence between computers and
communication technology.

The advent of the Internet and World Wide Web has, of course, been another
important development in computer networking. The development of the Web
has coincided with the proliferation of low-cost but high-performance personal
computers. Advancements in semiconductor and related technologies allowed
for the rapid cost reductions and volume production of personal computers that
made this proliferation possible. The sale of personal computers has continued to
increase over the past few years. A personal computer with Internet access has
almost become household furniture in many countries.

A unique phenomenon associated with this spread of computing and networking
technology has been individual consumers contributing to the content of the
World Wide Web. The amount of information provided by the Internet continues
to increase phenomenally. With the huge amount of content on the Internet, net
surfing has become a popular pastime for many consumers. This in turn
continues to simulate the growth of the personal computer market.

The computing power of personal computers allows for the efficient execution of
powerful application programs. An example of such an application is the
decompression and processing of video data for use in video streaming, video-
on-demand and video conferencing. Well take a closer look at this area to see
what effects video transmission and compression applications have on the wider
uses of the Internet and the Web.

Compression algorithms for video
The transmission of digitized video requires very large bandwidth in the
transmission medium. Transmission of raw (uncompressed) video data is
therefore still a challenging problem for computer networks. The required
bandwidth for uncompressed video far exceeds what todays networks can
handle.

As you no doubt know from your own Web-surfing, however, research and
development of moving picture compression algorithms in the 1980s and 1990s
have brought real-time distribution of video within reach using todays
technology. Video compression was applied successfully to satellite direct TV
and VOD using a set-top box. However, the existing Internet is still not ready for
delivering high quality video.

TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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Even though video compression algorithms are powerful, you can see that there
is a limit to how much compression can be achieved. Fortunately, compression
algorithms do allow for a trade-off between picture quality and the available
bandwidth. But Internet distribution of video is possible only if we compromise
on quality. Real Media, QuickTime and Windows Media are the most popular
video services available on the Internet; all of them make this compromise
between quality and available bandwidth. Some users can tolerate the degraded
quality replayed using these applications, while others prefer to wait for the
provision of wideband access hopefully in the not too distant future.
Identifying todays emerging technologies
You can see from the example of video compression in the preceding section,
therefore, how user expectation has created a demand for broadband technology
on the Internet. With sufficient broadband technology in place, high quality
video from the Internet will eventually become a reality. Movies, CD-quality
music, games and books will then be able to be sold and delivered more
efficiently on the Internet. Businesses are anticipating the convergence between
the information industry and the entertainment industry. One notable example
was the merger of AOL with Time Warner and, subsequently, with EMI, the
British entertainment giant.

The widespread arrival of broadband technology will undoubtedly trigger
another cycle of technology development. While users will be satisfied with the
speed of delivery of video, the amount of content from which the user can choose
will likely become inadequate. There will then be a demand for the production of
content, along with innovative applications to make use of the available
bandwidth. This in turn creates a demand for more bandwidth, and the cycle
goes on and on.

In the year 2000, we saw the expansion followed by the rapid collapse of the IT
bubble. We saw the creation of many .com companies together with their
websites and portals, in anticipation of the development into the more lucrative
E-commerce and E-business activities. Then all of a sudden, in the latter half of
the year, massive layoff of personnel and the drop in share values led many
people to doubt the future of the industry. Nevertheless, many still believe that
the next wave of innovative applications will still involve E-commerce in a
significant way.

With broadband technology in mind, designers can create applications to
provide an innovative shopping and trading experience to the user. This may
involve real-time delivery of video, high quality audio, visualization, animation,
virtual reality, etc.
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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With this in mind, we can identify the first two emerging technologies that well
address in general later in this topic, and then in detail in later topics in this
course: broadband technology, and the Internet.

The choice of our third emerging technology is perhaps even more obvious here
in Malaysia. That is, it is without doubt that apart from the Internet, mobile
communication is the fastest growing area in the communications industry. The
Internet and mobile communication are also the areas that provide the most
business opportunities and customer base. It is also in these two areas that
technology innovations are emerging at a rapid rate.

When the cellular phone system was launched, an entire market for its use
needed to be created. The first cellular phones were bulky and were only
practical for use in automobiles. Through miniaturization of electronic
components and advances in circuit design for low power operation, the hand
phone came onto the market. In Malaysia, the hand phone was at one time a
symbol of social status, affordable only by the elite. With the introduction of
digital standards such as GSM and PCS, the capacity of the mobile network was
increased significantly. Competition among the service providers led to a price
reduction for the hand phones, making them affordable to the general public.

The focus of development in mobile communication was originally on the
efficient use of the available radio frequency spectrum in order to increase the
capacity of the network. With sufficient capacity in place, the focus of
development shifted to the development of services and applications to make use
of the capacity. Having identified the need for wideband access, the focus is once
again shifted back to the efficient use of the radio spectrum.

In recent years, service providers have been quick to realize that in order to
increase revenue, a variety of services needs to be provided to consumers.
Technology progress in hand-held computers has led to the conception of an
Internet computing environment based on the cellular network. At first, it was
unclear whether there was a need for mobile users to connect to the Internet.
Experience in Japan has demonstrated that users on the move, say for example in
a commuter train will often have nothing to do. Thus composing mail messages,
and ICQing become the favourite pastime among commutes. In Malaysia, with
the cross-network SMS system in place, and given a more reasonable pricing
scheme, there is a chance that mobile message exchanges will also take off. The
demand for broadband access will come when powerful computing platforms
are further miniaturized. It remains to be seen, of course, how successful
broadband technology will be when applied to wireless communication. Its just
this kind of uncertainty that makes the study of emerging technologies so
interesting and exciting!
TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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On the other hand, ever since the bursting of the .com bubble, there is doubt as to
whether E-commerce and M-commerce will ever become successful. Again the
technology is already mature. Many believe it is a matter of time for us to switch
over to the culture. For the time being, the question is whether there is a need for
the consumer to make a purchase through the Internet while on the move. Off
the head, we can imagine while we are on the road on a Sunday afternoon, how
nice it would be to surf the Internet to see what is on the cinema and to be able to
make seat reservation at the same time. However, a single and very narrow
application will not be enough to generate massive interests among consumers to
make this a success. In the end, a successful technology must be that the
consumers are addicted to using the technology, without which life would
become miserable! For example, just imagine what it would like if all of a
sudden, Octopus card seized to exist! Where would you find the small change to
buy an MTR ticket?

You have seen how the development of various technologies in recent years has
led to the convergence of communication and computing: between the Internet
and the personal computer; between the information and entertainment
industries; and between wireless communication and computers. We have
identified three important areas of development in the immediate future:
broadband technology, wireless communication, and the Internet. The
developments in these areas are by no means isolated, but rather are inter-related
and consistent with the above convergence phenomena.

In the next sections, we will discuss the present state of development in these
three areas. Please note that our coverage here in this introductory topic is on a
very general basis. You will examine each of these areas in much greater detail in
the subsequent topics.
BROADBAND COMMUNICATIONS
The term broadband has been used for more than ten years. Inevitably, as it is
an emerging technology, there exist several definitions for just what a
broadband technology is. Early definitions of broadband networks include:
a network that uses high-frequency analogue technology as the transport
mechanism for user traffic;
any network that operates above the frequency band of a conventional
analogue telephone line (i.e., the voice frequency range of 300 Hz to 3.3 kHz);
any network that operates above the ISDN primary rate (1.544 Mbps in North
America or 2.048 Mbps in Europe).

X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
10
As you can see, some of these definitions must now be considered quite
outdated! More recently, a commonly accepted definition of a broadband
network is:
A broadband network is one that provides a transport service for different
types of applications, which include video, voice, and data services.

According to this definition, the introduction of broadband services should
definitely make a positive impact on many aspects of our day-to-day lives. The
following activity asks you to consider what some of these effects might be.


The development of broadband communications
Until a few years ago, broadband services were only available to large
organizations such as universities. Thanks to the tremendous development of
communications technologies (e.g. fibre optics, high-speed and low-cost personal
computers, etc.), we can now enjoy broadband services at home here in Malaysia.

Typical applications that are supported by broadband networks include:
high speed (broadband) Internet access;
video on demand;
high-definition TV (HDTV);
tele-shopping (electronic commerce);
tele-surgery;
tele-education.

A concise overview of the development of broadband communications is
provided in the first of the readings for this topic. When you read these pages,
pay particular attention to the goals of the emerging communications
technologies and the bandwidth requirements of different broadband
applications. Although Blacks book was written in 1997, its still very useful for
tracing out the early development of this technology.

Imagine that your home is connected to a network that has infinite
bandwidth. What kind of broadband services can you dream of
that might really change the way you live and work?
ACTIVITY 1.1
TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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You should now have a basic overview in mind of the development of
broadband communications. Try to complete the following self-test before
moving on. Be sure to check your answers against the ones provided at the end
of this study topic.



Keep in mind that broadband technologies will be examined in much greater
detail in later topics.
WIRELESS DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Wireless systems will definitely play an increasingly important role in
telecommunications.

If you look at the statistics on the growth of mobile phone subscribers (both in a
global sense and in Malaysia), there has been an exponential increase in the past
ten years.

In addition to the tremendous growth in the number of subscribers, changes are
occurring in the types of information to be carried by wireless cellular networks.
Currently, more than 90% of wireless traffic is voice-based. With the introduction
of a series of new technologies and services (e.g., Wireless Application Protocol
(WAP), General Packet Radio Systems (GPRS), Wideband CDMA, phone
banking, phone stock trading, etc.), however, the amount of data traffic (and
even multimedia traffic) is expected to increase rapidly in the near future. Some
analysts even predict that the volume of data traffic will eventually exceed voice
traffic.
Black, U (1997) Emerging Communications Technologies, 2nd edn,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 111.
READING 1.1
1. According to Blacks book, what are the goals of emerging
communications technologies?
2. Compare the bandwidth requirement of the following
applications: video, voice, image, and text.
SELF-CHECK 1.1
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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A detailed description of the generations and the development of cellular
wireless communications can be found in the next article youll be reading,
which was published in the IEEE Communications Magazine.

This IEEE article briefly surveys the standards, technological growth, and state
of the art in mobile cellular communications, starting way back a century ago.
As you read this article, pay particular attention to the technological
breakthroughs defining the different generations of wireless systems.

Remember, you shouldnt try to memorize all the parameters of each system.
However, you should be able to identify and compare the multiple-access
technique, frequency-band, bit-rate, modulation and speech coding of different
systems.



After reading through the above article, try to answer the questions in the
following self-test to ensure youve got the key ideas from the article.


Zeng, M, Annamalai, A and Bhargava, V K (1999) Recent advances
in cellular wireless communications, IEEE Communications
Magazine, Sept: 128138.
READING 1.2
1. Using single-cell topology as a basis for comparison, explain the
advantages of the cellular configuration.
2. When compared to first-generation wireless systems, what are the
major breakthroughs in second-generation systems?
3. What are the objectives in developing third-generation wireless
systems?
4. Explain why wireless local loop (WLL) is attractive for developing
countries.
SELF-TEST 1.1
TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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THE INTERNET AND E-COMMERCE
In the following sections, development of the Internet and e-commerce are briefly
discussed.
Development of the Internet
The development of the Internet can be traced back to ARPANET. ARPANET
was developed in 1969 by the US Department of Defenses research people, a
number of military contractors and universities. The early system was not user-
friendly, and was mainly used by computer experts. In 1990, HTML was
introduced for the Internet environments. HTML specifies the protocols for the
transmission of graphic information on the Internet. Using HTML, each
individual could create a website, which then became part of a huge and virtual
hypertext network called the World Wide Web (WWW).

A timeline showing important events from 1962 to 1997 in the development of
the Internet can be found in the following Reading.



Since the above timeline only summarizes important events from 1962 to 1997,
there exists a gap between 1997 and 2000. Can you identify several important
events on the development of the Internet in 1998 to 2000?


Read Life on the Internet: Net timeline, which is adopted from
<http://www.pbs.org/internet/timeline/timeline-txt.html>
READING 1.3
Search The Hobbes Internet Timeline for other important events in
the development of the Internet from 1997 to 2004 at:
<http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/>
ACTIVITY 1.2
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
14
The growth of the Internet
As was the case with the wireless communication systems that were described in
the previous section, the growth of the Internet access has also far exceeded the
predictions that were made even just a few years ago.

According to The Hobbes Internet Timeline, there were more than 160,000,000
Internet hosts by the end of Feb 2002 and more than 46,000,000 websites by the
end of December 2003. Exponential growth has been observed in the past five
years, as the following figures demonstrate.


Figure 1.2a: Hobbes Internet Timeline: Number of hosts
Source: http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/Count_Host.gif

TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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Figure 1.2b: Hobbes Internet Timeline: Number of websites
Source: http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/Count_WWW.gif

After this brief review of global statistics on the Internet, the principle of Internet
access is discussed in the next section.
Internet access and E-commerce
In the following section, we would take a closer look at a couple of current issues
related to the Internet and its development: the question of Internet access, and
the growth and possibilities of E-commerce.

Internet access
There are several ways to access the Internet. At home, most people use
telephone lines and modems, while more people (as of January 2002) are now
using cable modems (e.g., fibre optics or coaxial cable) for high-speed Internet
access. At offices, high-speed Internet access through LANs or direct connections
(with or without a firewall) to the Internet are commonly used. With the recent
introduction of WAP, people can now also use their mobile phones to access the
Internet.

In the following activity, you should read and work through a concise online
tutorial on Internet access. As you study this online tutorial, pay particular
attention to the advantages and disadvantages of each Internet access alternative.
In addition, complete the self-test questions at the end of the tutorial before
proceeding to the next section.
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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After completing this online tutorial, you should be able to identify, describe,
and comment on the most appropriate ways to access the Internet.

Electronic commerce

Electronic commerce (or E-commerce) is a relatively new term, which can be
defined as:

Trade of goods and services in which the final order is placed over the Internet.

Obviously, the introduction of E-commerce is having a huge impact on the global
economy. Although we will discuss the Internet and

E-commerce in full detail in other topics, we are going to guide you to read two
introductory readings in E-commerce.

The first reading is again an online tutorial. This tutorial aims to give an
overview of how E-commerce works, the challenges of hosting E-commerce
environments, and the importance of E-commerce capabilities. When you study
this online tutorial, you should also pay attention to distinct advantages of E-
commerce when compared to ordinary commerce.



The following article on E-commerce is extracted from the IEEE Communications
Magazine in September 1999. This article focuses on the business and policy
implications related to E-commerce. When you read this article, pay more
attention to these two implications.


Study the online tutorial, Internet access, which is found at:
<http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/int_acc/>
ACTIVITY 1.3
Work through the online tutorial, Electronic commerce, which is
adopted from:
<http://www.iec.org/online/tutorials/e_commerce>.
ACTIVITY 1.4
TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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MERGING OF COMMUNICATIONS
TECHNOLOGIES
Now that you have finished working through the three previous sections
introducing our main emerging technologies, you may be getting a strong feeling
that the three technologies are closely related, and that it is difficult for us to
completely distinguish among these three technologies.

In fact, most newly developed applications involve two or more technologies, as
depicted in the following figure. Obviously, the merging (as well as emerging!)
of technologies is one of the major milestones for the development of
communications systems.


Figure 1.5: Merging of the three emerging communications technologies




Aaron, R, Decina, M and Skillen, R (1999) Electronic commerce:
enablers and implications, IEEE Communications Magazine, Sept:
4752.
<http://www.comsoc.org/ci/private/1999/sep/Skillen.html>
READING 1.4
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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As illustrated in the above figure, examples of newly developed applications that
merge technologies include:
wireless ATM (broadband and wireless technologies);
broadband Internet access (broadband and Internet technologies);
mobile Internet (wireless and Internet technologies);
IP over wireless ATM (broadband, wireless and Internet technologies).

Here in this introductory topic we will not go into any more detail in examining
each of these technologies because they will all be covered later in the course. We
will discuss broadband communications, Wireless data communications and E-
Commerce later in other topics.

To help you develop a clearer picture of the merging (or convergence) of
technologies, try the following activity.



The above activity only shows an example of the merging of technologies. You
can no doubt list many more examples by yourself.

We have now completed the first topic (an overview of emerging technologies) of
this course. Before moving to the next topic, you should bear in mind that not all
technologies (or products of technology) can survive. For example, the product
with the highest (the best?) technology may not be the most successful product
because there are other factors affecting the success of the technology.
In the past 20 years, computer sets have basically only been used to
access text data and restricted to data communications. With recent
introduction of Voice Over IP, it is possible to use your computer to
conduct voice/video communications which was used to be the
area of telecommunication.

Using the Internet as a searching tool, try to answer the following
questions:
1. What are the features of Voice over IP?
2. Post on the BBS your experience in using Internet Phone,
Voice Chat or any Voice of IP related services.
ACTIVITY 1.5
TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION W
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In this topic, we briefly overviewed the field of emerging technologies,
considering what makes a technology an emerging one, and taking into account
some past examples of such technologies, both successes and failures. We also
identified the three emerging technologies that well be addressing in detail
throughout this course.

Next, we briefly overviewed the development and current status of these three
emerging communications technologies, namely:
broadband communications;
wireless data communications; and
the Internet and E-commerce.

A final short topic introduced the idea of technological convergence, an
underlying theme throughout this topic and indeed the course as a whole.
SOLUTIONS TO SELF-TEST QUESTIONS
Self-test 1.1
1. The advantages of cellular configuration are:
higher spectrum efficiency;
better service (e.g., handoff, smaller transmit power which leads to
smaller battery size);
larger coverage, etc.

2. First-generation systems were based on analogue technology with
frequency modulation and frequency-division multiple access. Second-
generation systems employ digital modulation, time-division multiple
access, and advanced call processing capability.

3. Third-generation wireless systems will evolve (they expected to be
available in early 2002) from mature second-generation networks:
To provide universal access.
To provide global roaming.
X TOPIC 1 INTRODUCTION
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To support multidimensional (multi-information media, multi-
transmission media, and multi-layered networks) high-speed wireless
communications.
To provide wideband packet data services for wireless Internet up to 2
Mb/s.

4. WLL has the advantages of low capital costs, fast network deployment, low
maintenance costs, and high flexibility in planning and deployment, which
allows developing countries to upgrade their existing public switched
telephone network (PSTN) infrastructure more easily and economically.