Previous Table of Contents Next


Chapter 1
What are ATM and ADSL?

Questions Answered in This Chapter

Why do we need to communicate?

How does communication unite people?

What is a communication system?

What is information encoding?

What are ATM and ADSL?

Where do ATM and ADSL come from?

Why do we need ATM and ADSL?

Who will use ATM and ADSL?

Why Do We Need to Communicate?

Human communication technologies have evolved over eons from the primitive to the complex, keeping pace with the evolution of human development. Communication technologies are so important to the success of day-to-day human interaction that perhaps communication technologies have provided the pace of human development and may be the foundation upon which rest the achievements of humankind.

In the beginning, simple hand gestures, body movements, and grunts were sufficient to convey every possible expression of thought from one cave-dwelling humanoid to another. As cavemen and cavewomen emerged from dark, dank, smoke-filled caves and began dwelling in open spaces populated with many unfriendly, and hungry, creatures, new social structures and new methods of communicating were necessary for humankind to individually and collectively survive the new challenges. If humans were to thrive in new social structures faced with new threats, more complex communication skills and reliable transmission systems were essential.

Ideas had to be expressed in their correct context or else misunderstandings might lead to unfortunate consequences. Information had to be reliably conveyed and shared to ensure the survival of the group. Body language, hand signals, and grunts gave way to more sophisticated vocalization as human society evolved from small, simple, family-based, cave-dwelling groups to more complex and competing tribal groups populating the savannas. As human society began the conquest of the land, personal language skills necessary for reliable face-to-face communications became necessary.

As human social groupings further increased in size and split into semiautonomous villages, the need to communicate long distance between these clan-based groups of similar persuasions became necessary for their mutual survival. While we cannot be certain, the first transmission system used for communicating between villages was probably a fleet-footed human messenger. Messengers have always been a part of our communications systems, even used frequently today.

While runners were more or less reliable, depending upon their individual skill in avoiding enemies and evading hungry carnivores, some societies learned long ago that sound could travel faster than the fleetest runners. A system of communicating based upon the sound emitted when a hollow tree trunk was forcibly struck with a club was developed and perfected, giving us the basic drum. Where would humans get the idea for drumming to send messages?


Figure 1-1.   A modern

Interestingly enough, there is a large beetle that inhabits the African plains that is very adept at drumming, annoyingly loud, to call a mate. The beetle, in the still of the night, perches upon an acacia tree and periodically beats the end of his hardened exoskeleton against the tree trunk. A specific sound pattern is beat each time the beetle pounds his tail against the tree. Perhaps some individual listening to the sound of the beetle overcame his fear of the night, and roaming carnivores, and investigated the origins of the drumming. After observing how the beetle made the interesting sound by striking the tree trunk, this curious individual could have easily picked up a stick and imitated the beetle by striking a trunk. The drum (and drummer) is born!

Random beating on drums, besides sounding awful (if you do not believe, occupy the same room as a 4-year-old beating on a set of drums), cannot convey much intelligent information. A method of encoding information was necessary that the drumbeats might have some meaning to the listeners. The drummers collectively agreed upon a set of rules that defined the meanings of the beats.

The drums and drummers, spread out across the land in the tribal villages, represent a communications transmission system. A system of drummers could keep the citizens informed of important events faster and much more reliably than a fleet of runners or messengers could. Drummers were not as likely to be eaten by wild animals or waylaid by hostile neighbors as runners or messengers were.

Communications technology and transmission systems were keeping pace with the evolving social and political environments. Imagine intertribal and intratribal warfare based on poorly communicated ideas and information. The communication channels among and between groups of tribes had to be clear and the transmission systems had to be reliable, else misunderstandings could lead to death and destruction! What a parallel with todays society. Saddam Hussein claims just such a communication error between himself and the United States ambassador to Iraq led to the 1991 Gulf War.

Other means of communicating between societies were developed, all to keep pace with changing and evolving human needs. From light, smoke, and fire signals to written messages carried by mounted messengers and passenger pigeons, humans sought faster and more reliable ways of communicating in a society growing more and more complex. Advances in natural philosophy, pacing the headlong rush into the Industrial Revolution, led to the development of the telegraph, then the telephone.


Figure 1-2.   We've come a long way, baby, in just 100 years.

Telephone companies set about furiously wiring the world with copper while they and other companies began developing more complex communications and transmission systems built upon radio wave and coaxial cable technologies. Soon, reliable radio transmission was developed and communications transmission systems were now able to leap previously insurmountable obstacles, such as terrain and distance, economically. Radio transmission continued to evolve, ultimately yielding satellite transmission technology. Communications satellites give us an unprecedented ability to communicate around the globe. While satellites could leap tall mountains with a single bound, ground transmission systems were still mired in coaxial cable and microwave transmission systems until the perfection of light wave technology. Light wave technology gives us the opportunity to communicate locally and around the country at data rates that we could not even imagine just a few years previously.



Previous Table of Contents Next