Другое : Telecommunications
Telecommunications
CONTENT
- INTRODUCTION
- DEVELOPING OF
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
- SATTELITE
SERVICES
- INTERNET
- ADVANCING ROLE
OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN BANKING
- RUSSIA’S TELECOMMUNICATIONS ROADS GET WIDER, MORE EXPENSIVE
- FUTURE OF
DEVELOPMENT
- CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
No one can deny the role of telecommunications for society.
Currently hundreds of millions of people use wireless communication means. Cell
phone is no longer a symbol of prestige but a tool, which lets to use working
time more effectively. Considering that the main service of a mobile connection
operator is providing high quality connection, much attention in the
telecommunication market is paid to the spectrum of services that cell network
subscriber may receive.
DEVELOPING OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Late in the nineteenth century communications facilities were augmented
by a new invention – telephone. In the USA its use slowly expanded, and by 1900
the American Telephone and Telegraph Company controlled 855,000 telephones; but
elsewhere the telephone made little headway until the twentieth century. After
1900, however, telephone installations extended much more rapidly in all the
wealthier countries. The number of telephones in use in the world grew at
almost 100 per cent per decade. But long-distance telephone services gradually
developed and began to compete with telegraphic business. A greater
contribution to long-range communication came with the development of wireless.
Before the outbreak of the First World War wireless telegraphy was established
as a means of regular communication with ships at sea, and provided a valuable
supplement to existing telegraph lines and cables. In the next few years the
telephone systems of all the chief countries were connected with each other by
radio. Far more immediate was the influence that radio had through broadcasting
and by television, which followed it at an interval of about twenty-five years.
Telephones are as much a form of infrastructure as roads or electricity,
and competition will make them cheaper. Losses from lower prices will be
countered by higher usage, and tax revenues will benefit from the faster
economic growth that telephones bring about. Most important of all, by cutting
out the need to install costly cables and microwave transmitters, the new
telephones could be a boon to the remote and poor regions of the earth. Even
today, half the world’s population lives more than two hours away from a
telephone, and that is one reason why they find it hard to break out of their
poverty. A farmer’s call for advice could save a whole crop; access to a
handset could help a small rural business sell its wares. And in rich places
with reasonable telephone systems already in place, the effect of new entrants
– the replacement of bad, overpriced services with clever, cheaper ones – is
less dramatic but still considerable.
Global phones are not going to deliver all these benefits at once, or
easily. Indeed, if the market fails to develop, it could prove too small to
support the costs of launching satellites. Still, that is a risk worth taking.
And these new global telephones reflect a wider trend. Lots of other new
communication services – on-line film libraries, personal computers that can
send video-clips and sound-bites as easily as they can be used for writing
letters, terrestrial mobile-telephone systems cheap enough to replace
hard-wired family sets – are already technically possible. What they all need
is deregulation. Then any of them could bring about changes just as unexpected
and just as magical as anything that Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone has
already achieved.
SATTELITE SIRVICES
Our world has become an increasingly complex place in which, as
individuals, we are very dependent on other people and on organizations. An
event in some distant part of the globe can rapidly and significantly affect
the quality of life in our home country.
This increasing independence, on both a national and international scale,
has led us to create systems that can respond immediately to dangers, enabling
appropriate defensive or offensive actions to be taken. These systems are
operating all around us in military, civil, commercial and industrial fields.
A worldwide system of satellites has been created, and it is possible to
transmit signals around the globe by bouncing them from on satellite to an
earth station and thence to another satellite.
Originally designed to carry voice traffic, they are able to carry
hundreds of thousands of separate simultaneous calls. These systems are being
increasingly adopted to provide for business communications, including the
transmission of traffic for voice, facsimile, data and vision.
It is probable that future satellite services will enable a great variety
of information services to transmit directly into the home, possibly including
personalized electronic mail. The electronic computer is at the heart of many
such systems, but the role of telecommunications is not less important. There
will be a further convergence between the technologies of computing and
telecommunications. The change will be dramatic: the database culture, the
cashless society, the office at home, the gigabit-per-second data network.
We cannot doubt that the economic and social impact of these concepts
will be very significant. Already, advanced systems of communication are
affecting both the layman and the technician . Complex functions are being
performed by people using advanced terminals which are intended to be as easy
to use as the conventional telephone.
The new global satellite-communications systems will offer three kinds of
service, which may overlap in many different kinds of receivers:
Voice. Satellite telephones will be able to make calls from anywhere on
earth to anywhere else. That could make them especially useful to remote,
third-world villages (some of which already use stationary satellite
telephones), explorers and disaster-relief teams. Today’s mobile phones depend
on earth-bound transmitters, whose technical standards vary from country to
country. So business travelers cannot use their mobile phones on international
trips. Satellite telephones would make that possible.
Massaging. Satellite messagers have the same global coverage as satellite
telephones, but carry text alone, which could be useful for those with laptop
computers. Equipped with a small screen like today’s pagers, satellite
messagers will also receive short messages.
Tracking. Voice and messaging systems will also tell their users where
they are to within a few hundred metres. Combined with the messaging service,
the location service could help rescue teams to find stranded adventurers, the
police to find stolen cars, exporters to follow the progress of cargoes, and
haulage companies to check that drivers are not detouring to the pub. Satellite
systems will provide better positioning information to anyone who has a
receiver for their signals.
INTERNET
The internet, a global computer network which embraces millions of users
all over the world, began in the United States in 1969 as a military
experiment. It was designed to survive a nuclear war. Information sent over the
Internet takes the shortest path available from one computer to another.
Because of this, any two computers on the Internet will be able to stay in
touch with each other as long as there is a single route between them. This
technology is called packet swithing. Owing to this technology, if some
computers on the network are knocked out (by a nuclear explosion, for example),
information will just rout around them. One such packet-swithing network which
has already survived a war is the Iraqi computer network which was not knocked
out during the Gulf War.
Most of the Internet host computers (more than 50%) are in the United States, while the rest are located in more than 100 other countries. Although the
number of host computers can be counted fairly accurately, nobody knows exactly
how many people use the Internet, there are millions worldwide, and their
number is growing by thousands each month.
The most popular Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people, who have
access to the Internet, use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail
messages. However, other popular services are available on the Internet:
reading USENET News, using the World-Wide-Web, telnet, FTP, and Gopher.
In many developing countries the Internet may provide businessmen with a
reliable alternative to the expensive and unreliable telecommunications systems
of these countries. Commercial users can communicate cheaply over the Internet
with the rest of the world. When they send e-mail messages, they only have to
pay for phone calls to their local service providers, not for calls across
their countries or around the world. But who actually pays for sending e-mail
messages over the Internet long distances, around the world? The answer is very
simple: users pay their service provider a monthly or hourly fee. Part of this
fee goes toward its costs to connect to a larger service provider, and part of
the fee received by the larger provider goes to cover its cost of running a
worldwide network of wires and wireless stations.
But saving money is only the first step. If people see that they can make
money from the Internet, commercial use of this network will drastically
increase. For example, some western architecture companies and garment centers already
transmit their basic designs and refined by skilled – but inexpensive – Chinese
computer-aided-design specialists.
However, some problems remain. The most important is security. When you
send an e-mail message can travel through many different networks and
computers. The data is constantly being directed towards its destination by
special computers called routers. However, because of this, it is possible to
get into any of the computers along the route, intercept and even change the
data being sent over the Internet. In spite of the fact that there are many
good encoding programs available, nearly all the information being sent over
the Internet is transmitted without any form of encoding, i.e. “in the clear”/
But when it becomes necessary to send important information over the network,
these encoding programs may b useful. Some American banks and companies even
conduct transactions over the Internet. However, there are still both
commercial and technical problems which will take time to be resolved.
ADVANCING ROLE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN BANKING
Role of telecommunications in banking as in other businesses nowadays is
extremely important. We can even say that this field is critical success factor
for the modern bank or banking system.
There are two different approaches in terms of ownership to building
banking communications in the world. One approach that is chosen for example by
banking system of Russia and some other former Soviet Union countries is
building of private banking networks from the start. This approach has certain
benefits, mainly from security prospective. On the other hand building private
banking networks requires permanent and serious involvement of banks in
financing, support and development of telecommunications systems. Other
approach is building banking communications over existing public services in
the country. Some of main benefits of this approach are relatively low level of
investments in communications and possibility of sharing achievements in this
field with other businesses. At the same time in the future it will be easier
for central bank to minimize it's involvement is this field then in the case of
private banking communication systems.
There are number of most important banking systems and services that are
based on communications.
Electronic Funds Transfer System - System facilitating electronic
transfer of domestic interbank and intrabank (interbranch) payment instruments.
International Financial Telecommunications - Same as EFTS but for international
operations.
National Money markets and auctions - System allowing electronic trading
of financial instruments and stocks within the banking system.
Centralized accounting and analysis of available reserves and government
budget across country
Centralized electronic processing of personal Credit-and-Debit card
operations.
The importance of fast and reliable electronic information exchange
between financial institutions grows with economy of country and requires
deployment of modern technologies in the banking system.
RUSSIA'S TELECOMMUNICATIONS ROADS GET WIDER, MORE EXPENSIVE
In the last days of 2000 the government approved "in principle"
of a draft concept for developing the market of telecommunications services,
extending till the year 2010. What are the likely implications of that
decision?
Under the approved project further efforts in the telecommunications
market must be geared to meet the growing demand for communications services.
According to the Ministry of Communications, 54,000 communities in Russia have not a single telephone. Communications networks development has been and still
is the job of traditional operators. Bills paid by retail subscribers cover a
mere 77 percent of local telephone communications costs.
According to the most conservative estimates, the development of the
national telephone infrastructure will require an investment of $33 billion
over a period of ten years. The number of ordinary telephones will grow from
31.2 million in 2000 to 47.7 million in 2010, and of mobile telephones, from
2.9 million to 22.2 million. The army of Internet users by 2010 will go up from
2.5 million to 26.1 million.
For communications operators to be effective control will be established
of the fair access of one operator to the other operator's network. No operator
will be allowed to refuse access to its infrastructure to another operator. And
tariffs for all market participants should be the same.
Having examined the concept the Ministry of Communication, the Ministry
of Economic Development and Trade and the Anti-Monopoly Policies Ministry
ordered finalizing the document within a two-month deadline and present it in
one package with a plan for implementation measures to the Cabinet of
Ministers. In the meantime, the Russian communications market is booming.
Investments in 2000 exceeded by far those witnessed by pre-crisis 1997.
National industrial operators are in the growth phase.
For the past few years the telecommunications divisions of several giants
(such as the Ministry of Railways, Gazprom and others companies) have stormed
the domestic market, but none has gained full access to this day. The
possibility remains, though, that these companies next year may gain the status
of a full-fledged operator. However, before they can count on the right to
provide communications services in the domestic market, the operators of
corporate telecommunications networks must settle their debts to the
government, Communications Minister Leonid Reiman told Vek. He believes that
these operators may settle their liabilities by transferring part of their
shares to the State Property Ministry.
The Communications Ministry has conducted negotiations with the Defense
Ministry on using certain frequencies for civilian purposes. Reiman said four
percent of the radio frequencies were used by civil services, 20 percent,
jointly by military and civil services, and the others were exempt from
conversion. The Communications Ministry does not dismiss the possibility of
operators' financial participation in the conversion of frequency ranges to
civilian uses altogether. The issue of licenses to use vacant frequencies
through contests may prove a means to raise funds for the mobile communication
sector. The government has approved of issuing contested licenses for frequency
ranges above 1800 MHz, and for third generation cellular systems.
Of the main methods the government uses to control the telecommunications
market, alongside technological policies and perfection of service provision
principles, one should point to the control of tariffs, minimization of cross
subsidies, optimization of tariffs structure by consumer and regional sectors,
transition as of 2002 to limit pricing-based tariffs, and the introduction of a
system of universal services. The effective control and operation of the
industry should provide support for domestic producers and safeguard national
interests during the restructuring of companies, including Svyazinvest.
Svyazinvest is in the process of enlargement and reorganization. Instead
of the 89 regional operators it is creating a new structure uniting seven to
fifteen communications operators. This measure is expected to make the company
easier to control and increase its shareholder value. The General Director of
OAO Nizhegorodsvyazinform Vladimir Lyulin and Managing Director of the
investment bank Group Gamma Timur Khusainov in December signed a contract on
the provision of information and consulting services within the framework of
the unification of eleven regional communications operators in the Volga river area.
Nizhegorodsyavinform will be the base company in the Volga area, taking
over ten other regional communications operators - OAO Kirovelektrosvyaz, OAO
Martelkom of the Republic of Mari El,
OAO Svyazinform of the Republic of Mordovia, OAO Elektrosvyaz of the
Orenburg Region, OAO Svyazinform of the Penza Region, OAO Svyazinform of the
Samara Region, Saratovelektrosvyaz, Telecommunications Networks of the Udmurt
Republic, Elektrosvyaz of the Ulyanovsk Region, and Svyazinform of the Chuvash
Republic. The unification process is due to be completed by the beginning of
2003.
The number of trunk communication lines over the past two years grew
noticeably. Rostelecom and Transtelecom have been discussing the possibilities
of Asia-Europe traffic. Companies in the West have turned an attentive ear to
this news. Some are drawing plans for doing business in Russia. The main conclusion is that the economy's drift from material production to
information technologies implies the growing role of telecommunications
. Those companies which fail to reorganize their policies and development
priorities in time, will fail in market competition. A shift of the emphasis
from the transmission of voice to the transmission of data is the mainstream
trend in the telecommunications business.
Market economy development will give Russia convenient and high quality
telecommunications roads. However, only those companies that have opted for new
development models will make a rapid headway.
FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT
Future is speed and power. New technologies in electronics continue to
develop. Computers become more compact, fast and inexpensive. The smaller
chips' size the closer it placed one another and electric signal goes much faster.
Technology exert revolutionary influence on society only when it is universal.
Real revolution in manufacture, accumulation, treatment of matter begins when
first universal metal-working machines appeared and telecommunication systems
were created. In ancient machines energy source was combined with machine itself,
but in process of development, division of manufacture, transmission and
consumption of energy took place.
Revolutionary modifications in use of energy connected with appearance of
universal electric machines and power grids. Social changes to informational
society take in all countries.
On base of analogy between matter, energy and information we can have
ideas about future. Earlier, for example, number of manufactured metal played
the strategic role and was the description of development. Now we save metal,
energy and we think about energy saving technologies.
It is very difficult to predict many steps of informatization.
Telecommunications changes world very much.
CONCLUSION
In each device developed by human, collection and processing of
information take place. Even simple soda water apparatus when it receives
money, this apparatus collect and analyze information about coin and then
either return the coin or give glass of soda water. In that way
telecommunications may change us and world in future.
Nobody knows what our future will be like. Some people say that big
spacecrafts will be built and that people will visit distant planets and make
their settlements there. Some people say that technology will be developed to
such an extent that computers will control the world. Others think that there
will be world disasters floods, droughts and earthquakes alike - and that they
will destroy the human race. Christians believe that the end of the world is
near and that the God will come to part the good people from the bad ones.
There are people who believe that pollution will cause the decline and fall of
the mankind and there are those who predict that a gigantic shooting star will
crash into the Earth at the turn of the century. Some people claim that alliens
are planning to attack and turn us into their slaves.
So, is there, after all, a slight chance that people will finally come to
their senses and that there will be at least no starvation and wars?
I think that bright future is in front of us. Just take a quick glance
through history and you will realize it too: in ancient times people killed
each other in order to have meat for dinner, later in order to satisfy their
own vanity and today without any reason at all. As you can notice, we are
developing very fast! Neighbors are killing each other out of boredom; mothers
are killing their newborn babies out of some little sick reasons. Isn’t it
obvious that we are considerably improving species which is getting wiser every
day?
If we try to make this world better we shall succeed. But, are we ready
to do it now? Are we really environment friendly while not recycling but just
piling rubbish in the middle of once green meadows, while shooting bears and
foxes just because of their fur? Are we really worried about thousands of
hungry people while we are throwing away fresh food in garbage bins? Do we
really care about all those thirsty children while we are splashing about in
swimming pools? Are we really concerned about dangerously polluted air our
descendants will have to inhale while we are driving happily our flashy cars?
Can we even try to imagine the ugliness of the desert we are going to leave to
our grandchildren?
It could be estimated that an average person spends a minute a year
thinking about the future of our planet and I do not know if I should
compliment this or not. Is it an achievement after all?
I express my gratitude for devoting people’s lives to saving our future
world by making other people aware that the appalling problems of poverty and
arms build-up should be dealt with soon and that, among many other things, our
seas and forests deserve more protection than they get. The only way we can
show the Earth our respect is to change our attitude and behavior before it is
too late. So let’s do it now.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.
BOGATSKIY I.S., DYUKANOVA N.M. “BUSINESSCOURSE OF ENGLISH”, KIEV “LOGOS”, 2003
2.
TIMOSHINA A.A., MIKSHA L.S. “ENGLISH OF MODERN ECONOMICS” MOSCOW “ANT”, 2002
3.
“AGE” №51, 2000
4.
A.JEJELAVA, Z. KUKAVA “CURRENT STAGE AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT
OF THE GEORGIAN BANKING SYSTEM TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFROSTRUCTURE’, TBILISI
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