14 Technological Trends in communication

DR. Susant Kumar Pradhan

Module Structure

13.1 Introduction

13.2 Concept of Communication Technology

13.3 Overview of Technological Trends in Communication

13.4 Let us sum up

13.1 Introduction

Communication is an integral part of human existence. It is the process of communication and its ever increasing efficiency assumed in the process of evolution of scientific knowledge has resulted in transformation of the Stone Age of past to the modern globalized era of today which is fuelled by information, powered by technology and driven by knowledge. In the INFORMATION AGE of this 21st century we clearly see the impact of Computer, Telephone, Television and Internet radically transforming our lives and opening up new vistas of knowledge, information, work, employment, business, entertainment and communication. Our lives are touched everyday by computers and telecommunication based information systems.

Information and Communication have come a long way since its inception which is parallel to the evolution of human kind itself. The need to communicate or share one’s own viewpoints and feelings gave birth to adoption of technology in the form of gestures, body movement, speech and script. As man started his journey towards modernization technology for communication of information too became enriched with the emerging new technologies ranging from print media, simple audio, video gadgets to the latest computer and telecommunication technology.

Information and communication technologies are now widely used by people thanks to the emergence of social networking sites and the concomitant use of hand held devices like smartphones, tablets and laptops. The modern technological gadgets like smartphones, tablets, palmtops and laptops have completely transformed the way people communicate, interact and do business with one another. Modern communication tools such as Email, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Snapchat etc. are the mainstream now and used across all age groups all over the world.

13.2 Concept of Communication Technology

Before we attempt to know the technological trends in communication, it is necessary to understand the meaning of certain key terms that are either used separately or in combination in describing and discussing about various facets of communication technology, its use and application in various spheres of human endeavours; and, the issues and limitations associated with the application of technology.

Information simply means a collection of facts or knowledge acquired through study, experience or instruction from which further conclusions may be drawn. Information refers to knowledge of specific events or situation that has been gathered or received by communication or intelligence.

Communication on the other hand communication is the process of conveying information through exchange of ideas, feelings, intentions, attitudes, as well as by speeches, gestures, writings, behaviour and possibly by variety of ways including the electromagnetic means. In other words, communication is the meaningful exchange of information between two or multiple participants either directly or indirectly mediated by other persons, media and technology viz. printed books, broadcasted talks, telecasted discussions and webhosted documents, audio, video and even live conferencing.

Technology is defined as the discipline dealing with the art and science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems.

Communication Technology may be defined as the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to exchange information verbally or non-verbally in an efficient manner. While communication deals with the process of accessing information, decoding information and its transmission the technology deals with the mechanism of processing of it via a medium or channel with increasing efficiency e.g. radio, television, computers and many such electronic and telecommunication tools. The technology facilitates communication between individuals or groups who are not physically present at the same location.

Trend means the general direction of a phenomena (e.g. fashion, market etc.) often governed by popularity or large scale acceptability by the masses.

Hence, by “Technological Trends in Communication” we mean the latest development in the field of information and communication technology that has been immensely popular and widely accepted by the masses across the globe.

According to Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA, 2008) the technological trend that we witness today is due to:

• An accelerating pace of change driven by overlapping developments in technology and connection between people, databases and objects;
• Diversity in the development of physical infrastructure including broadband, digital broadcasting, smart radio systems, sensor networks, mesh networks, efficient techniques in multimedia transmission, location sensing and context-aware technologies, intelligent transport systems and satellite services;
• Continuing spread of distributed connectivity through integration of information processing beyond the desktop into everyday objects and activities;
• Enhanced content and network management capabilities driven by developments in deep packet inspection and content filtering technologies, coupled with the need to improve e-security, identity management, intellectual property protection and energy efficiency;
• The emerging social web acting both as a platform and database enabling innovation and creativity by users and service providers; and,
• Continuing scientific and technological innovations, which in combination are driving advances in computing power, display technologies, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.

Communication Technology today is a major branch of study dealing with the topics that we have seen in the preceding paragraphs. It is beyond the scope of this unit to discuss and elaborate all the emerging technological trends in communication. Let us therefore, have an overview of some the major technological trends in communication in the following section.

13.4 Overview of Technological Trends in Communication

We have seen in the previous section how communication has evolved over a period of time. In the present section we will see which technological changes and innovations in the field of communication have been found immensely popular and how those have become the mainstay of the contemporary society.

Technological trends in communication can be viewed from different angles viz.

(1)   the technological applications that are transforming and shaping the communication

(2)   the technical infrastructure that makes the technological application possible, and

(3)   the trends in information communication network management.

• Technological Applications Transforming and Shaping Communication

Let us first see which technological applications are shaping and transforming the way we communicate today and those make the world around us more and more intelligible.

Internet: The internet is the most powerful and the most popular medium of communication today and it will continue to remain the main driving force behind future developments in information and communication technologies.

Internet is a system of networking computers across the globe using TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) or IP (Internet Protocol) which are a set of standards for transmitting and receiving digital data. The Internet consists primarily of the collection of billions of interconnected web pages in host servers that are transferred using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and is collectively known as the World Wide Web (WWW).

The Internet also uses FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to transfer files, and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to transfer e-mail. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies.

Accession or to surf a particular site one need to type the web address in the web browser that is technically called Universal Resource Locator (URL). URL typically begins with http://www.xyz……… and ends with extensions like .com/org/co/in/uk etc. Alternatively, one may locate his desired web page with the help of different search engines like, Google (http://www.google.co.in), Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.co.in), etc. which instantly offer us to choose our desired page out of thousands of URLs on a given topic.

To access the Internet in homes it is required to have either a dial-up or broadband connection through telephone or dedicated cable network. Besides, high-speed internet can be accessed wirelessly through Wi-Fi, satellite and 3G/4G enabled cell phones. Internet access points are now available almost everywhere such as libraries, banks, educational institutions, Government departments, private internet cafes, airports, hotels, coffee shops etc. The internet is widely accessed today for various usages like web browsing, ticket booking, banking, online payment, online education (e.g. e-pathsala), e-learning, online-tests, e-governance, e-business, e-trading etc.

One of the important advantage of Internet is it allows greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the aid of high-speed connections. The Internet can be accessed almost anywhere by numerous means, including wirelessly through mobile phones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles and other portable internet devices.

The Internet has been a major outlet for leisure activity since its inception, with entertaining social experiments. People use the Internet to access and download music, movies and other works for their enjoyment and relaxation. Free and fee-based services exist for all of these activities, using centralized servers. You will know more about internet in Module-16.

WWW:    The World Wide Web is one of the many services offered on the Internet. The Web is a global set of documents, images and other resources, logically interlinked by hyperlinks and supported with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). URIs symbolically identifies services, servers, and other databases, and the documents and resources that they can provide. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the main access protocol of the World Wide Web. Web services also use HTTP to allow software systems to communicate in order to share and exchange business design and data.

Compared to printed media, books, encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled the decentralization and democratization of information on a large scale. The WWW has enabled individuals and organizations to publish ideas and information to a potentially large audience online at significantly reduced expense and time. Publishing a web page, a blog, or building a website involves little initial cost and for that matter many cost-free services are available. Advertising on popular web pages is also a lucrative business as the sale of products and services directly via the Web continues to grow.

People use the WWW to access news, weather and sports reports, to plan and book vacations and to find out more about their interests. The WWW also provides the much desired platforms for messaging and mailing services to stay in touch with friends and other relatives and likeminded people worldwide, sometimes in the same way as we used to have pen friends previously.

The first generation (year 1990-2000) of the web was characterized as the Information Age that enabled us to have access to various important information through search functions. The second generation of Web (2.0) that hypothetically spread between years 2000-2010 has largely been about interaction and it became known as the social web. Currently in the early stages of development, the semantic web (Web 3.0) is expected to provide a more custom-made web experience by anticipating and delivering information of interest to individual users (ACMA,2009) .

Streaming media: Streaming media is the process of delivery of digital media for the immediate consumption or enjoyment by end-users. This means that an Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific such as Smartphone, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a television or radio receiver.The range of streaming media content is much wider, from specialized technical webcasts to on-demand popular multimedia services.

Podcasting is another application where audio material is downloaded and played back on a computer or moved to a portable media player to be listened to on the move or any time as per preference of the user. These techniques using simple equipment allow anybody, with little censorship or licensing control, to broadcast audio-visual material worldwide. Now many radio and television broadcasters provide Internet feeds of their live audio and video programs. They may also allow time-shift viewing or listening in a customized manner as per the preference of the users. These providers have been typically joined by a group of pure Internet “broadcasters” who never had on-air licenses.

YouTube which was launched in 2005 is now the leading website for free streaming videos with a huge users following. It uses a flash-based web player to stream and show video files. The compression technique enables more efficient delivery of video content through internet. Registered users may upload an unlimited amount of video and build their own personal profile. YouTube claims that its users watch hundreds of millions, and upload hundreds of thousands of videos daily.

Chat:It is a typically real-time text-based or voice or video communication between two or more people simultaneously via computer networking. Chat messages are generally short in order to enable other participants to respond quickly. Thereby, a feeling similar to a spoken conversation is created. People in online chat sessions type messages to each other using their keyboards/keypads. The text message instantly appears on the screens of all the participants.

People can also talk to each other through voice chats and video chats. Video chats are possible if there is a provision of web cameras attached to the interconnected computers or through smartphones and tablets having front facing cameras and of course the appropriate software.

E-mail: Electronic mail is the exchange of computer mediated messages between the sender and the recipients through internet. E-mail is instant and if both the recipient and the sender are online simultaneously then the communication occurs in real-time. Otherwise the sent messages remained stored in one’s designated virtual mail-box that can be accessed any time as per the convenience of the receiver. Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages on behalf of the users. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously.

Connection to internet is required only briefly, typically to connect to the mail server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages. There are many software platforms available to send and receive e- mail such as: Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, etc. Along with the messages other files, photos, videos and any other data can be shared as attachments amongst the users.

E-mails are exchanged between the sender and recipients using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) with software programs called mail transfer agents (MTAs); and delivered to a mail server by programs called mail delivery agents (MDAs, also sometimes called local delivery agents, LDAs).

Users can retrieve their messages from servers using standard protocols such as POP (Post Office Protocol) or IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) which are programmed accordingly. Programs used by users for retrieving, reading, and managing email are called mail user agents (MUAs).

Email is now being increasingly used on smartphones thanks to the specific mobile apps designed for that purpose. Earlier users could only access email on computers, it is now possible for users to check their email out of their home, office or institution and while on the go. Alerts can also be sent to the phone to notify them immediately of new messages.

This has given email the ability to be used for more frequent communication between users and allowed them to check their email and write messages throughout the day. With all its advantages, Emails should be used judiciously and need to be carefully monitored for spamming, phishing, spoofing and spreading of Worms, Trojans and Viruses via mail attachments.

Teleconferencing: It is a means by which individuals or group located at different places can meet and exchange data, speech, visuals (like graphs, diagrams etc.). Through video conferencing, particularly in two-way video conferencing people located at remote sites can see themselves in live action using information and communication technology.

Video conferencing creates a social presence that resembles face-to-face meetings and discussions that enables participants to see the facial expressions and physical demeanor of each other while actually being present at remote sites.

Alternatively, internet teleconferencing includes internet telephone conferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, and Augmented Reality conferencing. Internet telephony involves conducting a teleconference over the Internet or a Wide Area Network. One key technology in this area is Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). Popular software for personal use includes Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.

The more advanced version of teleconferencing is on the anvil in the form of Telepresence that aims to provide a video-based immersive system which attempts to imitate a face-to-face meeting using high-resolution 3D vision and audio. Such tele-immersive systems combine aspects of virtual reality with videoconferencing and aim to allow people separated by great distances to interact naturally, as though they were in the same room. It combines the display and interaction techniques of virtual reality with new vision technologies that transcend the traditional limitations of a camera.

The result is that all the participants, however distant, can share and explore a life-size space. Current hurdles for the widespread adoption of Telepresence systems are the high costs of the systems installation, extensive bandwidth usage, and the lack of interoperability with existing videoconferencing systems and other business applications.

Social Networking: Social Networking service is a web-based platform primarily aimed at establishing social relations among people who, share interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections. A social network service typically consists of a user profile, his social links, and a variety of additional services to share each other’s feeling, interest through instant messaging, mailing/sharing of files, pictures, videos etc. with friends, friend of friends and even with others. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, pictures, posts, activities, events, interests with people in their network.

There are many social networking services emerged over a period of time that include Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter etc. These social networking services make it possible to connect people who share interests and activities across political, economic, and geographic borders. Social networking provides individuals and organisations with a low-cost medium for producing and distributing content in ways that were previously only available through traditional media (TV, radio and print).

With the predominance of social networks and convergence of digital identities enable the users to have and to maintain one central digital identity that feeds into their multiple social network profiles. Secure exchanging and distributing of personal data and information (photos, videos, music etc.) have become easier.

Social networking now is increasingly being used for education, business promotion, creation of political awareness, sharing of research findings and scientific knowledge, advertising, philanthropic activities, legal and police investigation, dissemination of social message by the Government Departments and even NGOs pertaining to general health, hygiene etc. Social networks will continue to change everything in our everyday life. A recent European survey found that “the use of social networking tools as part of everyday life has also led to an increase in efficiency”.

The Trends in Technical Infrastructure for Communication

The smooth and hassle free application of modern communication tools like internet, www, social networking etc. depends on the development and installation of supportive infrastructure for high speed data transfer. High speed data transfer on the other hand requires digitization of data and their efficient and economical transmission through digital telecommunication technologies. Some of the technical infrastructure that is indispensible in today’s context is discussed in the following paragraphs.

Broadband: Broadband refers to a telecommunication signalling method that is capable of transporting multiple signals and data traffic simultaneously. Broadband has a wider communication bandwidth of at least 256 kilobytes per second (kbps) or higher in comparison to narrower bandwidth of only 56 kbps in case of baseband. In other words broadband can transmit more data with greater speed across multiple channels simultaneously. The maximum bandwidth currently available in India is 49 megabytes per second (mbps) in case of some 4G networks and it will increase up to 111 mbps soon. Higher bandwidth is necessary for transmission of rich data like multimedia, video, HD (high definition) contents in both ways that is downstream (for download) and upstream (for upload). Thus the broadband is the backbone of the whole digital communication system worldwide.

Broadband transmission is made through cables (viz. coaxial, optical fibre, twisted pair), DSL local telephone networks, and wireless including mobile broadband services offered by various mobile service providers in the form of 2G/3G /4G technologies.

Wireless: Wireless refers to telecommunications systems (e.g. radio transmitters and receivers, remote controls etc.) which use some form of energy (e.g. radio waves, acoustic energy, etc.) to transfer information without the use of wires. Information is transferred in this manner over both short and long distances. Wireless applications may involve point-to-point communication, point-to-multipoint communication, broadcasting, cellular networks and other wireless networks, Wi-Fi etc.

The best-known examples of wireless technology include the mobile phone, satellite television, Wireless networks: Wireless LAN (WLAN/ Wi-Fi), WiMAX, Cellular data service such as GSM, CDMA and GPRS, to 3G networks such as W-CDMA, EDGE or CDMA2000; Global Positioning System (GPS) and many other communicational applications. Wireless technology is the mainstay in today’s communication system.

Communications satellites:A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that has been stationed in the space for the purpose of providing telecommunications links to the earth based receiving and transmission stations. Communications satellites are commonly used for mobile phone signals, weather forecasting, broadcasting television or radio programs, internet access, communication link to ships, aeroplanes, etc.

Communications satellites are artificial satellites that relay received signals from an earth station and then retransmit the same signal to other earth stations. They are commonly deployed in a circular geostationary orbit located 35786 KM above the earth. While viewed from the earth, a satellite in a geostationary orbit appears motionless, in a fixed position in the sky so the nomenclature is geostationary. In the process they are capable of covering one-third of the earth’s surface therefore quite economical in terms of operational cost. India’s INSAT series belongs to this category.

Cloud: Among the other megatrends in the field of communication one is Cloud computing or cloud services. Cloud computing refers to the use of web-based computing systems, applications and services that are accessed independently from the underlying infrastructure. This enables computing services to be available where and when needed. Cloud is now increasingly used by millions of users worldwide for the simple reason that, now, people have more than one computer or computer like or computer based devices like a laptop, a Smartphone, a table, a desktop PC and cloud services are just ideal for synchronising data between many such devices.

Cloud computing in other words refers to a computing hardware or group of computing hardware machines such as a server or servers connected through a communication network such as the Internet, an intranet, a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN). Any individual user who has permission to access the server can use the server’s processing power to run an application, store data, or perform any other computing task. Therefore, instead of using a personal computer every time to run a native application, the individual can now run the application from anywhere in the world, as the server provides the processing power to the application and the server is also connected to a network via the Internet or other connection platforms to be accessed from anywhere.

Some of the well known cloud vendors are Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle cloud etc. who offer services in the form of software, platform and infrastructure. Cloud thus provides a secure, highly available, managed, cheaper and less cumbersome environment for users. Therefore, there will be less need to maintain applications and data in-house when it is far more cost effective, accessible and a higher quality of service via the cloud.

Smartphone: A Smartphone is a mobile device with more advanced computing capability and connectivity than basic cell phones. Smartphone are typically loaded with various features of a mobile phone along with those of other popular gadgets, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a media player, a digital camera, and/or a GPS navigation unit plus the features of a touchscreen computer, including web browsing, Wi-Fi, and 3rd-party mobile applications (apps).

The popularity of Smartphone can be gauged from the fact that only Android and iPhone (Smartphones with Android/iPhone operating system) owners account for half of the cell phone user population. At the same time you should also take into account that there are other brands of Smartphones that run with alternative operating systems viz. Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Symbian, Bada etc. According to IDC Worldwide shipments of smartphones topped 1 billion units in 2013 (up 38% from 2012’s 725 million) while comprising a 55% share of the mobile phone market in 2013. (up from 42% in 2012).

More than half of mobile users access internet search on a daily basis and a staggering 99% use their mobile browser each day. The biggest trend with the greatest immediate impact on communication is the shift to mobile. Global mobile traffic currently represents 17.4% of all internet traffic and is rapidly increasing. Mobile internet use is expected to surpass traditional desktop internet use in 2014. Mobile has now become deeply embedded in our lives by offering convenience through immediacy, simplicity and context. Smartphone and other such mobile devices (e.g. tablets) are quickly becoming the platform of choice for computing and communication in comparison to the gadgets those require sitting behind a stationary desk.

Ø  Trends in Information Communication Network Management

The unprecedented and rapid development in the field of communication technology has also raised the concern about the safety of personal data and security, ownership and control over copyright of the material produced by individual or organizations and the loss of direct control over applications and software. The increasing trend of the use of internet and allied web-based applications in business and social transaction has given rise to organised cyber crime across the world in the form of personal data theft, impersonation, hacking of online bank accounts, hacking of the sites of the government department, spreading of malicious software to steal data and so on and so forth. This precarious situation of compromised web-security, calls for more stringent regulatory mechanism to authenticate and validate the internet communication and transaction.

Protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) of the digital content in the form of documents, images, audio, video etc. is another major concern that needs attention while ensuring proper management of information and communication network.

A multipronged approach to e-security is necessary to maintain the integrity of internet transactions. Among the other things the end-user education, effective cyber law, the mechanism of enforcement of the cyber law, international cooperation of nations including the cooperation of the internet service providers and web hosting agencies worldwide is immensely essential to ensure e-security and to prevent cyber fraud and threat.

The Information Technology Act, 2000 (amended in 2008) of India has provisions to deal with various types of cyber crimes including data theft, fraud, mischief, forgery, defamation, IPR violations, credit card frauds, pornography, unauthorized hacking, email spamming email spoofing, Trojan attack etc.

The Government of India has also established Data Security Council that is focusing in the area of Advocacy on Data Protection and Cyber Security, Capacity Building on Security and Privacy etc. However, a more comprehensive cyber security policy is still in the process of finalization.

13.5 Let us sum up

In this unit we have discussed about the meaning of “communication”, “technology‟, “communication technology” and more specifically “technological trends in communication”.

Technological Trends in Communication simply means the latest development in the field of information and communication technology that has gained popularity and wide acceptability by the people across the globe.

Technological trends in communication is the outcome of the human beings never ending urge to communicate or to share their knowledge, skills, feeling etc. supported by the massive development in the field of tele-communication technology. We have discussed how the technological applications like internet and internet based tools like www, chat, streaming media, e-mail, teleconferencing, social networking etc. transformed our day to day life so far as fulfilling our day to day need of performing basic activities to satisfy our emotion by getting connected to the likeminded people transcending the socio-political-geographical boundaries. The world has now turned to a global village thanks to the advancement in the field of communication technology.

We have also discussed about the role of technical infrastructure such as the broadband (both fixed and mobile), wireless technology, communication satellites, cloud and smaller hand held devices for computing and communication like the Smartphone, tablets etc. in revolutionising our socio-economic aspect of life the way we experience it today.

Finally we have discussed how the unprecedented development in the field of communication technology also ushered in certain aberrations in the form of cyber fraud, cyber crime, data theft, hacking, violation of intellectual property rights etc. However, these undesirable outgrowths of communication technology can be effectively managed by proper user education, formulation and implementation of cyber law and development of efficient e-security software.

References

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