Telecommunication Technologies
Telecommunication technologies enable to communicate between two or more parties, users; telecommunication services have enabled to fast transmission of data and information from one place to other places quite efficiently and effectively. The concept of networked enterprises has emerged because of the development in the telecommunication technologies. The Internet, the Web, Intranets, Extranets are networking business processes which are connecting employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders cost effectively.
Computer network is a termed used to describe interconnected computers. Robert Metcalfe designed the Ethernet protocol for computer networks. Metcalfe has stated a law which says that “the usefulness of a network equals the square of the number of users.” That is, as a new computer or user is added to the existing computer network the value of the network doubles.
Telecommunications is the exchange of information in digital form over networks. The Internet is mostly used form of telecommunication in the daily lives of the humans. The huge growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) has given rise to several new telecommunications products, services and providers. The concepts of e-commerce, e-business are two major services resulted because of Internet and WWW.
Open systems with unrestricted connectivity are the major telecommunications technology drivers now. These systems use technologies like Web browsers, TCP/IP, HTML web page editors, Internet and network management software. The common standards for hardware, software, applications and networking are the major reason for the success of the open systems; open systems provide greater connectivity among the computers and devices; even different devices with different operating platforms, different data sources work seamlessly without any disturbance. Middleware software is used to help different system work together.
Middleware is software which mediate or enables two separate software to work together. Generally, middleware is used to facilitate program written to access data from a specific database to access other databases also. That is a program written to access MySQL database can access PostGreSQL or Oracle or MsSQL server database with the help of middleware.
Telecommunications is influenced by the analog to digital conversion technologies. This conversion has provided several benefits:
Change and improvement in the transmission media (data carriers) is another trend in the telecommunications technology. Initially copper wires were used to transmit data, now more reliable, fast media like fiber optics, communication satellite and other wireless technologies are in use.
The change and development in the telecommunications technologies and industries have caused a major change in the business uses of the telecommunications. The rapid growth of Internet, WWW, intranets and extranets have increased the number of good telecommunication applications. The Web-enabled e-business, online marketing, e-commerce, enterprise collaboration, and many other business applications are the result of the telecommunications networks.
Business organizations are using Internet, Intranet, extranets and other telecommunications networks cut costs, shorten time required to complete business processes, response and support quickly, improve collaboration, cooperation, and coordination between teams. In addition to this organizations are finding new ways to lock in their customers, suppliers, develop new products and services, share resources with the use of computer networks.
The telecommunication-based business applications help organizations to overcome geographic, time, cost and structural barriers. E-business applications can help an organization to capture and provide information quickly at lower cost at any time to any place.
An Intranet is a network of computers and devices installed inside an organization; it uses Internet technologies like Web browsers, servers, TCP/IP network protocols, HTML documents, database etc.). It provides Internet-like environment inside the organization enabling users to share, communicate, collaborate and support the business processes. Security measures like firewalls, antivirus, encryption, passwords are also used to ensure safety and security of the data and the system. If intranet of an organization is allowed access by outsiders (from intranets of customers, suppliers, other stakeholders) having credentials to access the system, then the intranet will be extranet.