Replacing the PSTN One Component at a Time

The three components of the PSTN are being replaced in the free market via substitution by other technologies and changes in the regulatory atmosphere. The Memorandum of Final Judgement (MFJ) of 1984 opened the transport aspect of the PSTN to competition. This gave rise to an explosion in the number of long-distance service providers in the United States. The bandwidth glut of 2000 has driven down the cost of long-distance transport.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was intended to further the reforms brought on by the MFJ of 1984, but it has failed to do so. The act specified how incumbent telephone companies were to open their switches to competitors. The incumbents stalled this access first by legal maneuvering and then by outright sabotage. The same tactics were employed in blocking competitive access to the access side of their networks. A technology known as softswitch offers a technology bypass of the PSTN switches. This still leaves the last mile (also known as the first mile) under the control of the incumbent service providers.

A new technology known as 802.11b and its associated variants offer the possibility for service providers to bypass the incumbents' local loop to deliver service to the last mile. The applications for 802.11b began with enterprise and government networks and have migrated to home networks. In the year prior to this writing, the industry experienced an explosion in the sales of wireless network products. As this technology becomes more popular, subscribers will gain confidence in wireless technologies and their related services, and will increasingly "cut the wire" to incumbent wired service providers.

This book provides a roadmap for cutting those wires. It provides an introduction to 802.11b and its related protocols (802.16, 802.11a, 802.11g, 802.11i, and so on). It offers extensive evidence of the myriad applications of 802.11b currently in operation with guidelines for implementing 802.11b. A series of case studies offer evidence of the viability of 802.11b and related wireless technologies.



Wi-Fi Handbook(c) Building 802.11b Wireless Networks
Wi-Fi Handbook : Building 802.11b Wireless Networks
ISBN: 0071412514
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 96

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net