Management Information Systems

MANAGING THE DIGITAL FIRM, 12TH EDITION

Chapter 7
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE
INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
VIDEO CASES
Case 1: Traveling the Internet and Wireless Technology
Case 2: Unified Communications Systems With Virtual Collaboration: IBM and Forterra
Instructional Video 1: AT&T Launches Managed Cisco Telepresence Solution
Instructional Video 2: CNN Telepresence
 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Learning Objectives

• What are the principal components of telecommunications

networks and key networking technologies?
• What are the main telecommunications transmission media
and types of networks?
• How does the Internet and Internet technology work and
how do they support communication and e-business?
• What are the principal technologies and standards for
wireless networking, communication, and Internet access?
• Why are radio frequency identification (RFID) and wireless
sensor networks valuable for business?

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Hyundai Heavy Industries Creates A Wireless Shipyard

• Problem: Shipbuilding space is too large (4.2 sq mi)

and complex to track inventory in real-time, limiting
efficiency
• Solution: High-speed wireless network built by KT
Corp, using radio sensors, notebooks, mobiles, Web
cams
• Illustrates:
– Powerful capabilities and solutions offered by
contemporary networking technology
– Use of radio sensor technologies to track inventory
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Networking and communication Trends

– Convergence:
• Telephone networks and computer networks converging into
single digital network using Internet standards
• E.g. cable companies providing voice service
– Broadband:
• Provide by telephone and cable TV companies running 1 to 15
million bits per second.
– Broadband wireless:
• Voice and data communication as well as Internet access are
increasingly taking place over broadband wireless platforms

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• What is a computer network?

– Two or more connected computers
– Major components in simple network
• Client computer
• Server computer
• Network interfaces (NICs)
• Network operating system
• Hub or switch
– Routers
• Device used to route packets of data through different networks,
ensuring that data sent gets to the correct address

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

COMPONENTS OF A SIMPLE COMPUTER NETWORK

FIGURE 7-1 Illustrated here is a very simple computer network, consisting of computers, a network operating system residing on a
dedicated server computer, cable (wiring) connecting the devices, network interface cards (NICs), switches, and a router.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Components of networks in large companies

– 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
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

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.

FIGURE 7-2

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Key networking technologies

– Client/server computing
• Distributed computing model
• Clients linked through network controlled by network
server computer
• Server sets rules of communication for network and
provides every client with an address so others can find
it on the network
• Has largely replaced centralized mainframe computing
• The Internet: Largest implementation of client/server
computing

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Key networking technologies (cont.)

– Packet switching
• Method of slicing digital messages into parcels
(packets), sending packets along different
communication paths as they become available, and
then reassembling packets at destination
• Previous circuit-switched networks required assembly
of complete point-to-point circuit
• Packet switching more efficient use of network’s
communications capacity

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

PACKED-SWITCHED NETWORKS AND PACKET COMMUNICATIONS

FIGURE 7-3 Data are grouped into small packets, which are transmitted independently over various communications
channels and reassembled at their final destination.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Key networking technologies (cont.)

– TCP/IP and connectivity
• Connectivity between computers enabled by protocols
• Protocols: Rules that govern transmission of information between
two points
• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
– Common worldwide standard that is basis for Internet

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Signals: digital vs. analog

– Modem: Translates digital signals into analog form
• Types of networks
– Local-area networks (LANs)
• Campus-area networks (CANs)
• Peer-to-peer
• Topologies: star, bus, ring
– Metropolitan and wide-area networks
• Wide-area networks (WANs)
• Metropolitan-area networks (MANs)

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

FUNCTIONS OF THE MODEM

FIGURE 7-5 A modem is a device that translates digital signals into analog form (and vice versa) so that computers can
transmit data over analog networks such as telephone and cable networks.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

NETWORK
TOPOLOGIES
The three basic network
topologies are the star, bus,
and ring.

FIGURE 7-6

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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

• Physical transmission media

– Twisted wire (modems)
– Coaxial cable
– Fiber optics and optical networks
• Dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM)
– Wireless transmission media and devices
• Microwave
• Satellites
• Cellular telephones
– Transmission speed (hertz, bandwidth)
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 Management Information Systems
CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
Telecommunications and Networking in Today’s Business World

BP’S SATELLITE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM

FIGURE 7-7 Communication satellites help BP transfer seismic data between oil exploration ships and research centers
in the United States.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

• What is the Internet?

• Internet Addressing and Architecture
– The Domain Name System
• Hierarchical structure
• Top-level domains
– The Future Internet: IPv6 and Internet2

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

THE DOMAIN NAME

SYSTEM
Domain Name System is a
hierarchical system with a root
domain, top-level domains,
second-level domains, and
host computers at the third
level.
FIGURE 7-8

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

THE BATTLE OVER NET NEUTRALITY

Read the Interactive Session and discuss the following questions

• What is network neutrality? Why has the Internet operated

under net neutrality up to this point in time?
• Who’s in favor of net neutrality? Who’s opposed? Why?
• What would be the impact on individual users, businesses,
and government if Internet providers switched to a tiered
service model?
• Are you in favor of legislation enforcing network neutrality?
Why or why not?

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

• Internet services
– E-mail
– Chatting and instant messaging
– Newsgroups
– Telnet
– File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
– World Wide Web
– VoIP
– Virtual private network (VPN)

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING ON THE INTERNET

FIGURE 7-10 Client computers running Web browser and other software can access an array of services on servers over
the Internet. These services may all run on a single server or on multiple specialized servers.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

MONITORING EMPLOYEES ON NETWORKS: UNETHICAL OR GOOD BUSINESS?

Read the Interactive Session and discuss the following questions

• Should managers monitor employee e-mail and

Internet usage? Why or why not?
• Describe an effective e-mail and Web use policy for
a company.
• Should managers inform employees that their Web
behavior is being monitored? Or should managers
monitor secretly? Why or why not?

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

• The World Wide Web

– HTML (Hypertext Markup Language):
• Formats documents for display on Web
– Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP):
• Communications standard used for transferring Web pages
– Uniform resource locators (URLs):
• Addresses of Web pages
– E.g. http://www.megacorp.com/content/features/082602.html
– Web servers
• Software for locating and managing Web pages

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

• The World Wide Web (cont.)

– Search engines
• Started in early 1990s as relatively simple software
programs using keyword indexes
• Today, major source of Internet advertising revenue via
search engine marketing, using complex algorithms and
page ranking techniques to locate results

– Shopping bots
• Use intelligent agent software for searching Internet for
shopping information
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

HOW GOOGLE
WORKS
The Google search engine is
continuously crawling the Web,
indexing the content of each
page, calculating its popularity,
and storing the pages so that it
can respond quickly to user
requests to see a page. The
entire process takes about
one-half second.

FIGURE 7-13

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

TOP U.S. WEB SEARCH ENGINES

FIGURE 7-14 Google is the most popular search engine on the Web, handling 72 percent of all Web searches.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

• Web 2.0
– Four defining features
1. Interactivity
2. Real-time user control
3. Social participation
4. User-generated content
– Technologies and services behind these features
• Cloud computing
• Blogs/RSS
• Mashups & widgets
• Wikis
• Social networks

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Global Internet

• Web 3.0 − the Semantic Web

– Effort of W3C to add meaning to existing Web
– Make searching more relevant to user
• Other visions
– More “intelligent” computing
– 3D Web
– Pervasive Web
– Increase in cloud computing, SaaS
– Ubiquitous connectivity between mobile and other access
devices
– Make Web a more seamless experience
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

• Cellular systems
– Competing standards for cellular service
• CDMA: United States
• GSM: Rest of world, plus AT&T and T-Mobile
– Third-generation (3G) networks
• Suitable for broadband Internet access
• 144 Kbps – 2Mbps
– 4G networks
• Entirely packet-switched
• 100 Mbps – 1Gbps

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

• Wireless computer networks and Internet access

– Bluetooth (802.15)
• Links up to 8 devices in 10-m area
• Useful for personal networking (PANs) and in business to
transmit data from handheld devices to other transmitters
– Wi-Fi (802.11)
• Set of standards: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n
• Used for wireless LAN and wireless Internet access
• Use access points: Device with radio receiver/transmitter
for connecting wireless devices to a wired LAN

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

A BLUETOOTH
NETWORK (PAN)
Bluetooth enables a variety of
devices, including cell phones,
PDAs, wireless keyboards and
mice, PCs, and printers, to
interact wirelessly with each
other within a small 30-foot
(10-meter) area. In addition to
the links shown, Bluetooth can
be used to network similar
devices to send data from one
PC to another, for example.

FIGURE 7-15

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

AN 802.11
WIRELESS LAN
Mobile laptop computers equipped
with network interface cards link to
the wired LAN by communicating with
the access point. The access point
uses radio waves to transmit network
signals from the wired network to the
client adapters, which convert them
into data that the mobile device can
understand. The client adapter then
transmits the data from the mobile
device back to the access point, which
forwards the data to the wired
network.

FIGURE 7-16

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

• Wireless computer networks and Internet access

– Wi-Fi (cont.)
• Hotspots: Access points in public place to provide
maximum wireless coverage for a specific area
• Weak security features
– WiMax (802.16)
• Wireless access range of 31 miles
• Require WiMax antennas
• Sprint Nextel building WiMax network as foundation for
4G networks
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

• Radio frequency identification (RFID)

– Use tiny tags with embedded microchips containing
data about an item and location, and antenna
– Tags transmit radio signals over short distances to
special RFID readers, which send data over network
to computer for processing
– Active RFID: Tags have batteries, data can be
rewritten, range is hundreds of feet, more expensive
– Passive RFID: Range is shorter, also smaller, less
expensive, powered by radio frequency energy
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

• Radio frequency identification (RFID) (cont.)

– Common uses:
• Automated toll-collection
• Tracking goods in a supply chain
– Requires companies to have special
hardware and software
– Reduction in cost of tags making RFID viable
for many firms
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

HOW RFID WORKS

FIGURE 7-17 RFID uses low-powered radio transmitters to read data stored in a tag at distances ranging from 1 inch to 100 feet. The
reader captures the data from the tag and sends them over a network to a host computer for processing.

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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
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The Wireless Revolution

• Wireless sensor networks (WSNs)

– Networks of hundreds or thousands of interconnected
wireless devices embedded into physical environment
to provide measurements of many points over large
spaces
• Devices have built-in processing, storage, and radio
frequency sensors and antennas
• Require low-power, long-lasting batteries and ability to
endure in the field without maintenance
– Used to monitor building security, detect hazardous
substances in air, monitor environmental changes,
traffic, or military activity
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CHAPTER 7: TELECOMMUNICATIONS, THE INTERNET,
AND WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY
The Wireless Revolution

A WIRELESS SENSOR
NETWORK
The small circles represent
lower-level nodes and the
larger circles represent high-
end nodes. Lower level nodes
forward data to each other or
to higher-level nodes, which
transmit data more rapidly and
speed up network
performance.

FIGURE 7-18

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