Représentation du Togo (IA-TOGO : info@izi-togo.te Site Web : www.iai-togo.tB |. AKUETEY : Institut Africain d'informatique Etablissement Inter-Etats d'enseignement Supérieur By NY 07 BP: 12456 Lomé 07 Tél(+228) 22 22 1207 Cycle des Ingénieurs Chargé de cours des Travaux Informatiques Durée H00 mn Fire :GL3&SR3 PARTIEL ANGLAIS SEMESTRE V ‘NB: Documents et calculatrices non autorisés Date : 12/02/2018 READING COMPREHENSION DOCUMENT : BEYOND ANALOGUE MODEMS: Although modems are continuing to improve their speed beyond what many thought would be possible, other means of transmitting data exist that easily outstrip even S6Kbps modems. Yet take-up of these technologies has been slow. 1. A MODEM IS LIKE AMONITOR, A HARD DISK DRIVE or even the silicon chip ~ all have been consigned to oblivion at various times because competing technologies were deemed to be better, yet all have not only survived but prospered. With the modem, it was clear 20 years ago that anything much over 1, 200bps was going to be too much for the phone system, 10 years ago that 14A00bps was the ‘maximum value, and three years ago that 28,800bps would be as far as the system evolved. 2. In the meantime, other technologies have tried to position themselves as the ideal alternative for the analogue modem. 3. INTEGRATED SERVICES DIGITAL NETWORK The integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) fias been pushed as thé modems challenger for most ofits two decades of existence. In theory, it should have been no contest - a single pair of copper wires can carry 128Kbps directly to the telephone exchange, from wherg it is distributed worldwide. Yet, even in the days of 2,400bps modems, ISDN made little impact. It's only now that analogue modems are about to catch up, that ISDN is finally being taken seriously, 4, The problems with ISDN have been numerous. |The principle was that it would be tightly integrated with the phone system and it has been up telephone companies to deliver the service) Since most of the ISDN’s lifetime has been in the days of national telephone monopolies, there has been little or no ‘commercial pressure to deliver. Quite the opposite — ISDN divisions within a telco had to struggle for funding and promotion agains [..], profitable leased ~line divisions who correctly predicted that they'd be heavily undercut by the new technology. Furthermore, difference between national implementations of ISDN made international services unreliable and, invariably, expensive. 5. ‘The situation has lightened immeasurably over the past couple of years. The price of TAs has fallen dramatically to under £100, standards for running protocols at high speed over the system have been accepted, and the very high installation costs have fallen (although very slowly).Most importantly, economical equipment for ISPs that copes equally well with analogue and ISDN calls has made what we called ISDN’s Challenge Ghost Breaker (“Who ya gonna call?”) redundant. By Rupert Goodwins , PC Magazine