Information Superhighways Revisited


Book Description

From market trends, to regulatory issues, to economic considerations...this new book addresses the key factors shaping the future of broadband network technology and provides you with the tools you need to make better, more informed decisions on planning, policy, and investment strategy.




World Libraries on the Information Superhighway: Preparing for the Challenges of the New Millennium


Book Description

Currently, little is known about library experience and success in providing Internet-based services to library patrons. Some studies conducted in the United States indicate that this is an area of great uncertainty, into which libraries are hesitant to venture. Issues such as planning, budgeting and costs, and types of services are some of the areas of concern. World Libraries on the Information Superhighway: Preparing for the Challenges of the New Millennium explores issues of Internet-based services in libraries and provides practitioners and educators with examples of libraries that have achieved success in this important emerging information area.




Spectrum Wars


Book Description

Annotation Because the wireless industry is less capital intensive than others sectors in the telecommunications marketplace, it is expected to enjoy continued profitability. With survival at stake, telecommunications companies must ready themselves for battle to win access and operations rights in the wireless communications spectrum. This book maps out the strategies required to fight this battle by explaining how a telecommunications company should structure its entry and operations in the spectrum.




SIP


Book Description

This newly revised edition of the ground-breaking Artech House bestseller, SIP: Understanding the Session Initiation Protocol gives you a thorough and up-to-date understanding of this revolutionary protocol for call signaling and IP Telephony. The second edition includes brand new discussions on the use of SIP for wireless multimedia communications. It explains how SIP is powerful "rendezvous" protocol that leverages mobility and presence to allow users to communicate using different devices, modes, and services anywhere they are connected to the Internet You learn why SIP has been chosen by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Program for wireless cell phones) as the core signaling, presence, and instant messaging protocol.




Telecommunications Deregulation and the Information Economy


Book Description

A comprehensive economic examination of the global competitive restructuring that is now occurring as a result of the US Telecommunications Act 1996. The book guides the reader to the most effective methods of building and enhancing competitive advantage in new markets.




Broadband Internet¿s Value for Rural America


Book Description

As broadband ¿ or high-speed ¿ Internet use has spread, Internet applications requiring high transmission speeds have become an integral part of the ¿Information Economy,¿ raising concerns about those who lack broadband access. This report analyzes: (1) rural broadband use by consumers, the community-at-large, and bus.; (2) rural broadband availability; and (3) broadband¿s social and econ. effects on rural areas. In general, rural communities have less broadband Internet use than metro communities. Rural communities that had greater broadband Internet access had greater economic growth, which conforms to supplemental research on the benefits that rural bus., consumers, and communities ascribe to broadband Internet use. Illustrations.




Internet Television


Book Description

Internet TV is the quintessential digital convergence medium, linking television, telecommunications, the Internet, computer applications, games, and more. Soon, venturing beyond the convenience of viewer choice and control, Internet TV will enable and encourage new types of entertainment, education, and games that take advantage of the Internet's interactive capabilities. What Internet TV is today and can be in the future forms the context for this book. Arising from collaboration between the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information (CITI) and the European Institute for the Media (EIM), this volume investigates the advent of widely available individual broadband Internet communications and their impact on the development of Internet TV. Editors Eli Noam, Jo Groebel, and Darcy Gerbarg have collected seminal papers by leaders from the U.S. and European media and technology industries that offer a critical look at the impact of interactivity on television content, and address the need for media organizations to create interactive programming in this untapped realm with unclear consumer interest and desires. Each section of the volume fleshes out key issues and concepts of television and the Internet: *Part I, Infrastructure Implications of Internet TV, discusses questions about the required network capacity for various quality grades to deliver individualized broadband to homes. *Part II, Network Business Models and Strategies, addresses the business challenges of making Internet TV a financial success. *Part III, Policy, examines policy issues, including copyright and regulation. *Part IV, Content and Culture, reviews available content, those creating it, and how consumers view Internet TV content. *Part V, Future Impacts, considers future global prospects for Internet TV content creation and distribution. Internet Television is an essential resource for professionals and scholars in new technology and media studies, media policy, telecommunication, broadcasting, and related areas. It is also appropriate for graduate seminars in telecommunications, media and new technologies, and broadcasting and the Internet.




Killer on the Road


Book Description

Starting in the 1950s, Americans eagerly built the planet’s largest public work: the 42,795-mile National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Before the concrete was dry on the new roads, however, a specter began haunting them—the highway killer. He went by many names: the “Hitcher,” the “Freeway Killer,” the “Killer on the Road,” the “I-5 Strangler,” and the “Beltway Sniper.” Some of these criminals were imagined, but many were real. The nation’s murder rate shot up as its expressways were built. America became more violent and more mobile at the same time. Killer on the Road tells the entwined stories of America’s highways and its highway killers. There’s the hot-rodding juvenile delinquent who led the National Guard on a multistate manhunt; the wannabe highway patrolman who murdered hitchhiking coeds; the record promoter who preyed on “ghetto kids” in a city reshaped by freeways; the nondescript married man who stalked the interstates seeking women with car trouble; and the trucker who delivered death with his cargo. Thudding away behind these grisly crime sprees is the story of the interstates—how they were sold, how they were built, how they reshaped the nation, and how we came to equate them with violence. Through the stories of highway killers, we see how the “killer on the road,” like the train robber, the gangster, and the mobster, entered the cast of American outlaws, and how the freeway—conceived as a road to utopia—came to be feared as a highway to hell.




The Internet Challenge to Television


Book Description

After a half-century of glacial creep, television technology has begun to change at the same dizzying pace as computer software. What this will mean--for television, for computers, and for the popular culture where these video media reign supreme--is the subject of this timely book. A noted communications economist, Bruce Owen supplies the essential background: a grasp of the economic history of the television industry and of the effects of technology and government regulation on its organization. He also explores recent developments associated with the growth of the Internet. With this history as a basis, his book allows readers to peer into the future--at the likely effects of television and the Internet on each other, for instance, and at the possibility of a convergence of the TV set, computer, and telephone. The digital world that Owen shows us is one in which communication titans jockey to survive what Joseph Schumpeter called the "gales of creative destruction." While the rest of us simply struggle to follow the new moves, believing that technology will settle the outcome, Owen warns us that this is a game in which Washington regulators and media hyperbole figure as broadly as innovation and investment. His book explains the game as one involving interactions among all the players, including consumers and advertisers, each with a particular goal. And he discusses the economic principles that govern this game and that can serve as powerful predictive tools.




Power Line Communications in Practice


Book Description

Here's everything you want to know about PLC technology, theory, applications, and installation organized for you in the first definitive English-language book on the subject. You get a solid theoretical grounding on this emerging alternative to Wi-Fi and Ethernet together with best-practice examples of PLC deployments and down-to-business procedures to install PLC in the home, design large-scale PLC networks for businesses and communities, and choose the right technology and equipment for any application. A state-of-the-art reference, how-to guide, and problem-solver wrapped up in one complete source, this benchmark work brings you quickly up to speed on PLC network architecture, functionalities, security issues, and applications. You get details on PLC modems, transformers, and other equipment along with PLC installation and configuration guidelines that cover everything from choosing the topology for a PLC network to configuring parameters under Windows or Linux/BSD. The book spells out steps to install PLC in homes followed by design and configuration procedures for PLC business networks that cover all issues involving network architecture, standard and equipment selection, security, and other essentials. The book also explores the development of community-wide PLC networks and the emergence of hybrid PLC-Ethernet-Wi-Fi applications. Supported by real-world examples and 280 illustrations, this hands-on resource takes you to the cutting edge of power line communications and helps you tap its rich potential moving forward.