SPECIAL GUIDE TO - DATA COMMUNICATIONS - HIGH-SPEED NETWORKS AND INTERCONNECTION

Linking computers is no longer the main point of data communications. Finally, people are at the fore-wanting access in real time to their co-workers' data, images, and audio-video presentations. Worldwide demand for these multimedia transmissions will open up dramatically in the next few years. New standards specify 50-150-Mb/s local-area networks (LANs), well above the 10 Mb/s of most LANs today. Public networks are poised to tie it all together with packet switching that conforms to broadband integrated-services digital network-an emerging set of recommendations from the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee.