TELECOMMUNICATION AND
NETWORKING IN TODAY'S
BUSINESS WORLD
There are two fundamentally different types of telecommunications
networks: telephone networks and computer networks, which are
slowly merging into a single digital network using shared Internet
technology and equipment.
Both voice and data communication networks have also become
more powerful (faster), more portable (smaller and mobile), and less
expensive. Today more than 60 percent of U.S. Internet users have
high-speed broadband connections provided by telephone and
cable TV companies running at one million bits per second. The cost
for this service has fallen exponentially. Increasingly, voice and data
communication as well as Internet access are taking place over
broadband wireless platforms.
In addition to client computers, the major
components used in a simple network include:
Network interface cards (NICs):
Typically built into client computers
Network operating system (NOS):
Software that manages communications
on the network and coordinates network
Connection medium: Cables or resources, and can reside on every
wireless signals for transmitting computer or on a dedicated server
computer
data
Routers are network devices to Hub or switch: Hubs are devices that
connect network components, sending
connect two or more networks packets of data to all connected
devices. Switches are like hubs but can
forward data to specific destinations.
COMPONENTS OF A SIMPLE
COMPUTER NETWORK
Large corporate network infrastructure typically consists of small
local-area networks (LANs) linked to firm-wide corporate networks
for data and voice communication, and various powerful servers,
for supporting corporate Web sites, an intranet, extranets, or
connecting to backend systems such as sales, ordering, and
financial transactions. Corporations face the problem of integrating
these networks, a task becoming easier as communications
become digital.
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.
Contemporary digital networks are based on three key technologies:
1. Client/server computing: In client/server computing, client computers
are linked to each other through a network controlled by a server
computer, which sets the rules of communication for the network and
provides addresses for each client and device on the network.
2. Packet switching: A method of breaking messages into small packets
that are sent independently along different paths in a network using a
router and then reassembled at their destination.
PACKED-SWITCHED NETWORKS AND
PACKET COMMUNICATIONS
1. Common protocols and TCP/IP: Widely used
communications protocols provide a set of rules to enable
communication among diverse components in a
telecommunications network. TCP/IP is a suite of protocols which
has become the dominant model of achieving connectivity
among different networks and computers and on the Internet,
providing a method for breaking up messages into packets, routing
them to the proper address, and reassembling them. The TCP/IP
reference model has four layers. Two computers using TCP/IP can
communicate even if they are based on different hardware and
software platforms.
