Data Communication – the Language of the Future

Author: Daniel Kirk

A career in data communications lets you work in an engineering discipline, helping computer systems and devices "talk" to each other. Networking, routers, routing protocols, and networking over the Internet are applications directly related, and of interest to, data communication majors and those considering a degree in data communication.

Data communication is sometimes considered a sub-discipline of telecommunications, computer science, IT and computer engineering, which is a primary reason why people who have education, expertise and interests in these disciplines may ultimately pursue careers in data communications. Another reason is that computer networks rely heavily on these disciplines, drawing a direct connection between the fields.

The following make students and career professionals strong candidates for careers in data communications:

• Students and tech-savvy professionals who are interested in how computer networks "communicate with each other" and want to influence that communication.



• Young people ready to enter the working world and seasoned professionals wanting to "re-invent" themselves who have interests in local area networks (LANS), and wide area networks (WANS).



• Anyone interested in how networks are interconnected, allowing communication with a variety of different kinds of media.

Once you determine data communication is the field for you and you have an idea of what occupation within the data communications industry you may want to pursue, you can begin going after your data communication degree.

ITT Technical Institute not only offers a highly sought after degree in data communication, combining classroom study with real-world training, the institute also offers the option of getting your data communication degree online, which makes it easy for you to balance your data communication education with your work and personal life.

At ITT Technical Institute, the data communications courses online carry the same value as those offered in our classrooms. Here, you will not only learn the fundamentals of data communications, you'll learn and know how to apply what you've learned. This makes obtaining employment and following your career path much easier after graduation.

Whether you choose to get your entire data communication degree online or in the classroom, you'll be on your way toward a rewarding career that helps computer networks communicate, which helps the business world communicate. Who knows, perhaps you can help develop a streamlined approach to network communication or maybe even help transform the entire industry and the ways in which we communicate electronically?

For more information, please visit: ITT Tech: Data Communication Systems Technology

About the Author:

Daniel’s professional writing career includes award winning, published works of non-fiction and fiction. The author holds a Bachelor’s degree with honors from Northern Arizona University.

Article Source: Data Communication – the Language of the Future

Wireless Application Protocol

Author: Sandra Prior

You can’t go far, even in the mainstream media, without coming across someone speculating about the future of the Internet. Among all the excessive predictions there’s one claim that never really gets much attention. Many more devices that we use will be connected to the Internet. And that’s a shame, because this is an important development, and it’s happening now, with the aid of Wireless Application Protocol (WAP).

What is WAP for?

There’s a lot of information and resources available on the Internet, and as companies take the Web more seriously, so we can do more every day. But if the only access is via your PC, then that’s hardly convenient. Dynamic information like news, sports, weather, and so on, could be of interest no matter where you are. And other sites are most useful when you’re out of the house; if you’re out shopping wouldn’t it be convenient to be able to access the Internet to quickly compare prices?

As so many people now carry some sort of wireless based device anyway, this is clearly a possibility, but there’s a problem. The devices have different capabilities, and run on lots of different wireless networks, so finding a standard way of connecting them to the Internet isn’t easy.

The solution that ties everything together is the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). It’s designed to work on all kinds of digital wireless devices, on just about every wireless network there is. It defines both the method of communications, and the environment in which applications run, so it can be built on any operating system (PalmOS, Windows CE, EPOC, JavaOS, and so on).

Not yet impressed? It’s been estimated that more than 100 million WAP-compatible devices will have been shipped worldwide by the end of this year. The possibilities of tapping this new market are already attracting plenty of attention. Microsoft and Ericcson have formed a new company to market and deliver mobile WAP-based email solutions.

What is WAP Like?

There are many difficulties with having Net access on a mobile phone; in particular, the display size is much less than a PC, and the processor powering the device won’t even be close to Pentium power. As a result, the WAP world has replacements for all the Net technologies and protocols we know and love. For example, pages are written in WML (Wireless Markup Language) rather than HTML, scripting is done in WMLScript as opposed to Javascript, and the pages get to your device courtesy of WTP (Wireless Transaction Protocol) instead of HTTP.

If the prospect of learning a whole new way of working seems depressing, don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it seems. While there are many new concepts – in the Wireless Markup Language, you don’t really create pages, just more ‘decks’ consisting of one or more cards – when you look more closely, it seems the WAP technologies aren’t so very new at all. WMLScript doesn’t look that dissimilar to current coding languages.

What Next?

Already we’re beginning to see some of the same issues that annoy people in the regular Internet world appear with WAP – standards compliance, for one. While the main WAP specification approaches 1.2, support among the various phone companies varies; the siemens C25 supports WAP 1.0, while the Nokia 7110 and most Ericsson products handle WAP 1.1.

If you’d like to get involved yourself, or find out more there are many ways to get started. Guidance on building sites in WML and WMLScript can be found in developers’ kits or on the Internet. What you shouldn’t do is ignore it, because WAP is soon becoming more popular than your PC.

About the Author:

Subscribe to Sandra Prior’s Online Newsletter

and get up to date Computer Technology

News delivered right to your email box for free.

See website for details http://usacomputers.rr.nu and http://sacomputers.rr.nu.

Article Source: Wireless Application Protocol

Ways to Use Voice Over Internet Protocol

Top Twelve Ways to Use Voice Over Internet Protocol in your Business

Author: Gregory Burrus

It seems that each year in this age of the internet, that every day there is a new technology being introduced. If you are like most of us, you are looking for technology to work for you not against you? Have you heard of Voice over internet protocol but not sure if it is worth your time and energy to explore the possible benefits to your business?

In this article we will demonstrate that Voice over internet protocol is a very powerful technology that transcends your normal latest greatest technical tool that is being introduced but you can't see how it applies to you. As the voice component of IOVC strategy and technology, we will list capabilities that you can use to reduce your business expenses and improve your ability to attract customers using just this one technical component.

Voice over internet protocol is a well known technology in some areas and in others it is relatively unknown. However as one of the internet, office, voice and customer management technologies, IOVC, it is a voice over internet protocol technology, which you may not realize, can work wonders for your business. Voice over internet protocol to most people know it as tool that can reduce their phone bill but not necessarily as a tool to help improve and grow their business. But you can use voice over internet protocol technologies:

1. As your phone service and eliminate your current traditional phone service

2. To reduce your phone bill and save some money in your pocket

3. As a marketing tool and let it help you brand your business

4. To run Teleseminars for a very low cost

5. To record audio messages and talk for you when you are not available

6. As your instant support tool and show your customers you are very customer focused

7. For voice mail when you can't be available

8. To open up international office and do this all in 5 minutes

9. For your call forwarding service and let voice over internet protocol enable you to go mobile now

10. As an office extension especially if you need to build a bigger office or add on staff

11. To pay your bills as a convenient way to send money to your Paypal contacts

12. To integrate with Microsoft Outlook and save time, money and energy

As you can see from the list of Voice over internet protocol capabilities above, this voice technology has many beneficial capabilities. It is one of the reasons this IOVC technology is starting to garner more attention in the small business community.

Most people as you can imagine only use Voice over internet protocol as phone replacement technology. But now that you know it can help you market your business, or help you present your business, even when you can't be there in person. The fact it can help you pay your bills while on the road should show you this can be one powerful tool The fact that most of this comes for free should really excite you.

About the Author:

Learn to build your business on the web using IOVC strategy and technology solutions at http://www.iovc.com. Download a free IOVC pdf now. Skye is here to stay and can help your business - learn more here http://www.techoss.com/voice.htm

Article Source: Top Twelve Ways to Use Voice Over Internet Protocol in your Business

Transmission Control Protocol (Tcp)

Author: Mangesh A. Dahale

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

Today, the majority of application protocols use the Internet's reliable Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The functionality of TCP is designed to be adequate not only for Internet applications but also for the variety of underlying networks.

The protocol aims at providing a reliable service with the following features:

1. Fairness to other flows that potentially share a channel's bandwidth

2. Dynamic discovery of current availability of bandwidth

• 1. Mechanisms for congestion avoidance and control and for optimization of the error recovery process.

Error control mechanisms are the central component of reliable protocols. They affect a protocol's performance with respect to goodput, energy expenditure, and overhead. Error control is usually a two-step process: error detection, followed by error recovery . TCP assumes a relatively reliable underlying network where most packet losses are due to congestion . TCP error control is centered on congestion losses and ignores the possibility of transient random errors or temporary blackouts due to handoffs and extended burst errors that are typical in wireless networks. TCP detects errors by monitoring the sequence of data segments acknowledged (received). When timeouts are correctly configured, a missing segment is taken to indicate an error, namely that the segment is lost due to congestion (i.e. buffer overflow). Reliable protocols usually implement an error recovery strategy based on two techniques: retransmission of lost segments; and downward adjustment of the sender's window size and readjustment of the timeout period. When using TCP over wireless links results in congestion control measure being invoked at the source.

The Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease (AIMD) algorithm is used to implement TCP window adjustments; based on the analysis the algorithm achieves stability and converges to fairness in situations where the demand (of competing flows) exceeds the channel's bandwidth .

In a wireless network, however packet looses will occur more often due to unreliable wireless links than due to congestion. It is shown that the performance of TCP is sensitive to the packet size, and that significant performance improvements are obtained if a ‘good' packet size is used. Packets on the internet may get lost either due to congestion, or due to corruption by the underlying physical medium. Given the low error rates of wired links, almost all losses are related to congestion. TCP's reaction to looses is based on this very observation. Losses are detected either by timeouts at the source or by multiple duplicate acknowledgements ( dupacks ) from the receiver. TCP assumes that each packet loss is solely due to congestion. However, in a wireless network, TCP will encounter packet looses that may be unrelated to congestion. Nonetheless, these losses trigger congestion control measures at the source and severely degrade performance.

TCP was designed and carefully calibrated to overcome the problems like as follows:

• 1. Stability.
• 2. Heterogeneous ( receiver buffers, network bandwidth and delay ).
• 3. Fairness in bandwidth consumption of competing flows.
• 4. Efficiency in utilization.
• 5. Congestion control ( that effectively avoids situations of congestive collapse ).

Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a means for building a reliable communications stream on top of the unreliable packet Internet Protocol (IP). TCP is the protocol that supports nearly all Internet applications. The combination of TCP and IP is referred to as TCP/IP and many people imagine, incorrectly, that TCP/IP is a single protocol.

Performance Metrics of TCP :

Goodput :

This is the measure of how efficiently a connection utilizes the network. It is determined as the ratio of useful data received at the destination and the total amount of data transmitted by the source. If a connection requires a lot of extra packets to traverse the network due to retransmission, its goodput is low. It is desirable that each connection have as high a goodput as possible. Clearly, this metric is of great significance for efficient operation of a network.

Throughput :

This is the measure of how soon an end user is able to receive data. It is determined as the ratio of the total data received by the end user and the connection time. A higher throughput will directly impact the user's perception of the quality of service.

About the Author:

Article Source: Transmission Control Protocol (Tcp)