7.1. TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING IN TODAY'S BUSINESS WORLD.

If we work in a business, we can't do without networks. We need to communicate rapidly with the customers, suppliers and employees. Until about 1990, business used the postal system or telephone system with voice or fax for communication. Today, however, we and employees for example, use computers, e-mail and messaging, the internet, cell phones, and mobile computers connected to wireless networks for this purpose.

      There are two fundamentally different types of networks , that is telephone networks and computer networks. Telephone networks historically handled voice communication, and computer networks handled data traffic.

       Networking and communication trends :-

1. Convergence : the telephone networks and computer networks converging into single digital network using internet standards.
2. Broadband : more than 68% U.S internet users have broadband access.
3. Broadband wireless : voice, data communication are increasingly taking place over broadband wireless platforms.

      

      If we had to connect the computers for two or more employees together in the same office, we would need a computer network.

           Computer Network :-

• Two or more connected computers
• Major components in simple network are :-
•  client and server computers   
•  network interfaces (NICs)   
•  connection medium       
•  network operating system  
•  Hubs, switches, routers  
• Software-defined networking (SDN)
• functions of switches and routers managed by central program

The diagram shows compenents of a simple computer network

Networks in large companies

       The network we have just described above might be suitable for a small business. But, how about for the large companies with many different locations and thousand of employees ? As a firm grows, and collects hundreds of small local area networks, these networks can be tied together into a corporate-wide networking infrastructure.

           Network in large companies are :-

• hundreds of local area networks ( LANs ) linked to firmwide corporate network
• various powerful servers -Web site ,  -Corporate intranet, extranet , -Backend systems
• mobile wireless LANs ( Wi-Fi networks )
• Videoconferencing system
• Telephone network
• Wireless cell phones

Today's corporate network infrastructure is a collection of many different networks from the public switched telephone network, to the internet.