Chapter 7 Telecommunications, the Internet, and Wireless Technology

1)
Telephone networks are fundamentally different from computer networks.

2)
Increasingly, voice, video, and data communications are all based on Internet
technology.

3)
Firms in the past used two fundamentally different types of networks: telephone
networks and computer networks.

4)
Due to continuing telecommunications deregulation and information technology
innovation, telephone and computer networks are slowly converging into a single
digital network using shared Internet-based standards and equipment.

5) Increasingly, voice and data communication as
well as Internet access are taking place over broadband wireless platforms,
such as cell phones, handheld digital devices, and PCs in wireless networks.

6)
Each computer on the network contains a network interface device called a
network operating card (NOC).

7)
Contemporary digital networks and the Internet are based on four key
technologies: client/server computing, the use of packet switching, the
development of widely used communications standards and PC operating systems.

8)
Pocket switching is a method of slicing digital messages into parcels called pockets,
sending the pockets along different communication paths as they become
available, and then reassembling the pockets once they arrive at their
destinations.

9)
Packet switching makes much less efficient use of the communications capacity
of a network.

10) TCP refers to the Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP), which is responsible for the delivery of packets and includes
the disassembling and reassembling of packets during transmission.

11)
IP refers to the Internet Protocol (IP), establishes a connection between the
computers, sequences the transfer of packets, and acknowledges the packets
sent.

12)
A digital signal is represented by a continuous waveform that passes through a
communications medium; analog signals are used for voice communication.