Preface

When The Essential Guide to Telecommunications was first published in 1997, broadband and cellular networks were many times less complex. Voice calls were carried separately from data traffic, and e-mail required arcane commands and was used mostly at universities. The federal government had recently deregulated telecommunications and opened it to competitors. Deregulation opened voice and data networks to new competitors. These competitors competed with established providers for subscribers by offering lower prices. This competition drove innovation and resulted in the build-out of high-speed fiber-optic networks. Large incumbents responded with their own network improvements and lowered prices. A similar pattern occurred in cellular networks after 1999.

In the years since 1997, most small and medium-sized and even some large competitors were either acquired by large incumbents or went out of business. These incumbents also acquired other large providers that were formerly part of the Bell system. The result of these mergers is that today’ telecommunications, cellular, and cable TV markets have far fewer competitors: mainly AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, and Verizon. Partly as a result of minimum competition, prices for broadband services are higher compared with most of the world.

Social networking, cloud, and Office software conglomerates Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft have built large, cloud-located networks of data centers. Their services have disrupted commerce in each of their fields. Microsoft operates one of the four largest cloud services in the United States. It offers a platform on which developers customize Microsoft applications for enterprise customers. Additionally, their Teams service is used by enterprises to make low-cost international voice calls and video conference calls and collaborate on joint projects.

Google, which was started by Stanford graduate students, operates the largest search service in the United States. The founders used software to search the web and keep repositories of web site addresses. It quickly became an enormous company, whose popularity grew through word of mouth. They are now a huge conglomerate that earns billions of dollars each year through the advertising on their site.

Amazon was started by Jeff Bezos. Its cloud-based retail service is another example of a business that has had an enormous impact. Brick and mortar retailers have lost millions of dollars, chains have gone out of business, and many have closed a number of their stores. Amazon is still innovating with its home automation offering Alexa, its fast turnaround delivery service, its purchase of Whole Foods, and its entrance in drug deliveries for hospitals.

And AT&T and Verizon are building large fiber networks and cellular infrastructure to carry new generations of mobile networks. T-Mobile and Sprint are building out their cellular networks as well.

However, the number of choices consumers and enterprise customers have for their Internet access and broadband services as well as their mobile services has decreased and will shrink more if T-Mobile is granted permission to acquire Sprint’ cellular network. If the Sprint acquisition is approved, the number of mobile operators for nationwide coverage will shrink from four to three. This is a significant change, one that may lead to higher prices for the students and young people that flock to T-Mobile for its low prices.

New 5th generation mobile networks promise to support higher data rates than ever before. However, these upgrades are costly, and require thousands of additional cell sites and antennas, particularly in downtown urban areas with large amounts of foot traffic. Mobile providers are additionally upgrading current 4th generation cellular networks. Both of these efforts will support higher speeds, some up to a gigabit per second. As capacity on mobile networks increases, they will support streaming video and, in some cases, broadband links to residential subscribers’ homes.

Because of the greater capacity in mobile networks, many young people and students depend wholly on mobile networks for messaging, streaming, and social network access. Teens and twenty-somethings for the most part use Snapchat and Instagram (part of Facebook) social networks rather than Facebook and Twitter. Snapchat is newer, launched in 2011, and appeals to young people for its more visual service where users upload videos and photos, rather than biographies and other written material as on Facebook and other social networks.

Streaming services were first envisioned by Reed Hastings, the CEO and founder of Netflix. Netflix initially mailed DVDs to subscribers in iconic red envelops and stated at the time that Netflix would stream TV shows and movies when Wi-Fi became robust enough to support video traffic. Netflix is a disruptive service that changed user behavior and disrupted traditional sales of DVDs and movie theaters. Streaming caused Blockbuster, the largest seller of DVDs, which had outlets on every corner, to go out of business and movie theaters had to close many of their theaters due to fewer people going to movies. Netflix is now an international business with service in nearly 200 countries.

A core strategy of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and their competitors is to attract subscribers by offering popular TV shows and movies. Netflix was initially able to license the TV series and movies it offered from content providers such as Disney, Time Warner, and Universal Studios. As these companies started offering their own streaming services or were bought by larger companies, for example, AT&T and Comcast, less content became available for competing streaming providers. As a result, Netflix, Amazon, and others have poured billions of dollars into creating original content to attract subscribers. Content is a critical factor in people’ decision to either drop cable TV or subscribe to smaller cable TV packages.

Software is the driving force in managing today’ broadband and LAN (local area networks) networks. Broadband networks controlled by software are referred to as wide area software defined networks (W-SDNs). SDNs are also implemented in enterprise networks. Both implementations are controlled from central terminals programmed with commands that direct traffic to avoid routes with outages and congestion. Software is used to manage complex high-capacity broadband networks. Functions previously installed on proprietary hardware can be abstracted in non-proprietary hardware. These network functions include routers, servers dedicated to security, and gateways that translate between networks that use different protocols. Another way that networks are enabled to carry more traffic is the network equipment connected to fiber-optic cabling that enables gigabit and even terabit data rates. A terabit is equal to a thousand gigabits.

Networks that connect people have made the world smaller and opened up communications worldwide. However, the common protocols used on the Internet where everyone is connected to everyone else means that networks are inherently open to hackers who use these common protocols as a way to hack into organizations’ networks.

Organizations large and small have experienced security breaches. Some breaches have resulted in the loss of millions of peoples’ private information including their social security numbers. In addition, security breaches have cost enterprises millions of dollars in bad publicity and stolen intellectual property. To avoid major hacking attacks, enterprises hire outside consultants, and strengthen their security staff. They also educate users to the danger of opening attachments from people they don’t know. These phishing emails contain malware able to contaminate entire networks. However, there is no 100 percent guarantee that any of these steps will protect an organization from a determined hacker. But organizations with strong security recover faster, and detect attacks more quickly.