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You talk into your handset, and your voice ends up as a series of light pulses traveling 186,000 miles per second over thin strands of glass, only to come out at the other end sounding exactly like you.
It's magic.
Actually, it's not magic - it just seems like it. If you're not a tech wizard and you'd like to know how this stuff works, here's some info you might find pretty interesting reading. It's written for normal people, not those brainiac IT guys.
Well most of it anyway.
If nothing else, you'll be able to thoroughly impress the folks in the IT department at the next Christmas Party.
You IT guys probably already know most of this stuff. If you don't, go ahead and read it now. Then you can pretend you've always known it.
We won't tell anybody.
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What is a T1 Line? - Pages: 1 Most people are familiar with a normal business or residential line from the phone company. A normal phone line like this is delivered on a pair of copper wires that transmit your voice as an analog signal. When you use a normal modem on a line like this, it can transmit data at perhaps 30 kilobits per second (30,000 bits per second).
How Does the Internet Work? - Pages: 4 What is the basic underlying structure of the Internet? Find out how your computer connects to others around the globe and information can be transmitted instantaneously from one place to another.
How Does a Fiber Optic Cable Work? - Pages: 1 Over the last 20 years or so, fiber optic lines have taken over and transformed the long distance telephone industry. Optical fibers are also a huge part of making the Internet available around the world. When fiber replaces copper for long-distance calls and Internet traffic, it dramatically lowers costs.
How Does Caller ID Work? - Pages: 1 If you have a Caller ID box attached to your phone, then an amazing thing happens every time your phone rings -- the number (and sometimes even the name) of the calling party appears on the display right after the first ring!
How Does a Long Distance Call Work? - Pages: 2 Whenever you make a long distance call, there is an amazing amount of computer technology working to make your call happen! In order to understand the computerized systems used today, however, it is helpful to go back in time and look at how human beings once routed long distance calls.
Last Mile Telecommunications Infrastructure - Twisted Pair & ISDN - Pages: 7 The traditional technology for connecting customer sites to telephone exchanges or central office switching points is twisted pair copper telephone cables. Now, applications for telecommunications systems include telephony, Internet access, wide area networking for teleworkers and Video On Demand. This report discusses the traditional and new uses of twisted pairs, including the technologies of analogue telephony and ISDN.
Long Distance Telecommunications Infrastructure - Fiber, Satellite, and Microwave - Pages: 5 A variety of radio, cable and optic-optic technologies are used to provide the backbone long-distance links for telecommunications carriers. Understanding the characteristics of these systems enables a better understanding of the entire telecommunications industry. Some of these technologies - such as microwave links - are also suitable for operation by an organization, as a cost-effective alternative to purchasing equivalent services from a carrier.
Telecommunications Infrastructure - Networks & Calls - Pages: 5 While the telephone handset has changed little in half a century, previously isolated national telephone networks have evolved into a sophisticated, reliable global network. Despite the growth and immense flexibility of the Internet, telephony will remain a vital part of electronic communications for the foreseeable future. Competition in a multi-carrier environment will help to bring costs down as fast as they should fall according to the rapid advances in the underlying technology. Before such a competitive environment can be properly achieved, the difficult problems of number portability must be solved. Here we describe the most important technical characteristics of the telephone network, and how it differs from the Internet.
Telecommunications Infrastructure - Network Equipment & New Developments - Pages: 6 All modern telephone exchanges communicate with each other using the SS7 protocol - also referred to as CCS7 or SS#7. SS7 is the language which enables exchanges to work together to provide ISDN services. This is a robust, flexible, extensible approach compared to all its predecessors. In the past exchanges communicated by a wide variety of means, including with the use of special tones on the (analog) voice lines themselves.
Telecommunications Infrastructure - Key Concepts - Pages: 7 This web report begins with the basic concepts of electronic communication: signals and the representation of information using analogue and digital techniques. Then the major forms of telecommunications and broadcast technology are described. Finally, the increasingly important 'packet switching' approach to telecommunications - as used in the Internet - is contrasted with the 'circuit switching' of traditional telephony.
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