Principles Digital Communication System & Computer Networks (Charles River Media Computer Engineering)

39.4 THE CHALLENGES

Though the roadmap for communications technology is very clear, there are many challenges for communications engineers.

• Providing the necessary quality of service (QoS) is a major problem. For multimedia services that require high bandwidths, if the user requires a specific throughput and a minimum delay, achieving these QoS parameters is presently a research challenge, particularly in wireless networks.

• Though reliability of the communication networks and network elements improved substantially with the introduction of digital systems, achieving 100% availability continues to be a challenge. Fault-tolerant systems and fault-tolerant networking are areas of active research.

• The complexity of the communications networks is increasing day by day, and managing the networks continues to be a great problem. Though the telecommunications management network will be a big leap forward in efficient network management, legacy equipment continues to be used. Network management will be another area with research potential.

• Information security and network security are very important issues to be addressed. Attacks on information systems and networks are growing, and elimination of security threats is a high-priority research area.

• As the security of people and nations come under attack, governments resort to more and more surveillance. Telephone calls will be monitored, e-mails will be monitored, and so on. The debate on individual privacy versus public safety will heat up in coming years. As specialists in the communication technology, the communication engineers need to address this issue as well.

As it is said, even in communications technology, "the greatest songs are still unsung". In the coming years, we will see many more exciting developments, many of which we never even imagined.

As the complexity of the communication networks, increases, reliability, security, and network management will be the major design issues.

Summary

In this chapter, we discussed how the architecture of the telecommunications networks evolved. The PSTN, the PLMN, the Internet, cable and satellite broadcasting networks, and so on provide us many communication facilities. However, we need to access different networks through different gadgets for obtaining different services. With the emergence of convergence, we will have the option of accessing any service through a device of our choice. Instant messaging and unified messaging will facilitate accessing communication services easier, faster, and cheaper.

In the future, with the availability of high-bandwidth local loops and high-speed backbone networks, many value-added services will be provided. Even remote/rural areas can be brought into the mainstream through wireless local loops. The global village will no longer be a utopia, it will be a reality.

References

The landscape of communications technology is changing very fast. It is important to keep pace with these developments. Journals published by international professional societies such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) give the latest information on the emerging technologies. In particular, the IEEE Communications Magazine, the IEEE Computer Magazine, and the Communications of ACM are excellent journals that can keep us "future-proof".