Telecommunication technology
The prefix "tele" refers to many technological innovations, from telephone to television systems the two most common devices. The computer is part of this tripartite of systems that collectively is bringing about all sorts of technological and societal changes. Some innovations can serve to isolate while others bring people closer together. This section describes basic and related systems, including voice mail, facsimile, electronic mail, computer networks, teleconferencing, commercial databanks to aid with electronic research and the trend to work from the home either as telecommuters or entrepreneurs. Examples of how people use telecommunications come from around the world. The growth of telecommunication technology is linked with both the print media and with transportation systems.
Using the telephone:
Subscribers can have a lot of telephone options if they are willing and able to pay for them. It does not matter whether the system is simple or complex, though, human relations competencies are also important.
Call forwarding allows people to leave their telephones and still get their calls. Incoming calls are automatically transferred to the designated alternate line. Call waiting tells a person while he or she is talking to someone that another party is trying to get through. A buzz or beep alerts the person to the second incoming call. A conference call permits three or more people to connect into the system for the purpose of holding audio conferences by phone. Hold allows a person to have one caller wait while he or she accesses another incoming call, such as with call waiting. Give the first party an option, though. People dislike being put on "hold" and may resist. If they prefer they can be called back or asked to call back later.
Answering machines and ansering services:
Individuals use answering machines in their homes. So do owners of some small businesses. Often these people must be put of the firm frequently and they cannot afford to hire office employees to take messages.
The answering service allows callers to talk to a person instead of a machine, although these people do not work as employees for the contracting firm. They are subcontractors and the firms whose phones they answer are their clients. When a telephone goes unanswered in a client's office past a programmed number of rings, the service operator picks up the telephone. On the computer screen in front of the operator, the client's data are retrieved so that the operator can respond intelligently to queries and questions from these callers. Automated voice mail software programs are now available on a wide scale basis. These programs offer callers a variety of options to hear prerecorded messages before being put through to a desired party or to their voice mail system. In many businesses, these systems have replaced the traditional answering service system.
Voice mail:
Although similar to answering machines, voice mail has more options. At first one cannot tell the difference, since the called party?s recorded voice greets the caller.
Emerging trends:
The ability to produce smaller computer chips influences the development and use of technology. Other emerging trends include wireless equipment, the marriage of telephone and cable television, tele-commuting, home-based electronic entrepreneurships and the interest in staying home as a result of crime, overcrowding and so on. The relationships between the print media and telecommunications and between communications and transportation are two other topics that have historical significance as well as future implications.
Things are getting smaller:
The basic telephone instrument must be large enough to reach from ear to mouth, but the internal mechanisms can be quite small. Although televisions are getting bigger, 42 or more inches, many other devices are getting smaller; for example, robots the size of a gnat. A paper-thin four-inch wafer can contain up to 200 chips and each chip can carry hundreds of micro machines. In micro land, silicon becomes powerful. It is as mechanically strong as some types of steel. Micro machines will make homes as well as the workplace "smart", from managing security and air control systems to communicating potential disasters such as alerting adults that a child is at risk of falling.
Wireless or cellular items:
It is estimated that by the year 2000 at least of the people in the United States will have wireless or cellular telephones that they can carry with them wherever they go. This type of phone will eliminate the need for pagers and beepers, the system whereby a pager hooked to one?s belt or carried in the purse beeps, thus directing the owner to go to a phone and call in to headquarters. Another idea associated with the cellular phone is to give people a single telephone number, such as the current social security number. Instead of "call forwarding" from phone to phone, the single number assigned to a person will reach that person, providing that he or she is currently carrying the cellular phone.
Digital Highway:
U.S. district judge in Alexandria threw out a federal law that forbade telephone companies from entering the television programming business. This legal decision paved the way for innovations in the marriage of cable television and telephone company services; in other words, a "digital highway". This digital revolution promises viewers hundreds of channels and dazzling interactive services.
Such services will include, but will not be limited to, telemedicine in rural areas, distance learning to improve training and development for companies and consumers ; home shopping; on-line access; combined telephone, television and Internet services and single-line transmission of combined data, voice and video images. This new technology and such telecommunication services will make activities such as interactive home shopping much more available to the general public.
Telecommuting for others and for self:
Telecommuting is the system of working at home with a telecommunication station. Instead of traveling, people ?commute? by telecommunication linkage in a variety of configurations. The station might include computer terminal, keyboard, and monitor, built in modem and telecommunication software that connects the station to the local area network of an office. Wide area networking allows the telecommuter to communicate via e-mail with numerous other locations as well as to access data from on-line databases.
Telecommuting for others means that the home worker is an employee of an established company. The pay, however, is usually based on the amount of work produced rather than on an hourly rate. This is because there is no supervisor present to monitor the hours worked but the amount of work completed can be verified. In a half dozen or more Asian countries, housewife data entry clerks work out of their homes to process data for U.S. firms. The raw data is sometimes transported to them in huge mail sacks. Operators enter and process the data and complete procedures by transmitting processed information on-line to U.S. headquarters.
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