The Telecommunications Survival Guide: Understanding and Applying Telecommunications Technologies to Save Money and Develop New Business - Softcover

Moulton, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130281360 ISBN 13: 9780130281364

Publisher: Pearson Technology Group, 2008

Synopsis

Telecommunications Survival Guide will help any professional understand all of today's most important new telecommunications, networking, and high-speed Internet technologies-and how to profit from them! Leading author and consultant Peter Moulton explains today's telecom revolution in straightforward, easy-to-follow language—with plenty of pictures, diagrams, and business examples. From wireless to LANs, DSL to satellite communications, you'll learn how it works, why it matters, and how you can use it to save money and reach new customers.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Introduction

The overall objectives of this book are to help business professionals understand new telecommunications technologies, and to share information about how these technologies can be deployed to save costs and develop new business. Business professionals include management, sales, development, administrative, and maintenance staff at all levels of an organization.

The book identifies new computer and telecommunications technologies that will impact business operations over the next several years. Plain language and simple explanations of technologies and technical terms are used because people tend to make technology more complex and difficult than it really is. How telecommunications impacts business is illustrated by example and practical experience. Readers are helped to clearly understand these technologies and how they may be applied to save costs and develop new business. The book describes and explains classic, fundamental telecommunications technologies, products, and services, including:

Voice communications or telephony networks designed to carry voice.

Data communications or Wide Area Networks (WANs) designed originally to carry text and numbers.

Local Area Networks (LANs) designed originally to carry data in a small geographic area such as a building or a floor in a building.

Wireless networking.

The Internet.

Today, voice, data, image, and video communications are delivered to desktop computer systems around the planet by a combination of data communications, such as Wide Area Networks (WANs), voice communications, and LAN technologies. The classic voice, data (WAN), and LAN technologies are converging so that voice, data, image, and video communications travel across the same network using the same protocols (rules of communications). All communications have largely become digital. The Internet is becoming the sole planet-wide communications network as existing voice telephone networks slowly disappear. LANs deliver the Internet to the desktop 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Networking technologies and products are converging to provide new business opportunities and services to consumers and to other businesses. Business-to-Business (B2B) commerce Web companies and their Web sites are an example of the way in which telecommunications is rapidly changing business activity and saving substantial costs over traditional distribution mechanisms. Residential users are beginning to be provided with increasingly useful information and services from the Internet like the emerging bill paying services, specialty shopping services with related information services, and investment services.

Implementing such new businesses and the technologies required to support them is not without problems and glitches. This book provides practical insight into what to expect and how to manage deployment of new telecommunications services and implementation of new telecommunications products.

Broadly stated, the goals of this book are to present in a simple and entertaining fashion descriptions of telecommunications technologies that are and will continue to change not only the way business is conducted, but what will happen in our day-to-day personal lives.

For example, telecommunications technologies are rapidly changing how we listen to music. New sound compression technologies implemented in MP3 compression algorithms (an algorithm is just a mathematical procedure or formula and MP3s use some cool math to compress music while preserving the original sound quality) permit storing and transmitting CD-quality sound across the Internet. This is, as I write, altering the way we listen to music and the music industry. Today, the most searched for word on the Internet is no longer "sex," but rather "MP3."

Telecommunications includes voice (telephony), data (WAN), LAN, wireless, Personal Computer (PC), and other technologies. These are blended together today to form the Internet, which is a very large WAN, and intranets, which are our LANs that deliver voice, data, and multimedia information to both corporate and residential computer appliances and PCs. This blending is labeled convergence in the telecommunications Industry. This is the reason why people are so excited today, because everything is converging together into one big happy network with everyone connected 24 hours a day from everywhere around the world.

Telecommunications networking fundamentals describe the application of computer and telecommunications technologies in global and enterprise networks.Who this Book Is For

The target audience of this book is entry-level and experienced professionals that manage businesses, as well as those that sell, design, administer, and maintain telecommunications networks. Readers should understand some PC basics (the difference between bits and bytes) and some fundamental electrical concepts (for example, what is voltage). Don't worry too much about terminology; we explain all the terms used in this book.

This book includes practical explanations of basic telephony, data communications, LANs, and wireless communications as they relate to telecommunications technologies and products sold today. These concepts are directly related to the topic being covered (e.g., multiplexing is combining multiple streams of information into a single river of information and being able to split the river back into the individual streams) as it relates to cellular telephony and how that in turn relates to TDMA and CDMA. (TDMA and CDMA are means that cell phones use to communicate to cell towers). It is not a general book on fundamental PC and electronics concepts.

If you become bogged down or burdened by some details, stop and step up to the higher conceptual level. It is not necessary to understand the details in this book. Actually, many technical people would say this book is not detailed. However, it is their job to design and build telecommunications components and networks. To do that requires a good knowledge of the exact details on how to build, manufacture, and implement telecommunications components. That is why there is specialized training on Cisco, Microsoft, and other technical products. This book presents only those details required to understand the basic technologies. After reading this book, you should understand telecommunications components and understand what questions you need to ask so you can more fully understand the telecommunications world around you. Increased knowledge in any one area is left to books that specialize in that area.

Some people plan to retire before telecommunications technology impacts their job. Regardless, there is no escape. "Resistance is futile" as the Star Trek Borg would say. Even in retirement, changing telecommunications technologies and services will impact our lives. For example, the DialPad free telephone service saves long distance charges when calling family and friends, and the free Web services from Netzero and Freeweb save Internet access charges. Thus, using these telecommunications technologies and free services in retirement to communicate with family and friends when income is limited saves money. No one can escape the impact of telecommunications technology and services on their professional and personal life, even if they retire. There is no turning back from the telecommunications technologies insidiously invading all aspects of our lives.

In the new information millennium, those that master the application of telecommunications and information technologies will be the "haves" of the planet. Those that do not will become the "have nots." Bill Gates best exemplifies this. He was the right person at the right place at the right time with the motivation to put it all together. There will be other Bill Gates' in the future, just as there was an Andrew Carnegie and a J. D. Rockefeller. None of us are likely to be so lucky as any of these people. However, in our own small way, we can become much more effective than people that ignore telecommunications technologies and the impending changes that they will impose on our lives. If you want to survive telecommunications and master telecommunications technologies in a way that will enchance your life, this book is for you!How the Book Is Organized

The structure of this book is to present an historic perspective of the evolution of telecommunications technologies. The historic perspective helps us better understand both the limitations imposed upon the implementation of new technologies and the development of new products and services based upon these technologies. The evolution description begins with original telephony (Chapters 1-4), then progresses on to data communications (Chapters 5 and 6), and finally concludes with wireless technologies (Chapters 7-10). Blended throughout the book are the impacts of PC and microelectronic technologies because these are the driving forces behind telecommunications convergence. Conventions Used

Pictures with supporting text are used to explain the concepts. This is my own personal bias. I am not much of a reader—I guess it was the classic comics I read

From the Back Cover

Telecom revolution made easy! Master the technologies—and profit from them!

• Telecom made easy!
• New wireless and high-speed Internet services
• LANs, VPNs, PBXs, frame relay, and much more
• Choosing cost-effective business telecom solutions
• Perfect for telecom marketers, buyers, managers, and other professionals

Telecommunications Survival Guide will help any professional understand all of today's most important new telecommunications, networking, and high-speed Internet technologies-and how to profit from them! Leading author and consultant Peter Moulton explains today's telecom revolution in straightforward, easy-to-follow language—with plenty of pictures, diagrams, and business examples. From wireless to LANs, DSL to satellite communications, you'll learn how it works, why it matters, and how you can use it to save money and reach new customers. Coverage includes:

• Digital convergence: the growing integration of voice, data, image, and video
• Wireless, including wireless Internet technologies
• xDSL, cable modems, and satellite-based Internet access
• In-house business telecom: LANs, VPNs, PBXs, Centrex, and more
• Frame relay, T-1, and other business data options
• A basic primer on voice and data networking theory and technology

Whether you market, sell, buy, manage, or maintain telecommunications services, Telecommunications Survival Guide delivers the practical insights you need to succeed—now, and for years to come.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pearson Technology Group
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0130281360
• ISBN 13: 9780130281364
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 704