TRENDS IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Major trends occurring in the field of telecommunications have a significant impact on management decisions in this area. Informed managerial end users should thus be aware of major trends in telecommunications industries, technologies, and applications that significantly increase the decision alternatives confronting their organi­zations. See Figure 2.

The competitive arena for telecommunications service has changed dramatically from a few government-regulated monopolies to many fiercely competitive suppliers of telecommunications services. With the breakup of AT&T and the Bell System in 1984, local and global telecommunications networks and ser­vices became available from a variety of large and small telecommunications com­panies. Hundreds of companies now offer businesses and end users a choice of everything from long-distance telephone services and access to communications satellite channels, to mobile radio and cellular phone services. Public information network services such as electronic mail, bulletin board systems, and commercial data banks are other examples. Thus, the services and vendor options available to meet company's telecommunications needs have increased significantly.

Digital technology will make the phones we use today seem like two cans joined by a string. Within some years, we will see cellular service that costs almost as lit­tle to use as the corner phone booth, handheld communicators that will let us scrib­ble notes with an electronic stylus and zap them wirelessly anywhere on earth, and networks that will automatically deliver our calls to the people we want to reach, wherever they happen to be. Travelers will commune with the office network as fully and easily as if they were sitting at their desks; workers with computers will commin­gle video, voice, data, and images on a single line as they seamlessly collaborate with faraway colleagues.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 1758