Final Exam Flashcards
What is vertical integration?
Company may manage multiple stages of the business (ex. hardware, software, and/or distribution)
What is horizontal integration?
Specialize in one thing in a business and try to be the only option
-Dominate in one stage ex. distribution with Amazon
What is rate of return regulation?
Giving a company subsidies or this monopoly and in exchange, you can’t make more than a certain percentage of profit
What is a common carrier universal service?
Telephone industry: A company must serve customers in public interest without discrimination
What is universal access?
Having the ability to access the internet anywhere
What is licensing?
- Determines who is allowed to provide service
- Protects corporations from competition
What is retransmission consent?
- Local stations could charge cable companies for access to signals
- The cable company could refuse to carry the signal
What is must carry?
Requires cable service to carry local station no compensation
What is the last mile?
The twisted pair that goes through your house (central office from the node to your home)
Explain a bundling service
When cable, phone, internet is supplied from the same company.
What is passband?
The range of frequencies a channel can carry
What is bandwidth?
The width of the passband- the amount of data a channel can carry
Define Subsides
A sum of money granted by the government or a public body to assist an industry or business so that the price of a commodity or service may remain low or competitive
The constitution and new technology
- Amendments protect citizens from government - not corporations
- 1st Amendment: Freedom of speech
- 4th Amendment - Protects from searches and seizures and how it applies to the internet
What is the Communication Act of 1934?
Broadcasters should serve in the public interest. Wanted to prevent vertical integration and ensure competition, localism and diversity. Company couldn’t be both distributor and producer.
What is the 1996 Telecommunications Act?
Goal was to promote competition and reduce regulation to get better prices. Led to convergence and monopolies. Merges between phone and cable companies.
Network Neutrality
- Organizational infrastructure of different industries
- History of corporations and ownership influence marketplace.
- Only the cable company pushed for net neutrality
What is infrastructure?
the fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or other area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function
What are the parts of the Umbrella Perspective of Technology
- Enabling factors - make technology possible
- Limiting factors - restrict or prevent technology
- Motivating factors - make people want to adopt technology
- Inhibiting factors - opposite of motivating
Umbrella Perspective - List the levels of the enabling factors
- Hardware level (capability to send digital signals)
- Political level (policymakers allocate spectrum)
Umbrella Perspective - List the levels of the limiting factors
- Hardware level - no available service connects to device
- Organizational/political level - laws of policies prevent use
Umbrella Perspective - List the Motivating factors
- Pool of rich users motivates corporations to provide service
- Content motivates people to pay for service/adopt technology
Umbrella Perspective - List the inhibiting factors
- Social norms
- Ethics
- Perceived appropriateness
- Cost
What is the theory of planned behavior?
Behavior intentions are predicted by attitudes toward the innovation and the innovators
What is the principle of relative Constancy
Says people spend a constant fraction of their disposable income on mass media. In order for new technology to be adopted it must be compelling enough for adopter to give something else up.
What is the goal of diffusion of innovation theory?
Tries to explain how an innovation is communicated over time through different channels to members of society.
What are the five groups that make up the Diffusion of Innovation Theory?
- Innovators
- Early Adopters
- Early Majority
- Late Majority
- Laggards
What is the Uses and gratifications model?
- A rational choice model
- The users are actively seeking to use different media to fulfill different needs
What is the social learning theory?
-Predicting that people learn by modeling the behavior of others
What is Copyright?
the exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.
What is Convergence?
- The merging of functions of old and new media.
- Products serving multiple needs
- The coming together of computing, telecommunications, and media in digital environment Economic: internet and telecommunications with traditional media companies Ex: comcast + NBC/Cultural: values through media/globalization
What is twisted pair?
In the original telephony infrastructure, it was made up of two copper wire twisted around each other with a layer of plastic
What is protocol?
An established method of exchange
What is TCP/IP?
The two protocol layers of the Internet
What are the two types of Switching?
- Circuit Switching
2. Packet Switching
What is circuit switching protocol?
A “dedicated” circuit for the duration of interaction (as with telephony)
What are the Advantages of circuit switching?
- Fixed bandwidth
- Constant transmission rate
- Maintain transmission order
- Better for constant rate of communication
What are the disadvantages of circuit switching?
- Connection set-up/tear-down
- User pays for the circuit, even when not sending data
- Other users can’t use the circuit even if it is free of traffic
- Poor error performance
What is packet switching protocol?
- Protocol that breaks data into packets
- Requires fewer lines, more switches than circuit switching
- Cost-effective for “bursty” communication
- Packets from different sources co-mingle on the same lines
- Machines sort/direct packets
- Packets are reassembled into the message
What does TCP stand for?
Transmission control protocol
What are the two parts of the TCP protocol?
- It’s a virtual circuit protocol
1. Sending Process
2. Receiving Process
What does IP stand for?
Internet Protocol
Explain characteristics of Internet protocol
- Lower level protocol
- Sees each packet individually
Circuit switching is used for what industry?
Used for telephony, dedicated circuit between users
Packet switching is used for what industry?
Used for internet, no dedicated circuit, conversations sent in packets
List characteristics of the coaxial cable
- Could transmit more than 3 stations at once
- The hardwired tether could reach most people
- Allows transmission of more data than copper wires
Right of way
What you need to be able to put a cable in the ground from the cable provider to someone’s house
What is Telephony?
General term for electronic communication
What is the history of telephone use?
- Telephone was introduced by Bell in 1876
- Telephone still plays and important role in telecommunications
- Mobile phone has changed concept of telephony
- Wireless telephones are handled with antenna
- Landline business is shrinking