Data communications

The envisioned National Information Infrastructure (NII)-sometimes called the information superhighway, or the Infobahn-has sown the seed for numerous public and private consortia. Some of these consortia are briefly mentioned. The backbone protocols OSI and TCP/IP and how to bridge the gap between them are then discussed. The author then discussed the bearer technology for broadband services which are still evolving. Fast Ethernet, SMDS, spread spectrum, and LEO satellites are discussed