Telecommunications Research in the United States and Selected Foreign Countries: a Preliminary Survey. Report to the National Science Foundation (1973) / Chapter Skim
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THE SYSTEMS APPROACH
THE SYSTEMS APPROACH
Pages 6-33
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From page 6... ...
to excite the inner ear drum to stimulate the nerve pulses which reach the brain for interpretation. But there are some communications which do require a specific processing step outside the human participants; it is these that we have tried to identify as part of the total communications world.
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! minicomput.s, adding machines option generation & display; Plato IV election prediction, battle mgm 2 S c a distributed computatio £ o 3 C .5> 0 Hi 0,2 s e .
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How do we perceive? What aspect of interpersonal communications is most significant to achieving interpersonal understanding of the subjects being covered?
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standard. As another example, distribution of television and other information to the home might better be achieved for long run needs via cable, waveguide or fiber optics.
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! 1 1 C CHART II IMPORTANCE 01 I Code 1 Very Signif i 2 Moderately 3 Significant x Legal Facto Communication Needs in Societal Systems .i 1 » I .
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An important related question is, of course, how well and how rapidly we are applying the benefits of existing advanced telecommunication technology in the public and national interests. Are some of the foreign countries, in fact, taking better advantage of the existing technology than we are - in exploiting its social and economic benefits?
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From page 12... ...
The issues raised involve social, economic, political, legal, regulatory and related problems. These issues, not being sufficiently resolved, are inhibiting the growth of the industry and delaying advances in very important telecommunication applications, such as cable television, domestic satellite services, interconnecting data networks, public broadcasting, educational networks, etc.
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From page 13... ...
Since the requisite talents and capabilities are not readily available, where can they be reasonably mustered to do this research and become the focal point for this type of interdisciplinary telecommunication activity? The most likely place to find the necessary talents is in the larger university environment where the separate disciplines of economics, law, sociology and related areas exist, in addition to a good technical and scientific base.
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VII. Specific Issues and Problems What are the interdisciplinary issues and problems which require and deserve significant research and analysis effort which the NSF may appropriately sponsor?
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23. Spectrum utilization policy guidelines, taking into consideration technical, economic, social, legal and international aspects.
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Kandoian Telecommunications Consultant Ridgewood, New Jersey
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From page 17... ...
had the following to say on the growing overcrowding of the spectrum: "During the past twenty years there has been a series of spectrum management studies ... The most general and the most basic consideration evidenced in all of these studies is the indisputable fact that spectrum usage is expanding and spectrum space is limited.
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From page 18... ...
With further expansion of the spectrum to shorter and shorter wave lengths, much more usable spectrum space can be available for telecommunications and related applications. Significant research effort which would help postpone indefinitely the extreme scarcity or saturation of the radio spectrum may be classified under the seven headings listed below.
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From page 19... ...
This involves information theory, adaptive communications techniques and more sophisticated modulation methods than used in much of the crowded spectrum at the present time. Though there is the possibility of substantial improvement in the efficient use of the spectrum following this line of research, it must be kept in mind that it will not be practical to implement this potential improvement because of long standing channel assignments and investments in systems and equipment.
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From page 20... ...
There is also need to record and establish how effectively the spectrum is in fact used, as against how it is legally assigned and intended for use. On the theoretical front it would be very useful to develop an overall unified engineering theory of propagation to encompass all important physical phenomena such as refraction, diffraction and scatterings.
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F Social and Economic Aspects of Spectrum Utilization The proper use of spectrum resources in the public interest obviously involves some continuing research in technology as discussed above.
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4. Development of a unified engineering theory of propagation to encompass all important physical phenomena, such as refraction, diffraction, and scattering.
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G Kandoian Telecommunications Consultant Ridgewood, New Jersey
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There are many cases, however, where standards are a difficult compromise and where the techniques for standard setting are not always optimized. If one studies the effect of setting standards on the research and development process as it applies to the telecommunications field, it is quite obvious that standards have a noticeable effect.
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From page 25... ...
Often, standards setting bodies involved in the telecommunications field are confronted with the need to arrive at a compromise solution which best reflects the many interests which they perceive. It is often true that the resulting standards have significant effect upon the R&D community and sometimes appear contrary to the best technical and engineering practices.
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From page 26... ...
The telecommunications industry in the United States, dominated almost entirely by the common carriers, has been able to manage its own standards activities very effectively. Standards and specifications for transmission and for equipment have been established primarily by the Bell System and have been sufficiently flexible so that interface problems between operating companies have usually not been overly difficult.
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From page 27... ...
Although not often the case in telecommunications, standardization in Europe has sometimes been used to protect national markets from outsiders, and there are cases where the introduction of unique national standards have perhaps been a matter of national pride. Television broadcasting in Europe now has three standards, the PAL system, the SECAM system and the 405 line system, none of which are compatible with the U.S.
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From page 28... ...
Although it is possible for a competent manufacturer to build equipment for use in more than one country, it is no accident that the multinational telecommunications manufacturing companies do have manufacturing facilities in more than one country. Even in frequency division multiplex equipment, used for long lines that cross national borders, there are significant differences.
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From page 29... ...
of 24 voice channels for the Tl carrier, a European standard worked out by CEPT (Conference Europeenne des Postes et Telecommunications) , uses a grouping of 32 channels of which 30 are voice, and a transmission rate of 2.048 megabits per second.
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From page 30... ...
Its adoption in this country by the common carriers for this application required early choice of coding format and number of channels. When the Bell standards were adopted, digital long distance networks, digital local and toll switching equipment, international PCM, and satellites were not first priority considerations.
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From page 31... ...
Considering now solely the U.S. situation, we find the common carriers presently providing for pulse data transmission on the voice network through the use of modems.
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No agreement now exists even among computer manufacturers for standardizing at these high rates, and the communications compatibility problem is therefore moot at this time. It would appear, however, that the best interest of the nation will not be served by the computer manufacturers adopting one set of standard rates for high speed synchronization, while the common carriers independently optimize the data communications network against a different set of requirements .
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From page 33... ...
Determine also the penalty in fidelity arising from the adoption of multiple standards.
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