ADVERTISEMENTS:
This essay provides information about Internet: Increasing Dominance and Significance of Internet !
The Internet network began in 1960s in United States and soon became common. Internet network became the backbone of the computer-mediated communication in 1990s, since it gradually links up most networks.
Image Courtesy : us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/pzaxe/internet.jpg
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In the mid-1990s it connected 44000 computer networks and about 3.2 million host computers worldwide with an estimated 25 million users and it is expanding rapidly. In the year 2005 Internet network crossed 6 million computer networks.
The Internet originated in a daring scheme imagined in the 1960s by the technological worriers of US Defence Department Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) to prevent a Soviet takeover or destruction of American communication in case of nuclear war. To some extent it was the electronic equivalent of the Maoist tactics of guerrilla forces around a vast territory to counter an enemy’s might with versality and knowledge of terrain.
The outcome was a network architecture that, as its inventors wanted, cannot be controlled from any centre, and is made up of thousands of autonomous computer networks that have innumerable ways to link up going around electronic barriers. Ultimately ARAPANET, the network set up by the US Defence Department, became the foundation of the global, horizontal communication networks.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The rapid evolution of microprocessor technology since its discovery as well as the swift advances in fibre optic network technologies resulted in rapid growth of computing power and the communication power of people around the world. This advances in the technology enabled the development of new types of services to be used in digital format. Technological advances have also slashed the costs of information and communication. Services such as electronic mail (E-mail) have become free of cost. Internet telephony offers much cheaper long-distance communication than the traditional telephone.
The cost of transmitting digital information anywhere in the world has also fallen dramatically. Until the early 1980s, communication was generally restricted to analog signaling, which means each telecommunication network was designed to carry different types of information separately. Voice traffic was carried over the telephone system, text used a separate telex network and high-frequency broadcast networks were dedicated to sending video and audio signals. With digital communication, these separate networks are becoming less differentiated.
The Internet currently carries a combination of pictures, drawings, moving images, sound and text. The technologies of telephone and television, the radio and camera, the fax and word processor, the data base and the spread sheet all are integrated into one system, the Internet, which makes Internet unique in its capacity to support two-way interactions. Since early 1990s the World Wide Web (WWW) has become the mainstream environment for creating and disseminating digital information.
Previously access to Internet was almost exclusively from personal computers. This has been changing for the past couple of years. Internet is available through mobile phones (data enabled wireless telephones). This development did enabled users in remote areas to access the Internet and its related services without a basic ICT infrastructure. Sale of personal computers increased by 20% in 2004-05 to 3.63 million units due to strong demand from the financial, IT and telecom sectors.
It is expected to grow 17% to 4.25 million PCs during the current fiscal. Internet subscribers also went up by 23% in 2004-05 to 2.92 million over the previous year. The rise in PC sales can be attributed to the home segment, which posted a growth of 48% significant consumption by the telecom, banking, manufacturing as well as BPO and IT services segments also contributed to the rise in PC sales.
Smaller cities and towns fuelled the IT consumption with C class cities accounting for over 50% of total PC sales. The Manufacturers Association for Information Technology (MAIT) made these projections based on a study conducted in 22 Indian cities. The survey showed small regional brands and unbranded systems accounted for 41% of sales in 2004-05, down from 53% in the previous year. Indian brands accounted for 24% of total sales, up from 21% in 2003-04 and MNC brands grew to 35% in 2004-05 from 26% a year ago.
The PC industry and been witnessing lower growth rates in the last four years due to a larger base, the association is giving a very conservative estimate of 17% at this point of time, and the growth could be about 25% over the next four years,” said Vinnie Mehta, executive director, MAIT. Increased usage of broadband and higher penetration in small towns could drive up the growth rate of 25%.
Wireless broadcasting was one of the great contributors to the development of oral communications culture in the 20th century. It became one of the important medium for knowledge dissemination in information age. Unless like telecommunication where communication happens from person to person, here knowledge is transferred from one person to many.
The mass media are media of communication—newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, videos, CDs, and other forms that reach mass audiences. Out of this visual media of which visual media became predominant communication medium especially in the information age. Led by television there had been a communication explosion in the last three decades. Marshall McLuhan argues that media influence society more in terms of how they communicate than in terms of what they communicate.