It’s all about connections

If wireless technology has revolutionised the world of networking, multi-media communication will take it to an even higher platform

• The mega IT show is ON
• Gadgets galore!
• It's all about connections
• Check, it's all in there
• Security matters
• A brilliant platform
• The future is now
• Perfect visual experience
• Capture those moments
• Enter home theatre
• Hot unwired!
• Getting connected
• Integrated solutions
• A world of possibilities
• Playing multiple roles
• Taking you places
• Productivity: Name of the game
• Advantage faxes!
• Take your pick
• It does more than just destruct files

"While this may be a joke, the issue here," says Kumar, "is that a requirement exists to be able to process the information and send it to whatever system is needed.

"Although the solution above may be nonsense, the aim of being able to communicate information to such an extent between systems so that they can be presented to the user on what ever system they want is what the networking revolution is all about."

Simply put, networking is the passing of information in an intelligent format so that it can be processed and used by the receiver to create new forms of information.

In a typical network, when one downloads a data from internet it will come from the ISP down a phone line or cable.

The modem will change how the data is carried from modem signals to probably ethernet, i.e., it processes the data and changes its form.

This can then be passed to items such as routers, which alter part of the data so that many PCs can share one internet connection.

Again the data has been processed. Finally the information may arrive at the user's PC, where the ethernet's information is removed to leave the information such as one's e-mails and web pages.

These can then be processed to display them for a end-user to read.

Biggest innovation

Current innovations and products on a global scale in networking include many developments not least of which is wireless.

Wireless is the biggest innovation; "Although," says Kumar, " this is really too wide a term. Wireless networking has been around for some years and covers several areas.

Bluetooth is wireless and is used to connect devices that are within a few feet of each other. The data rates are good enough for a small amount of information.

Wi-Fi is designed to connect devices that are in a local network i.e. perhaps 10 to 100 feet apart. Recently data throughput on this technology has been increasing along with security.

In many instances now it is the preferred method for the connection from a PC to the local office or home network. Wide area wireless to cover one to two miles or more is being covered by a new set of standards called Wi-MAX.

In fact, the list goes on. There is no one single standard that is going to cover all the solutions that are needed and this does present the market with some challenges of different solutions that may sometimes overlap in the market place."

Networking has undergone quite a dramatic change in the last five years. The explosion in broadband availability has brought networking into the home. Before broadband, dial up connections for the home user really only supported one PC.

In fact, a few years ago one PC was the maximum number that you would ever find.

However, there are a greater number of homes now that have multiple PCs or MAC along with online gaming consoles all of which want to be connected to internet.

The technology used in home networking has been around for some time in business; however, the massive number of users makes the home networking market such a lofty chunk of the market.

Future

What innovations can we expect in the next five years in networking? "The marketplace today talks about multimedia and trying to link this into internet to allow communications.

"However, this is at the early stages of development. Everyone can find ISPs to handle their data but the market for MM (multimedia) communications is much younger and immature.

"The next five years will see MM communication solutions that really hit the big time just as wireless and broadband have done in the past five years. However, part of the challenge is the amount of information that needs to be passed.

"As a consequence, US Robotics, for instance, is continuing its long history of pushing speeds and performance. Analogue modems have long been standardised with a reasonable set of performance.

"However, wireless networking is still open to massive performance improvements of the kind that are needed for modem networks. Major wireless improvements are being released by US Robotics at this Gitex as part of our push to support the future," Kumar says.

Does Dubai have the technology for wireless products to be used to their full potential? Has it got some way to go to catch up with the US or Europe?

"The only extra challenge for Dubai," says Kumar, "is the quality of the buildings that are being built. With new construction, issues arise with the reception of wireless signals. In a way, Dubai is the ideal testing ground for wireless vendors, because if the products work in Dubai they are likely t