Investment in telecommunications: opportunities or pitfalls intoday's environment

The author discusses the expanding telecommunication industry, emphasizing the competitive market for equipment that has sprung up in the wake of deregulation. He discusses the growth of technology, particularly fiber optics and computers, and its effect on long-distance service. He examines the impact that regulation has had on long-distance companies and considers the possible harm that further policy changes could have     

Power and energy

Major power outages in various parts of the world have cast doubt on the electric power industry's claimed readiness for deregulation. Here, the author argues that, in the next few years, as service areas expand and bulk transfers of power grow ever greater, the electric utility industry's main technological challenge will be to maintain the reliability that customers now take almost for granted     

Bill Woodcock: on an internet odyssey

Bill Woodcock designs and installs Internet exchanges around the world. He works for Packet Clearing House everywhere, except Antarctica. He travels to remote and exotic corners of the world; solves technical challenges on the fly with a minimum of resources, making people's lives better.     

Ossi Oikarinen: At the races [Formular one race cars]

Ossi Oikarinen is an engineer for Formula 1 race cars with the Panasonic Toyota racing team. He gets to work on the most advanced race cars in the world, all over the world.     

Global networks

The author discusses the global network for international communications being constructured by Cable and Wireless Ltd., entitled the Global Digital Highway (GDH), which will provide a digital, fiber-optic link connecting major commercial and financial centers around the world. He suggests that the world is waiting for basic global facilities that will be exclusively dedicated to facilitating international communications and networking. He examines the trend toward liberalization in telecommunications policies, led by the US, which has recently been joined by both the UK and Japan. He discusses the role of Cable and Wireless in the context of these liberalization policies     

Engineering education and industrial research and development-thepromise and the reality

The author observes that the social fabric of engineering, the support infrastructure of the profession, and the political and economic systems of the world are undergoing shifts that affect what engineering is, how it is accomplished, and what it should do. He asks what these changes mean in terms of the educational system and explores a few of these issues that lie between academia and the industrial environment beyond. He discusses the engineering curriculum as seen from industry, the role of continuing education, research in academia     

Telecommunications and the future

The effect of deregulation on the telecommunications industry and GTEs strategy in the resulting competitive environment are examined. The impact of increased competition on research and development efforts is discussed. The relationships among the US Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the industry are explored. Economic factors in a system that carries unregulated as well as regulated services and goals for the industry are considered     

Domestic roadblocks to a global information highway

The author examines the overall world business scene, identifying a clear shift toward loosening of restrictions that once made sense in a parochial world but that no longer serve global reality. He discusses restrictions on the regional holding companies in the US, describing them as roadblocks to a global information highway, and highlights some of the ways in which they are being circumvented     

Transmission System Planning-The Old World Meets The New

Transmission systems in the United States and around the world have become more difficult to plan under deregulation. Uncertainties in generation type, location, and pricing coupled with market mechanisms that encourage transfers not designed for in the legacy transmission system have made the transmission planner's life difficult. This paper describes the planning process under regulation, some of the issues encountered during the present transition to a deregulated industry, and some of the open questions that need to be addressed in the United States.     

Personal information service (PIS)-an application of wide-bandcommunications, 2012 A.D

With the affluence that comes with economic developments and technological advances, citizens around the world will require personalized, on-demand, high-quality information services, which the author calls personal information service (PIS). He foresees that by 2012 A.D., a variety of communication services, and in particular PIS, will be much more widely available around the world. To make such services available to the masses, a number of challenges have to be overcome. In this paper, the author addresses the challenges. He believes that by working together solutions can be obtained by 2012 A.D     

The media event [virtual reality]

The author describes how virtual reality-and its ability to immerse users in interactive three-dimensional worlds-was presented as amazing and miraculous, both a salvation and a danger by the media in the USA. He describes how one effect of the media attention has been a broadening of the definition of virtual reality. Initially used only for systems with helmet displays and control gloves that fully immersed users in interactive worlds, the term is now used to describe everything from augmented reality (looking through a display at the real world but with some computer information superimposed on it) to telepresence (remotely controlling a robotic device) to three-dimensional movies     

Introduction by editor - [history of communications]

As recounted in the paper by Irwin Dorros following, the divestiture of AT&T went officially into effect January 1, 1984, 25 years ago. This momentous event irreversibly changed the state of telecommunications in the United States, and, in the years following, throughout the world, as country after country privatized their previously government-owned telecommunication systems. This year of 2009 therefore offers us the opportunity to look back and see what has happened to our field as a result. We are fortunate to have the views of Irwin Dorros on this occasion, since he was a key AT&T executive charged with working out, and helping to resolve, the complex issues of divestiture, both during the negotiations between AT&T and the U.S. government, and in the period following the agreement of divestiture. He describes the nature of the telecommunications industry prior to divestiture and the factors leading to the divestiture agreement. He also provides his own views on the communications industry after divestiture. He pulls no punches in his candid remarks, indicating where AT&T, in his opinion, which had been in the forefront of much of the worldwide innovation in voice telephony, fell behind in the broad area of computer communications. We commend this article to your attention.     

Impact and preliminary results of telecommunications deregulationin Japan

Telecommunications deregulation in Japan has led to increased competition in telecommunications and expansion of the cable TV business. The number of telecommunication carriers has increased rapidly, resulting in the diversification of telecommunication services and reduction of charges. In the cable TV business, two multisystem operators appeared, and at the same time there was a dramatic increase in the number of cable TV subscribers. In this article the impact and preliminary results of telecommunications deregulation in Japan are outlined for the two cases of deregulation of interconnectivity among telecommunications carriers and that of the cable TV business     

The technosphere, the biosphere, the sociosphere Their systems modeling and optimization

In this article the author presents some suggestions as to how we may bring a systems approach to bear on analyzing?and perhaps optimizing?our problems in the broad areas of the geosphere, biosphere, technosphere, and sociosphere, in other words, in the complex world in which we live today. He points out that while we enjoy the advantages of the energy and information revolutions, we must make sure that the structures of our society are flexible enough to adapt to the impact of technological change.     

`Doc' Edgerton: an EE for all seasons

The 70-year career of MIT's Harold E. Edgerton is described. Edgerton is the developer of pioneering stop-action photographic techniques and electronic flashes. He developed the strobe while he was a graduate student at MIT. He remained at MIT, becoming professor emeritus of electrical engineering in 1968, after 30 years of teaching electrical measurement and stroboscopic photography. Edgerton has stayed active since his retirement, continuing to teach his freshman stroboscopic photography seminar, sandwiched between scientific expeditions that have had him traveling all over the world     

Electrical engineering Hall of Fame: Guglielmo Marconi

In 1920, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) selected Guglielmo Marconi as the third recipient of its Medal of Honor. He was honored for "his pioneer work in radio telegraphy." The Italian-born inventor-entrepreneur had become world famous for his success in transmitting wireless signals over long distances in the early 20th century. The IRE Medal of Honor was by no means his first award. He had, in fact, shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1909 for his important contributions to radio science and engineering.     

Fritz Morgan: LEDs into gold

Fritz Morgen researches and designs LED-based lighting systems for theatrical, architectural, retail, and other clients for Color Kinetics Inc. in Boston. He works with top theatrical designers and architects all over the world to create novel lighting effects and one-of-a-kind installations.     

The remarkable Dr. Hendrik van der Bijl

The article contains biographical information about this South African physicist who while continuing his studies in Germany investigated photoelectric emission using an apparatus with a photocathode, an anode, and a grid similar to de Forest's Audion. He established the behavior of this three-element system and subsequently extended the analysis to apply to the thermionic triode at the Western Electric Laboratories in New York. He used this knowledge to design many of the first tubes used in radio and telephony; he invented the grid modulation system for radiotelephony and wrote the first textbook on the vacuum tube in 1920. Soon afterwards he returned to South Africa as Scientific Advisor to the Government and created a countrywide electricity supply network, a world class steel corporation, and numerous other important industrial enterprises     

Convergence of Communication, Infotainment, and Multimedia Applications Require Paradigm Shift in Processor Development and Reuse Pattern

Mobile devices of today have been steadily attracting applications far beyond the realm of voice communication. The market penetration rate of mobile devices has defied all predictions and is projected to remain strong for many years to come (more than 3/4th of the world population still need to be connected). Current and future market trend makes it extremely attractive for complimentary applications and features porting to serve the promising demand (on average mobile users change their mobile device once a year) and huge return on investment (a matter of simple software upgrade). The integration of camera, position location, gaming, audio, and video applications in today's high-end mobile phones supports this fact to a large extent. Other features such as audio/video streaming, digital TV, and personalized content delivery are being considered as the standard feature of the next generation mobile communications devices.New features and enhancements fetch much needed revenue stream and prop up applications integration as add-on to primarily voice-centric devices. This add-on scheme in isolation yields a mediocre solution with respect to power and processing efficiency. The additional power consumption reduces talk/idle time substantially and increased processing requirements add to size (processing elements/gates) and consequently reduces talk/idle time as well. In addition it does not scale well and lacks extensibility. This paper presents a framework for developing object oriented processing framework, which exploits the commonality across multi domain functions by leveraging principles of abstraction, instantiation, and overloading – kind of bringing object oriented programming to hardware level. Dr. Jha is the Standards Fora Expert at Qualcomm. Prior to this he was the Chief Mobility Architect and Technical Fellow at Boeing and CTO of Airify Corporation. He had numerous other leading management/technical leadership positions at Morphics, Philips, Rockwell, General Dynamics, and Northrop. He received his BSEE from BIT Sindri, India, MSEE from CSU Fullerton, Engineer Degree from USC, Los Angeles and Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University, Denmark. He has 12 issued/filed patents and has published more than 20 papers in referred journals and conference proceedings. Dr, Jha is the Sr. member of IEEE and has been invited to all over the world as keynote speaker, panelist, and lecturer. He is the General Chair of WPMC 2006 to be held in San Diego, CA.     

Game of Kings (review of King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by P. Hoffman; 2007) [Books]

A specialist on other people's obsessions, Paul Hoffman writes about one of his own - chess. Hoffman writes in an enjoyable, fast-moving style, focusing on storytelling, with brief excursions into more serious philosophical topics. The author's credentials as a tournament player and acquaintance of several top players are impeccable. He provides first-hand accounts of top events and quotes from some of the best players in the world. Although some of his diversions into more technical topics are superficial and not properly researched, these are minor flaws that should not detract much from a pleasant and interesting reading experience.