Discussion post responses.

Please respond to the following:

· Explore the various data communication technologies you’ve learned about this week. What are some things that stood out for you? What factors would you advise a company to consider when deciding on the way it connects to the Internet? How would you advice the CIO of a small, medium, or large company? Choose one and discuss the pros and cons of a couple of your selections.

GS’s post states the following:Top of Form

I found the section Analog Encoding of Digital Information very informative. There are three forms of basic modulation:

· Amplitude-shift keying

· Frequency-shift keying

· Phase-shift keying

A digital signal, representing the binary digits 0 and 1 by a series of on and off amplitudes, is impressed onto an analog carrier wave of constant amplitude and frequency. In amplitude-shift keying (ASK), the modulated wave represents the series of bits by shifting abruptly between high and low amplitude. In frequency-shift keying (FSK), the bit stream is represented by shifts between two frequencies. In phase-shift keying (PSK), amplitude and frequency remain constant; the bit stream is represented by shifts in the phase of the modulated signal.

ASK is an inefficient technique from the noise and distortion is inexpensive compared to the others. FSK is less susceptible to noise and other error sources than ASK; it is easy to decode and often has a better signal-to-noise ratio than ASK. FSK is a signaling option supported by most dial-up modems. It is also commonly used for high-frequency (4–30 MHz) radio transmission. PSK is represented as a two-phase system. In this system, a 0 is represented by sending a signal burst of the same phase as the preceding signal burst sent. A 1 is represented by sending a signal burst of opposite phase to the preceding one. This is used widely in business networks, especially wireless networks. Also utilized in Bluetooth.

               The interesting portion of this segment is that these techniques can be combined. A common combination is PSK and ASK, where some or all the phase shifts may occur at one or two amplitudes. These techniques are referred to as multilevel signaling because each signal element represents multiple bits. Note that four-phase phase-shift keying is an example of multilevel signaling.

               If I was a CIO in a small business and needed to decide regarding a networking solution, I would recommend cable modem. Bundled voice, TV, and Internet services are often very competitively priced. This makes them attractive to consumers and small businesses. With uploads speeds of 20 Mbps and download speeds of 30-100 Mbps, a small business would find these speeds sufficient enough in every day operations. Another key benefit is the competitive price of the “triple play” (internet, voice, tv) usually offered from the cable company.

PJ’s post states the following:Top of Form

I learned a lot about Analog and Digital data communication this week. Several things stood out to me such as: 

· Analog and Digital are frequently used in three contexts data, signaling, and transmission.  

· Analog signals represent data with continuously varying electromagnetic wave. 

· Digital signals represent data with sequence of voltage pulses. 

· Asynchronous transmission is transmission in which each information character is individually synchronized, usually using start elements and stop elements.  

· Synchronous transmission is data transmission in which the time occurrence of each signal representing a bit is related to a fixed time frame.

What factors would you advise a company to consider when deciding on the way it connects to the Internet? 

When deciding on the way a company connects to the internet, I would advise them to look for speed, availability, cost, reliability, security, and connection type. These factors are some of many that can be the deciding factor in how the company connects to the internet.  

How would you advice the CIO of a small, medium, or large company? Choose one and discuss the pros and cons of a couple of your selections. 

I would advise the CIO of small company on the way it connects to the internet by sharing a business strategy. The strategy will display a layout of many factors that can make or break the company’s choice of what is best for them. Stressing that security is highly important and investing in cybersecurity is very critical in protecting information, networks, and computers. The pros of security are having effective protection that can prevent attacks. The cons consist of the security system being costly depending on which protection the company is seeking. Speed is another great factor because the pros ensure enough speed that will disrupt daily use. The cons of high internet speed could be the risk of higher security risk, especially if proper firewall is not in place.  

Stallings, W. (2013). CIS 505: Business Data Communications: Custom edition (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.