Lesson 1 - Information in Society

9/7/22, 12:51 PM Lesson 1 - Information in Society
Lesson 1 - Information in Society
Site: New Era University Printed by: Alyzza Jeane C. Delima

Course: COMAC1-18/COMAC1-19 - IT Application Tools in Business Date: Wednesday, 7 September 2022, 12:51 PM
Book: Lesson 1 - Information in Society
https://collvle.neu.edu.ph/mod/book/tool/print/index.php?id=55630 1/11
Description
Lesson 1 - Information in Society
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Information in Society
3. Introduction to Information and Communications Technology
4. Information Technology (IT) and ICT
5. ICT and Society
6. From 1G to 5G
7. The Gist
8. Quiz No. 1
The home is one of the places where ICT is most widely used. Just listening to the radio requires
communications infrastructure, in the form of transmitted radio waves; and the same goes for the TV:
The landline telephone also makes use of communications infrastructure in the form of either metal
wires or fiber optic cables. The use of personal computer from home to e-mail messages or to talk via
webcam to loved ones applies communications infrastructure in the form of fiber optic cables.
Cell phones have become a regular part of everyday life for most of us. We text using cell phones-sending messages to
our family members, our classmates, and to our friends-and chances are, we take this for granted. If you go to a mountain
or a forest, for example, where no cell site is available, you will realize just how much you depend on your cell phone in
your everyday life.
Cell phones are just one part of the technological field known as Information and Communications Technology, or ICT. ICT
involves not only cell phones, but also computers, telephones, TV, radio, the Internet, as well as other devices which use these. Thanks to the
increasing reach of technology, ICT is becoming commonplace in our lives-and in our society-in ways which people, in as short a time as twenty
years ago, wouldn’t have realized.
Introduction to Information and Communications Technology
ICT didn't just spring out of thin air. The technology that has made ICT widespread and available has been in development
for several decades-or, indeed, even centuries.
It may come as a surprise that the telefacsimile, or fax machine, was one of the first ICT devices to be invented and
patented. The Scottish inventor Alexander Bain patented the fax machine in 1843, and he invented a working model in 1846.
While his theory was sound, the: technology to create a usable, widely available fax machine wasn't available until the 1970s.
Prior to the fax machine, telegraphy and other forms of communication by means of copper wire cables were already being
invented, with the first one being built for regular communication by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber in 1833,
connecting the Gottingen Observatory to the Institute of Physics. The development of wireless telegraphy commenced when Guglielmo
Marconi was able to transmit the letter "S" from his station in Cornwall, England to another station in Newfoundland, Canada-the first ever
trans-Atlantic transmission of a wireless signal. That was in 1901. From there, telegraphy found a useful role in communicating messages
through great distances, and companies were formed to profit from this new basic service. One of these, the Radio Communications of the
Philippines, Inc., made its money through transmission of telegram messages which was delivered just about anywhere in the world at a cost of
less than a peso per word.
Copper and other metallic wires served as the primary means of communication for over a century, until fiber optic cables became widely
available in the 1980s and 1990s. Copper cables could only carry so much by way of electrical signals, as they relied on pulses of electricity,
compared to fiber optic cables, which could carry a lot more signals through pulses of light. Fiber optic cables give a clearer signal because they
are less prone to electromagnetic interference, which means less information is lost.
Wireless technology got a boost with the advent of reliable radio equipment, which could send and receive messages. These wireless units were
deployed in various places, particularly in ships so that they could stay in touch with other ships and with radio stations on shore. One of these
units, installed in the doomed ship, Titanic, broadcast the international distress signal of the day, CQD, on April 14, 1912, as the ship sank.
Today, wireless technology is in use in our cell phones-whenever we use these to text, call up someone, or to access the Internet-in the same
way television sets use wireless technology to receive signals from TV station.
Information Technology (IT) refers to the technology needed for processing information. Information
appliances (IA) refer to devices that (according to Wikipedia) can "process information, signals,
graphics, animation, video and audio; and can exchange such information with another IA device."
Information technology is one of the driving forces of today's world, and IA devices, such as personal
digital assistants (PDAs) and, of course, cell phones are becoming widespread.
It is because of the widespread nature of such devices that the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is
used. WAP is an open international set of standards that allows handheld or remote wireless devices to
access information through the Internet or through other networks or computing facilities. Wireless
fidelity, or WiFi, uses radio signals to allow laptops to access the Internet.
The Philippines established its first connection to the Internet in 1994, and in that same year the first Philippine Internet service provider (ISP)
went into operation. Since then the number of Internet users in the country has grown to 29,700,000 as of June 2009-which represents about
30% of the population.
The widespread use of the Internet and other electronic media, in combination with computers and
software, has created the field called Information and Communication Technology (ICT). ICT
focuses on the needs of specific industries and commerce in general, and concerns itself with research
in solving the challenges which are encountered when using IAs and IT, such as convergence, the
capability of cell phones to access the Internet quickly, and even the spread of spam, which is the use
of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.
Given the nature of the spread of the Internet, the development of ICT worldwide is dependent on the
increase in the number of telephone lines, cell phones and computers which can connect to the
Internet, according to a study conducted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). This means that governments throughout the
world need to create and strengthen telecommunications network Infrastructure to handle the demand.
Wireless communications technology continues to advance and in the near future, there will be integration of various Internet access
technologies in a single device, like a cell phone. The user will be able to switch between them with ease and as needed. Smart technologies
are now also being developed which will eventually free the user from such tasks. The phone itself will do the switching so that it will
automatically select the best access to use, such as Wi-Fi.
The home is one of the places where ICT is most widely used. Just listening to the radio requires communications
infrastructure, in the form of transmitted radio waves; and the same goes for the TV: The landline telephone also makes
use of communications infrastructure in the form of either metal wires or fiber optic cables. The use of personal
computer from home to e-mail messages or to talk via webcam to loved ones applies communications infrastructure in
the form of fiber optic cables.
Schools and workplaces places are also other places where ICT is used. Our School, The New Era University" has a website on which people
can get information about it. That requires an Internet-capable server, and to communicate with that server, or to the outside world, fiber optic
cables are required. Our school also has an internal network-an intranet of computers linking on department to another-which is a setup also
used by companies and offices.
The widespread use of ICT has its effect on society at large. Chances are, by the time a child attends his first day in school, he would have had
some sort of experience with an electronic game device like PSP or a Nintendo DS, and maybe even a computer-if the parents allow their child
to use one. This kind of early contact with ICT makes it mandatory for schools and other educational institutions to take e-learning into account,
making it a subject as mandatory as math or language. As ICT will become a part of the child’s life as he grows up into adulthood, he needs to
know how it works.
This need for e-learning has resulted in different options for education. Campus-based education is the traditional education which one can get
from a university, while off-campus or distance education is given to students who aren't in the same physical location which the educational
institution is in. These educational institutions can be traditional brick-and-mortar institutions which have been around for centuries, or they can
be schools which only deliver their courses online.
The world has become a smaller place, where, communications are concerned, thanks to ICT. Whereas before, the typical way to communicate
with relatives overseas, for example, would be through letters-snail mail-which could take weeks or even months to reach their recipients,
people can now send e-mail messages which could reach the recipients in less than a second, or can even converse with them on a webcam in
real time. Text messages can be sent and received electronically within a second or two, and can be replied to within a minute.
This shrinking of the world via communications also helps its users realize that there are ways and means of living other than that which they
were raised in. A Christian in Manila communicating with a Muslim chat mate in the Middle East, for example, would see through a window to
what it's like to be a Muslim, and vice versa. Africans can communicate with Koreans, and thus they get to know each other’s culture and way of
life. In the process, people can realize that the folks "over there, somewhere,” are no different from themselves in many ways.
Indeed, one of the goals of ICT is communication, and through communication people can get to know not only their world but also the world of
other people elsewhere.
1G, 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G…. You may have heard a few of these terms mentioned in advertisements for electronic communications devices before. They are often
associated with cell phones. But have you given much thought about what they really mean?
Well, these basically refer to the different generations of wireless transmission and frequency band technologies-hence the letter “G”.
1G refers to the generation of analog mobile telecommunications technology epitomized by the first cell phones, which uses radio
signals modulated to a higher frequency range to prevent interference. Its drawback was that it was not secure-allowing the
"cloning" of cellular signatures of users and promoting indiscriminate use of a cell owner's telephone account.
2G stands for second generation wireless telephone technology. It means that, digitization is used
in the processing and transmission of the signals. The transmitted material, such as a caller's
voice, is transformed into manageable data that can be compressed and stored more efficiently.
2G was also known as the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications technology. It was
through this that text (short message service, or SMS) messaging was introduced.
3G is an enhancement of 2G which allowed multimedia streaming together with existing speech and SMS services. It met the higher
requirements of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
4G is the generation of ultrafast wireless telephone technology. It encompasses Internet Protocol (IP)
telephone services, ultra broadband Internet, gaming, and multimedia streaming. It is non-backward
compatible such that the transmission systems used in the previous generations will no longer apply.
The HTC Evo cell phone is classed as 4G. It is capable of being a Wi-Pi hot spot. By itself, it can serve the Internet access
requirements of other communications devices within its specific area. With its no-broadband-cap 4G technology, it can provide
the fastest possible Internet speeds that other means of access, like DSL and cable, cannot match. With 4G, speeds between 100 Megabits per second
(Mbit/s) and 275 Mbit/s are the goals of telecommunications providers. That’s a far cry from the typical wireless Internet speeds in countries like the
Philippines, which is only 512Kbit/s.
5G (5th generation mobile networks or 5th generation wireless systems) denotes the next major phase of mobile
telecommunications standards beyond the current 4G/IMT-Advanced standards.
NGMN Alliance or Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance define 5G network requirements as:
Data rates of several tens of Mb/s should be supported for tens of thousands of users.
1 Gbit/s to be offered, simultaneously to tens of workers on the same office floor.
Several hundreds of thousands of simultaneous connections to be supported for massive sensor deployments.
Spectral efficiency should be significantly enhanced compared to 4G.
Coverage should be improved.
Signalling efficiency enhanced.
Latency should be significantly reduced compared to LTE.
Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance feel that 5G should be rolled out by 2020 to meet business and consumer demands. In addition to simply
providing faster speeds, they predict that 5G networks will also need to meet the needs of new use-cases such as the Internet of Things as well as
broadcast-like services and lifeline communications in times of natural disaster.
Although updated standards that define capabilities beyond those defined in the current 4G standards are under consideration, those new capabilities are
still being grouped under the current ITU-T 4G standards.
The Gist
Elements of ICT have been around for centuries, but it has only been with the recent advancements in technology that ICT has become as
widespread as it presently is, affecting the lives of everyone in the world in one way or another.
Take Quiz No. 1

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9/7/22, 12:51 PM Lesson 1 - Information in Society

Lesson 1 - Information in Society

Site: New Era University Printed by: Alyzza Jeane C. Delima

Lesson 1 - Information in Society

3. Introduction to Information and Communications Technology

4. Information Technology (IT) and ICT

5. ICT and Society

Introduction to Information and Communications Technology

Take Quiz No. 1

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