The Hindu Business Line : Beyond mere connectivity and communication

ENTER twenty-first century telecom. An exciting space that is characterised by technology infusion in IP (Internet Protocol), optical and wireless mobility.

What it presents are "new opportunities for the service delivery of data, voice, and video for communications and computing in real time - anytime, and anywhere," writes Robert Wood in Next-Generation Network Services, from Cisco Systems (www.ciscopress.com) .

Service is the emphasis in the "new era of IP-centric networking", with IP serving as "a prolific communications portal." Services in the next-generation networks go beyond just `connectivity, communication and collaboration', points out Wood. "Internetworking innovation is an enabler of convergence, and convergence is a launch pad for services."

The book opens with `communicating in the New Era,' which speaks about the historic legislation that the then US President, Bill Clinton, signed on February 8, 1996: Telecommunications Reform Act, "a 128-page Bill designed to restructure the entire telecommunications industry."

A year later was passed the World Trade Organisation's Agreement on Basic Telecommunications Services extending competition opportunities to "about 90 per cent of the globe." Fences are down, but some rubble remains, notes Wood. Will IP carry us another hundred years? The author's answer is that IP will expand and stratify in the near term. "It is likely that some of the intelligence of IP will become further embedded in silicon and perhaps even nanotechnology - or maybe integrated in some form with optical fibre - layering intelligence upon capaciousness."

The chapter on multiservice networks explains how a hefty overhead called `ATM cell tax' is created when IP packets are run through ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) Adaptation Layers (a.k.a. AALs).

"For example, an IP packet of approximately 250 bytes will need to be chopped and diced into several 48-byte payloads (5-byte ATM header per cell for 53 total bytes), and the last cell will need to be padded to fill out the full data payload."

With padding, 250 bytes swell to 288, which is an overhead of 15.2 per cent per packet, explains Wood. He predicts the pushing out of ATM switching by MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching). Then comes the chapter on VPN or Virtual Private Network, which is "logically partitioned, private data network deployed over a shared or public network infrastructure." In the intranet model, IPSec or IP Security is the dominant tunnelling technology for creating VPNs across shared facilities such as the Internet, informs Wood.

"Regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) require companies to protect the privacy of patient medical records, and many choose IPSec VPN technology to apply encryption to data streams as they traverse publicly shared network facilities and replicate information between health provider companies."

Get to know in a separate chapter all about optical networking technologies, `the future-proof choice'. The author throws light on light thus: "Everything seen by the human eye is visible light - a Monet painting, an evening sunset, a rainbow, the crescent moon, or the Aurora Borealis. The distance between these objects and the human eye is bridged by light made up of millions to zillions of photons of different wavelengths... "

Do you know that the next stride for scaling the performance of both enterprise and service provider networks is 10GE or 10 Gigabit Ethernet?

Epicentres of new-era broadband definition and delivery are metropolitan optical networks, writes Wood.

"They are effectively bandwidth merry-go-rounds, sporting a selection of speedy horses with customised saddles, colourful headdresses, copper stirrups, and glass-beaded reins for super-swift communications carriage."

Absorbing ride through the network land!

Insights worth tapping

Padhna likhna seekho, o mehnat karne walon. Padhna likhna seekho, o bhookh se marne walon. "Learn to read and write, O all those who are labouring. Learn to read and write, O all those who are dying of hunger."

These were the opening lines of a song written by Safdar Hashmi for the National Literacy Mission (NLM), remembers Avik Ghosh in Communication Technology and Human Development: Recent Experiences in the Indian Social Sector, from Sage (www.indiasage.com) .

When the song was telecast as part of NLM's propaganda, the phrase `bhookh se marne walon' met with much objection, that it was contrary to "the Government's claim of having abolished starvation deaths." It seems Doordarshan officials got so worried that they requested NLM to withdraw the song or revise it!

Another of NLM's experiments was Chauraha, a TV serial that attempted to teach reading and writing the Devanagari (Hindi) script. "Chauraha was a set of 40 15-minute TV film episodes that, for the first time in India, used sophisticated computer animation techniques to teach Hindi writing within the overall framework of a narrative storyline."

Chauraha showed "an easily identifiable image from daily life (or a graphic representation)" and superimposed a letter thereon, to bring in the association. "For instance, the first lesson used the image of a village hand-pump (or nal in Hindi) and linked it to the Hindi letter `na' that resembles the shape of the hand-pump."

Insights worth tapping!

Tailpiece

"Cut and paste."

"Writing a book?"

"No, forging an alliance for the coming election!"