SRELS Journal of Information Management Vol. 41, No.2, June 2004, Paper R. pI79-186.

LIBRARY AND INTERNET: VIA CABLE NETWORK - A PROPOSE K.R. Mulla* This article deals with the INTERNET. Miraculous developments in telecommunication systems and information technology have created marvels for the new generation i.e. Internet using a phone line. Internet via phone connections are painfully slow, especially when downloading photographs, graphics, or video images and large files. The cable modem technology for the Internet provides an 'always on' feature for individuals to access the Internet rapidly, while its digital broadband network technology allows user to move around quickly.

KEYWORDSIDESCRIPTORS:

Internet, Cable modem, Cable network, Broad band

network

1 INTRODUCTION The technological revolution and the emergence of efficient communication tools together have created diverse channels for access and efficient disseIl)ination of information. The impact of global communication technology has· rapidly changed, while satellite technology may supplement to library and learning in a big way, the access of information system through INTERNET, NICNET and INFLIBNET will keep at the researcher a vast gamut of information facilitating an easy hitting upon the probable options that can open vistas of wonders. The computer, telephone and cable television network link up has created a novel media and existing trend in information usage. This link up has made possible for the user to have direct access and wide option to choose from, be it for information or entertainment. This network is all-pervasive and has invited all walks of life- domestic, educational, official and the commercial sectors. With a mobile phone and a laptop computer the interaction is made portable now. The corporate world has grabbed this golden opportunity and has gone in for options unthinkable from the conventional setup, such as the merging of telephone company with the cable television company. *

Librarian, H.K.B.K. College of Engineering, Nagawara, Bangalore 45, INDIA. Ph:.5441722/ ::n::n /1744 T.ih Ex-1m FilX No. ORO-:1441R 11. Emili1: infoCWhkhkerhlciltion.com

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The librarians have to take advantage and adapt fast to this new technological trend if they want to be more effective in serving the user community. A library that ignores these pressures will become obsolete and miss the opportunity to be the vehicle of change and development of the community it serves.

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ACCESS ON INTERNET

We are all quite familiar with the Internet browsing via fax modem through dial-up. The Internet is accessed using a telephone line as the transmission media. The analogue telephone lines originally meant for voice transmission now carries data but at very low speeds. The basic disadvantages of this method are the occupation of the telephone line while the Internet is being accessed, and the telephone bill, in addition to the fees for Internet account, which can touch the roof! The disconnections and redialing required quite often during the browsing, is distressing more so when the connection gets cut while you are downloading important information or large files. Whereas broadband access technologies enable data transfer at high speeds. Therefore, any medium or technology that allows data transfer speeds of more than 64kbps can be called as broadband technology. The medium can carry numerous voice, video and data channels simultaneously since each channel takes up a different frequency and there is no interference with one another. A co-axial cable TV is a classic example of broadband technology as it can broadcast several channels simultaneously, but only in one direction. The same technology principles are now applied for delivering rich multimedia content in two-way direction.

3 CABLE NETWORK (BROADBAND NETWORK TECHNOLOGY) .For access of Internet through the cable network you need a cable modem instead of a telephone modem. The cable modem is however, not just a modem, its encryption and security features are in-built and user can also access television channels simultaneously through the cable connection, optionally, as shown in figures 1 and 2. A cable modem is a device that allows high-speed access to the Internet via cable TV network. It typically has two connections, one to the cable wall outlet and the other to a computer and TV through a splitter. With cable TV network and cable modem, the Internet on cable allows consumers to keep their lines free.

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I TELEVISION COMPlITER

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Fig. 1: Single-user premise equipment configuration

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Using a phone line, connections are painfully slow, especially when downloading photographs, graphics, or video images. The cable modem technology for the Internet provides an always-on feature for individuals to access the Internet rapidly, while its broadband network allows user to move around quickly. One gets unlimited time of surfing at a very high speed. As a result, information providers are able to offer better-quality content as more consumers gain higher-speed access to the Internet.

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COMPARISONS

The revolution of digital technology and evolution of cable TV network (broad band technology) helps to access Internet, the cable modem's speed varying widely. In the downstream direction from network to the computer, speeds can be any where up to 36Mbps. Few computers will be capable of connecting at such high speeds; a more realistic number for computers is 3 to lOMbps<.In the upstream direction from computer to network, speed can be up to lOMbps. However, most modem producers will probably select a more optimum speed between 200kbps and 2Mbps. for instance, a file that takes eight minutes to download over a 28.8kbps modem connection would take two minutes to download on ISDN, compared to eight seconds via cable modem. Once broadband technology becomes available to large sections of the society, a whole range of applications will become possible to consumers. There will be high-speed Internet access, real time video conferencing, video streaming, music downloads, interactive television, online education and remote classroom distance learning, online shopping, video-on-demand, online games and teleworking. Broadband technologies can deliver information faster and because of the efficient and use of the communication pipes, more number of users can be connected to the Internet without affecting the speed of downloading or uploading data. Typically, in an academic business environmerit, this helps to boost employee efficiency, increase their productivity and reduc~ cost. In the cable modem development an asymmetric setup will probably be more common than a symmetric setup. In an asymmetric scheme, the downstream channel has a much higher bandwidth allocation, faster data rate than the upstream. Qne reason is that the current Internet applications tend to be asymmetric in nat~lfe. Activities such as web navigation and news group reading send much more data down to the computer than to the network. Mouse clicks

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(URL requests) and e-mail messages are not bandwidth-intensive in the upstream direction. Image files and streaming media i.e. audio-video are very bandwidthintensive in the downstream direction. Hence, using cable modem is much beneficial than the telephone dial-up-modem. A cable modem can be part modem, part tuner, part encryption or decryption device, part bridge, part router, part network interface card, part simple network management protocol agent and part Ethernet hub. Typically a cable modem sends and receives data in two slightly different fashions. In the downstream direction, the digital data is modulated and then placed on a typical television carrier. The signal can be placed in 6MHz channels adjacent to TV signals on either side, without disturbing the cable television video signals.

5 NETWORK SETUP A· propose typical cable network is shown in figure 3. It consists of Internet backbone connectivity from internal service protocol. It then goes to the router and to the switch. The switch connects to the server as well as the cable modem termination system (CMTS). The CMTS output goes to the up converter before finally being fed in to the cable network. Information will reach your doorstep, which is a great extended development of satellite technology and communication technology to help develop and design such type of networks to save the wealth of nation and its potential to parental organization to adopt such a technology. The kind of technology has been already. existing in the US and UK for the last few years. There are several methods for computer connection, but Ethernet 10 Base T is emerging as the most predominant method. Although it probably would be cheaper to produce the cable modem as an internal card for the computer, this would require different printed-circuit cards for different kinds of computers, and additionally would' make the demarcation be'tween cable network and the customer's computer too fuzzy (Fig. 3).

6 SERVICES The emergence of communication technology and information technology lead to electronic library with the help of INTERNET, and expert systems development and a widespread use of information networks for the dissemination

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INTERNET

COMPUTER CABLE RF System

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Fig. 3: A Propose typical network using cable for Internet access and interactive use of information covering every facet of human life will become the order of the day. The vision and legacy of Dr. S.R. Ranganathan will continue to be an inspiration and a guiding star for the emergence of the new library and information profession. To keep abreast and to lead the information revolution of the new millennium, the profession should strive for a dynamic approach in training and development with a new spectrum of specializations. These are essential to scenarios in information systems and related technologies; including development of cable TV network and more techniques to meet the emerging user needs.

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In this network the most popular serVIce undoubtedly is the high-speed Internet access. This enables a typical array of Internet services at speeds hundreds of times faster than with a telephone. Other services offered may include access to streaming audio and video servers, local content (community information and services), and CD-ROM servers. New services and ideas are born daily. The Internet on cable will offer high-speed interactive content to homes and workplaces over coaxial distribution architecture. The network provides the high sj?eed ca.\)\e modem:, 1L\-na\lIS

a da)l, \In\lmlteu access to tne intemet~ e-mail ana

chat; a Netscape navigator browser; and an internet guide featuring local and world-wide content cable modems enable data connections with much higher speeds than ISDN. ISDN transmits and receives at speeds of 64 kbps and 128 kbps. Cable modems will be able to receive data at up to 10Mbps and send it at . speeds up to 2 Mbps (in some cases up to 10 Mbps). Other benefits include local customer care, no need for additional phone line, always-on facility, and unique local and national content.

7

CONCLUSION

Internet accessing via cable network with help of broadband technology have opened up a new realm of information access, storage, and deli very of information for librarians and information professionals. qbraries are striving to respond to the pervasive and persistent growth of global networking and manage the demand for access to this dynamic medium. Working in the trenches of the networking revolution, librarians and information professionals are beginning to offer Internet services to their patrons; their work marks the beginning of the grassroots implementation of the electronic library. The Internet is accessed mainly using a telephone line as the transmission media. The basic disadvantages of this method are the occupation of the telephone line while the Internet is being accessed, and the telephone bill, in addition to the fees for Internet account, which can be highly expensive. Access of Internet via cable television network offers very high speed without traffic jam and with less cost. This technology is feasible if certain basic requirements are met which includes two way cable network and better-quality cables.

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REFERENCE FOR FURTHER READING 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Roddy Dennis. Satellite Communications. 2nd Ed. New York, McGraw Hill 1996. David Garrett; et al. Internet Unleashed, 1st Ed. New Delhi Techmedia. 1998. Gulati (R R). Colour Television: Principles & Practice. New Delhi, New Age International (P) Limited, 1998. Grab Bernard; Herndon Charles (E). Basic Television and Video Systems. 6th Ed. New York McGraw-Hill, 1999. Ha Tri (T). Digital Satellite ConulIunications. 2nd Ed. New York. McGraw Hill Publishing Company, 1999. Brian; Keith. Internet with Web PagelWeb Site Design Bible. 2nd Ed. New Delhi. lOG Books India (P) Ltd., 2000. Minoli Daniel. Internet and Tnranet Engineering, New Delhi. Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Com. Ltd., 2000. Gulati (R R). Monochrome and Colour Television, New Delhi. New Age International (P) Limited, 2000. Young (Margaret Levine). Internet The Complete Reference. Millennium Edition. New Delhi, Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Com. Ltd., 2000. Pratt Timothy; Bostian, Charles (W). Satellite Communications. New York. John Wiley & Sons, 2001. Richharia (M). Satellite Communication Systems-Design Principles. 2nd Ed. London. Macmillan, 2001. www.electronicsforu.com www.deccanherald.com

14. www.racal.com/networking 15. www.irn-telecom.net 16. 17. 18. 19.

www.wirelessnetworkmagazine.com www.practicallynetworked.com/support/cable_network_sccurc.htm www.yahoo search engine www.google search engine

Sarada Ranganathan

Endowment Lectures

9-11 August 2004 Natural Language Processing in Information Storage and Retrieval by Prof. K. Narayana Murthy Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad

at Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science 702, . Upstairs', 42nd Cross, III Block, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560 010 Time: 18.00 hrs.

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