Network Technology

At first we had telegraphs and then telephones and typewriters and codes and other gadgets and technologies until eventually we had computers. But two or two hundred computers operating alone are just that until they join forces. And when two or more computers join forces they become a network.Then once we have a network, all sorts of interesting things are possible. From the very basic concept of sharing files to all manner of almost instant international communication, networks link machines and thus people around the globe and even beyond the globe heading into space.

But just as the abilities and capabilities of designers and their machines have moved ahead in leaps and bounds, this has meant the improvement in network technologies as well.

 

Wired or wireless

The two main forms of network technology can be boiled down to being either cable or no cable, wired or wireless. You can tell from your own computer at home just which method is employed for you and your network. Are there cables coming from your computer to your modem and other connections? If so then your network to your service provider and thus to the world by the World Wide Web is wired. If your modem is a small widget plugged directly into your computer then you are on a wireless connection. Of course both methods of network technology can’t exist on their own. Without power or without a signal, neither forms of networking will work.

Wired technologies for telephones or for computer cables use wires or cables in which two or more wires are twisted together. These wires of course need to be connected to the relevant points one of which is your computer at home or at work.

Other forms of cabling include coaxial cables and optical fibre cable both of which are commonly used. Coaxial cables are frequently used for television networks and fibre-optic cables for broadband connections for computer networks.

Wireless technologies are everywhere and are used for a variety of networks.  You only have to look at mobile phones, the millions of mobile phones in use almost everywhere to see how network technologies operate.  These phones which once were used only to make phone calls and used to be the size of a house brick, are now wafer thin yet capable of doing so many things including the sending and receiving of emails and even surfing the Web and all because of the development of new network technologies.

Space communication using satellites is now quite common with the wireless network technologies allowing we mere mortals to watch people in any part of the world as well as having live television pictures in our home from venues on the other side of the planet.

The future is difficult to gauge as new technologies are being developed all the time. The speed with which we can download data and communicate with one another around the globe is all down to the advances in network technologies. The future thanks to network technology seems to be fantastic.