Task 3.1. Read the text and answer the questions.

The Future of the Internet

Everywhere we go, we hear about the Internet. It's on television, in magazines, newspapers, and in schools. One might think that this network of millions of computers around the globe is as fast and captivating as television, but with more and more users logging on everyday and staying on longer and longer, this «Information Superhighway» could be perhaps more correctly referred to as an expressway of big city centre at rush hour.

It is estimated that thirty five to forty million users currently are on the Internet. According to a recent statistics, an average Internet call lasts five times as longer as the average regular telephone call. 10 percent of the Internet calls last 6 hours or longer. This can cause an overload and, in turn, cause telephone network to fail.

The local network was designed for short calls which you make and then hang up, but Internet calls often occupy a line for hours. With so many users in the Internet and their number is growing by 200 percent annually, it certainly provides new challenges for the telephone companies. The Internet, up to the beginning of the 90s, was used only to read a different texts. Then in the early 90's, a way was made to see pictures and listen to a sound on the Internet. This breakthrough made the Internet to be most demanded means of communication, data saving and transporting.

However, today's net is much more than just pictures, text, and sound. The Internet is now filled with voice massages, video conferencing and video games. With voice massages, users can talk over the Internet for the price of the local phone call.

Nowadays we no longer have to own a computer to access the Internet. Now,-devices such as Web TV allow our television to browse the Web and use Electronic Mail. Cellular phones are now also dialing up the Internet to provide E-mail and answering machine services. The telephone network was not designed and built to handle these sorts of things. Many telephone companies are spending enormous amounts of money to upgrade the telephone lines.

K. Kao and G. Hockman were the first to come up with the idea of using fiber optic cables, as opposed to copper wire, to carry telephone signals. Fiber optics uses pulses of light to transmit binary code, such as that used in computers and other electronic devices. As a result the amount of bandwidth is incredibly raised. Another solution for the problem is fast modems which satisfy the need for speed.

By accessing the Net through the coaxial cable that provides television to our homes, the speed can be increased 1,000 fold. However, the cable system was built to only send information one way. In other words, they can send stuff to us, but we can't send anything back, if there is no modem available.

Yet another way is being introduced to access the Internet, and that is through the use of a satellite dish just like the TV dishes currently used to deliver television from satellites in space to your home. However, like cable connection, the information can only be sent one way.

Faster ways of connecting to the Internet may sound like a solution to the problem, but, just as new lanes on highways attract more cars, a faster Internet could attract many times more users, making it even slower than before.

To help solve the problem of Internet clogs, Internet providers are trying new ways of pricing for customers. So, in business time any connection to Net cost more than your connection in the night.

In conclusion, I should add that if we want to keep the Internet usable and fairly fast, we must not only improve the telephone lines and means of access, but also be reasonable in usage.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 1202