Telecommunications Primer: Signals, Building Blocks and Networks

Carne, E. Bryan

ISBN 10: 0132061295 ISBN 13: 9780132061292

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 1995

Synopsis

A comprehensive overview that shows how to implement electronic highways that will allow information to be created and used anywhere. Covers the spectrum of services, from those that use low-speed data and voice, to high-speed digital signals over SONET and SDH in a frame relay or cell relay environment.

About this title

From the Back Cover

A comprehensive overview that shows how to implement "electronic highways" that will allow information to be created and used anywhere. Covers the spectrum of services, from those that use low-speed data and voice, to high-speed digital signals over SONET and SDH in a Frame Relay or Cell Relay environment. For computer scientists, engineers, and business people who need an up-to-date understanding of the spectrum of telecommunications.

From the Inside Flap

It used to be that communication-at-a-distance was limited to employing the telegraph and telephone for important messages. The technology of implementation was devoted to pole-climbing, stringing wires, cleaning metal contacts and maintaining wet batteries. As such, it was an avocation pursued by craftsmen employed by entrepreneurs eager to seize the opportunity to make a profit.

With the coming of solid-state electronics, and the ability to travel freely anywhere in the world, all that has changed. High-performance integrated circuit chips, reduced instruction set processors and optical fibers are commonplace in a fabric that carries data, image, voice and video messages of increasing complexity at higher and higher speeds. The result is a telecommunications environment filled with specialized equipment that is being incorporated in the day-to-day operations of corporations and the daily activities of individuals. Global corporations depend on expanding streams of information to run their businesses and to compete in a world economy. Through the use of telecommunications-linked information systems, corporations control operations, improve productivity, and create economic networks.

Further, through the use of voice, video and document communications,they facilitate interactive communication among their staffs, and with their customers and suppliers. In increasing numbers, individuals rely on pervasive telecommunication facilities to organize their lives, to shop, to pay their bills and make their living. And some of us want to communicate from the car, the airplane, the beach and the shopping mall -- from anywhere except the point at which traditional facilities terminate.

Today, communication-at-a-distance is provided by a range of facilities that incorporate the latest technologies and permeate commerce and society. As they transform the world into an information- dependent global village, their capabilities must be understood and their potential appreciated. Telecommunications Primer is offered as an aid to achieving such a state. In choosing the title I was guided by the literal definitions of these words...telecommunications: the technology of communication-at-a-distance that permits information to be created anywhere and used everywhere, without delay.

Primer: a book of elementary principles.

They accurately reflect my objective -- in as simple a way as possible, describe contemporary facilities that support communication- at-a-distance, particularly those that contribute to the operation of automated enterprises. My arena is the information age, the period that began in 1991 when, according to the United States Department of Commerce, capital expenditures on computers and communications equipment first exceeded expenditures on other industrial equipment and machinery. My purpose is to provide a comprehensive reference for those persons who seek to apply telecommunications-based services to further the economic well-being of geographically-dispersed enterprises. They are the knowledge workers, part business persons, part computer scientists and part engineers, who need an up-to-date understanding of the spectrum of telecommunications so as to be able to implement electronic highways that will allow information to be created anywhere, and used everywhere.

Probably, it is every author's dream to write a book in which themes follow logically on one another and the subject can be covered in a continuous stream of information without detours or repetitions. Not many subjects lend themselves to this model -- and the more complex they are, the greater is the confusion. So it is with telecommunications. There are many paths to be followed, and dissimilar applications to be considered. Nevertheless, a defensible organization is a prerequisite to a successful book. With that in mind, the main divisions are as follows...

Introduction.

Because telecommunication is a national activity, it is subject to regulation. Governments control what goes on within their borders. It is also an international activity, and subject to standards adopted by supernational organizations. Without them, it would be impossible to conduct communications with many parts of the world.

Telecommunications is also a commercial activity that is used by the global corporation to link facilities together, support strategic plans and increase productivity. In the introduction we touch on all these things to define the scope of the applications assumed in the book.

Signals.

In Part One, we introduce the reader to the many kinds of signals present in communication systems. They are the manifestations of messages exchanged-at-a-distance. Their generation, transmission, and reception are the fundamental tasks performed by communication systems. To understand the divisions of telecommunication we must understand the difference between analog and digital signals, digital voice and digital data, low-speed data and high-speed data, video and compressed video, noise and message signals, etc.

In Chapter 2, we identify the parameters used to describe signals and signal-related topics, and discuss some of the properties of noise signals.

In Chapter 3 we discuss voice, music and television signals, and in Chapter 4, we discuss the properties of data signals.

Building Blocks.

In Part Two, we introduce the reader to devices and procedures that perform in specialized ways to generate, transport and receive signals. To create a communication system, we must ensure that these building blocks are compatible and appropriate to the task. In data communication, the sequences of bits must be preserved, some form of error control is likely to be invoked, and the processors must follow common procedures if the activity is to be successful. In person-and- person telecommunication, the communication process is simplified by the intelligence of the users -- but it is complicated by their psychological nature. So too, is communication between person and machine. Mediated by a terminal, it requires that the user adapt to the requirements of the machine.

In Chapter 5, we describe the hardware connections and software functions used to implement communication between data processing machines.

In Chapter 6, we describe the headers and trailer associated with the procedures employed to achieve communication between cooperating systems.

In Chapter 7, we describe the special considerations that apply to personal telecommunication. They include psychological factors that are not present in machine communication.

In Chapter 8, we describe the types of, and functions performed by multiplexers, and in Chapter 9, we describe the principles of operation of circuit switches and packet switches.

Networks.

In Part Three, we pull it all together into the various kinds of networks that are employed to support the transfer of information between persons, machines, and persons and machines.

In Chapter 10, we describe the public switched telephone network. It provides pervasive voice and low-speed data communications, connecting anyone to anyone else with compatible equipment. Evolving from an analog system that provided simple voice communication, it is in transition to a wideband, digital format designed to deliver digital voice, high-speed data, and digital television to all who wish to subscribe.

In Chapter 11, we address local-area networks. They make distributed data processing a reality. Using them, it is possible to collect data, create information and distribute it within offices, over floors of buildings, in entire buildings, across campuses and throughout urban cores.

In Chapter 12, we focus on wide-area, data-only networks. We start with packet networks that provide fully-featured services to several million users. They are quite reliable, but relatively slow. For faster data communication services, we describe frame relay, and switched multimegabit data service. Finally, we describe what may be the most used of all wide-area network techniques, IBM's System Network Architecture.

In Chapter 13, we describe enterprise networks -- networks maintained by individual corporations -- that are important elements in the way they conduct their businesses. It is these networks that support knowledge workers in their quest to improve the information operations of their corporations.

In Chapter 14, we describe ways in which radio is used to create wireless networks and remove location restrictions from communication. Paced by improvements in portable telephones and personal computers, these networks provide flexible connections to a wide variety of mobile stations. They present what may be the ultimate opportunity in telecommunication, universal personal telecommunication -- the ability to communicate between stations located anywhere, over channels that are not constricted by geographic constraints.

In Chapter 15, we describe some specialized topics invo

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0132061295
• ISBN 13: 9780132061292
• Binding: Textbook Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 592