The communication revolution

THE TELECOM STORY AND THE INTERNET: Mohan Sundara Rajan; National Book Trust of India, A-5, Green Park, New Delhi-110016. Rs. 60.

WHEN BILL Gates described the Internet as the incredible global database he hit the nail right on top of its head! Besides it has, what can be described as a killer concept, the World Wide Web, or simply the Web. The Web possesses the necessary technology to navigate through the Internet's vast sea of resources. In order to get a handle on the concept of the Web one needs to try and understand three ideas that form the core of the Web. These are the hypertext, the Internet and the multimedia. It is important to stress here that the Web itself is not the Internet although the technologies that form the backbone of the Web may appear as the Internet's primary interface. The Web is a byproduct of the Internet.

The Web dates back to 1989. In March of that year Tim Berners-Lee of Geneva's European Particle Research Laboratory (CERN) brought out a proposal to develop a hypertext system for easy information exchange among research teams in the high energy physics community that was geographically scattered. Lee brought the hypertext and the computer networks together to create the Web as he called it. The name has stuck. Hypertext as a concept was introduced way back in the 1970s. Hypertext documents provide clearly visible links to other documents. And the Internet is the global system of interconnected computers, which allows user-to- user communication and transfer of data from one computer to any other computer in the network.

From the above it becomes clear that one of the basic inputs required for the system to function is a dependable communication infrastructure. This book has gone into this aspect very thoroughly and given a detailed account of the communication technology relevant to the Internet in all its dimensions. The author begins by briefly tracing the birth and development of communication techniques starting from optical telegraphy, to semaphore signalling, the Morse code not forgetting to mention Alexander Graham Bell and his invention. As he goes along he walks the reader through the various technologies as they emerged: the transistor, the integrated circuit and the microprocessor, principles of telephony, voice communication, digital transformation of intelligence in the form of bits and bytes, transmission of high speed data and many related technologies. He also traces the history of Hertz and Marconi's invention, the wireless telephony and the subsequent advances like the VHF and microwave communication techniques before taking up the development of the INSAT and other communication satellites. He briefly discusses the GPS, the Global Satellite System, INTELSAT, and the INMARSAT, not forgetting to mention what one could expect in the radio of the future, namely, a new type of radio set that can be hooked to a personal computer and to the Internet. He has also included a section devoted to the ``cellular wave'' as he calls it where he discusses the emergence of broad-based cellular systems that have followed Moore's law of doubling of computer power every 18 months. In conclusion he states that in future, telecommunication networks will be Internet driven where international calls can be made through the personal computer at significantly reduced tariff. We know this to be the case even now. Many in this country and elsewhere, who make calls to the US at ridiculously low tariff, use the MSN Messenger Service.

He then discusses the problems inherent in the last link, namely the one connecting the subscriber to the local exchange through cabling. This will eventually be replaced by the much talked about WLL or the Wireless Local Loop. One can hope to see a day sometime in the future when the Internet can be expected to benefit the masses and not just the elite. The basic need will still remain the same: a good telecom link.

C. V. SUBRAMANIAM

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