Organizational and Personal Telecommunications |  |
Chapter Summary| This chapter covered uses of telephones, computers, video, ITFS, satellites, and video games by corporations, educational institutions, medical facilities, the government, and education. Not all these organizations use all the technologies in equal degrees, but they have been affected by developments in the various concepts.
All certainly use the telephone enhancements that have come since the divestiture of AT&T as well as the older voice applications originally invented by Bell. Businesses are more likely to use ISDN and ATM, while individuals wire their homes with DSL. Individuals buy cell phones primarily for personal purposes, but as the one-phone concept catches on, they will utilize them for business as well as pleasure.
Corporations, governments, and universities were first to use computers as they went through the vacuum tube, transistor, and integrated circuit. By the time they got to VLSI, individuals were purchasing both the Apple and IBM formats for the home. All the organizations followed the storage increases from floppy through zip to CD-ROM and DVD, and all make constant use of word and number processing and e-mail. Organizations that once had mainframes have moved toward LANs and WANs, which they sometimes use for videoconferencing. The medical profession uses a particular type of videoconferencing referred to as telemedicine. Stock brokers, lawyers, and librarians were first to be offered information services. CD-ROMs are used by students and others to aid their learning and to bring entertainment in the form of games. The government has used CD-ROMs to train people to speak Spanish, and airplane companies teach people to repair airplanes with them. Virtual reality is used to train airplane pilots and is of value to the medical profession for teaching how to perform operations. Both individuals and companies buy products through the Internet. Corporations have experimented with telecommuting and telework, and they also occasionally use computers for job recruitment. Although computers have been a great aid in most areas, they do cause problems related to information overload, privacy, and depersonalization for some people and copyright for some organizations such as book publishers.
Video is used by all the organizations but for different purposes. Corporations use it mainly for communications from executives and for training people in skills such as assembly-line work. Educational institutions use it for formal courses and to enhance parts of the learning process. The medical field trains with video as does government, whose politicians also release VNRs. Individuals use video mainly for taping birthday parties and the like, but occasionally they tape footage that can be shown on the news.
ITFS is the province of educational institutions, which utilize it mainly for distance learning. Educational institutions were also the main users of CCTV, although some corporations were also wired. Corporations and schools use satellites for teleconferencing. Most of the VSAT applications are tied to the business world.
Video games entertain individuals, some of them for hours. Game players look forward to new advances in graphics and other technical elements, whether it be for consoles, game parlors, CD-ROMs, or the Internet.
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