Published December 06, 2000
A full-day conference was presented free in Bozeman, December 2nd, at the MSU Burns Telecommunications Center, for the benefit of everyone wanting to learn more about “The New Age of Digital Communications.” It was subtitled: “What you always wanted to know but were too confused to ask!”
Today’s extremely rapid pace of computing and Internet technologies has been very confusing for non-technically inclined business people, legislators, city/county planners, educators and others just wanting to keep up. In response to this need, the one-day session was organized/sponsored by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and MSU’s Electrical and Computer Engineering. Although mostly older men and women present, no one was falling asleep.
Approximately 60 people attended in Bozeman while several dozen others in Helena, Great Falls and Missoula viewed and interacted with the distinguished speakers live over METNET. At each modern classroom location are situated rowed tables that faced the computer projection screens, overhead projector, and white board, with cameras at both ends of the room. Microphones with push-to-talk switches are wired in for every two members of the audience. A specialist sits at a console in one corner of the room controlling the digital content flowing to the other locations.
David Ford, President and Internet security consultant for Network Knowledge, Inc., described in excellent clarity the elements of the Internet and defined terms like TCP/IP, ISP and ASP. Mr. Ford explained that security is not an issue for the bulk of us conducting business through secured channels. However, full-time connected sites to the Internet must be attentive to protecting themselves from the threat of outsider attacks.
Telecommunications Systems Consultant Bill Jameson told his attentive listeners that the status of Montana communications in 1987 was 85% analog (voice over wire and microwave) and only 5% fiber-optics. The remaining 10% carried digital over microwave. In 1992, those figures flip-flopped so that only 5% were analog voice and 85% fiber-optics. Now, literally all voice and data in Montana is send digitally!
Jameson progressively described, in very basic terms, the composition of modern digital communications, defining terms such as Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Hybrid Fiber/Coax (HFC), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Synchronous Optical Networks (SONET).
This must assuredly sound confusing, but it wasn’t that foreign after a while. You kind-of grasped a sense of how it works.
In astonishing ways, digital bits of information are pushed together, rearranged, piled on top of one another, modulated, phased, and generally made into an organized mush on its way through the network of networks we call the Internet. Out the other end flows streams of on-and-off pulses that represent useful information. These processes are called protocols.
Klein Gilhousen, Sr. VP of Qualcomm, Inc., who’s impressive credentials include over fifty patents, telecommutes to his Southern California office while remaining in Bozeman using the Internet. Mr. Gilhousen displayed many of his cellular products and sent an email from a laptop connected to his pocket phone. “Look, no wires,” he proclaimed.
Gilhousen showed his company’s satellite phone that carries voice & data digitally or by analog. Coverage area is anywhere in North America and Australia, at present.
Interestingly, Gilhousen admitted that under normal use, cellphones do not need to have their antennas extended. The exception is the satellite phone. Satellite phone antennas are larger in diameter and longer because they must not be obstructed by the head of the operator.
Klein conveyed an amusing story. He said the design of these satellite phones has an unexpected drawback. It can be mistaken for something else, as has happened when a passing patrolman stopped a motorist holding such a phone and ordered for him to, “Drop The Gun!”
High Definition Television was demonstrated at the Montana PBS station on the MSU campus. Chief Engineer Dean Lawyer, and Systems Manager Eric Hyyppa explained the potential for receiving data to a set-top box while watching and listening to the show. The present HDTV resolution is 1080 vertical lines on a movie-sized format screen, about 2.5 times better than normal TV. That resolution is expected to be 4,000 lines before long.
From Glasgow, Montana, Mike Strand of Montana Independent Telecommunications Systems is providing fast bandwidth DSL service to towns of about 3,000 population. His company is expanding to rural areas surrounding Billings, Helena, and soon Great Falls and Butte. In those markets, MITS will sell DSL connectivity for a low $50-70/month.
Strand articulated an impressive statistic. He said that although Montana may be last among the 50 states per-capita earnings, we are proudly 8th in the nation of rapidly deploying broadband network communications! This goes a long way to attracting desperately needed high paying/ low impacting jobs.
Witty Chris Nelson, CEO of Zoot Enterprises, kept his audiences entertained with the story of his 10-year old company’s growth. A native Montanan, Nelson’s interest in accounting and computers brought him to attract national clients to Bozeman. What used to take hours for Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other institutions to authorize a loan or issue a credit-card, Zoot could do for them in seconds.
Today, Zoot is the largest private user of digital bandwidth in all of Qwest’s 14-states. Nelson said his good fortune is that he was doing the right thing at the right time. It didn’t matter that it was the right place, because the Internet is everywhere. “We just needed to have electricity and telephones,” Chris said. “And hey! We got that here.”