Chapter List

Overview

This chapter introduces telecommunications by defining its terms. Next it describes current and historical telecommunications structures in the United States structures shaped by regulatory initiatives and judicial decisions. Telephony and the development of voice networks are described first since they were first to appear and the operational characteristics are familiar to most readers. Moreover, today's data networks use technologies that to a large extent evolved from voice networks. In fact, as shown later, voice and data networks which appear to users as separate and distinct, often share elements. Due to the enormous investment in installed plant, current networks will provide the basis for tomorrow's advanced "all-service" networks.

Because the Internet is still expanding at a near geometric rate, this chapter uses it as a model to describe telecommunications structures supporting emerging data, video, imagery, and other services. Again, reflecting global popularity and growth, this chapter closes with a description of telecommunications structures designed to support mobile subscribers, whether in vehicles or on foot, as well as mechanisms to interconnect mobile-subscriber telecommunications systems with those primarily intended for fixed-location subscribers.

The distinction between local, long-distance, and global telecommunications structures, and the impact that U.S. regulatory and international agreements have on those structures are presented in Chapter 2. Thus, Part 1, Chapters 1 and 2 supply the general background information and basic terminology definitions needed to establish a context for succeeding chapters. Topics introduced in these...