The total area network The imperatives of technology and organisation, not the images of ideology, are what determine the shape of economic society J. K. Galbraith It was not very long ago that users of the UK postal system had a choice of postboxes, one marked ‘local’, the other ‘national’. To use this system effectively, you had to know how it worked—that local letters would arrive more quickly, but would be delayed if misdirected through national routes. The current picture of information networks is analogous. The onus is placed on the user to find out how the system works so that he. | Total Area Networking ATM IP Frame Relay and SMDS Explained. Second Edition John Atkins and Mark Norris Copyright 1995 1999 John Wiley Sons Ltd Print ISBN 0-471-98464-7 Online ISBN 0-470-84153-2 2 The total area network The imperatives of technology and organisation not the images of ideology are what determine the shape of economic society J. K. Galbraith It was not very long ago that users of the UK postal system had a choice of postboxes one marked local the other national . To use this system effectively you had to know how it worked that local letters would arrive more quickly but would be delayed if misdirected through national routes. The current picture of information networks is analogous. The onus is placed on the user to find out how the system works so that he or she can select optimal or even viable routes and resources. But this situation is changing and fast. Just as the postal service evolved to handle routing so that it was transparent to the user so will information networks. In broad terms the nature of the evolution will be similar less reliance on user knowledge more intelligence embedded in the network. This chapter traces the evolution of information networks from early times through to the current day and on to the near future. This puts some flesh on the bare bones of Chapter 1 and explains in some detail the trends and drivers that are shaping the emerging networks for the information age. We build up here a picture of what users are likely to require and go on to give an overview of the new network technologies that promise to meet these requirements. The key theme of this chapter is that many more people will become information-intensive workers over the next few years. Some already are and a partial blueprint for the operating environment of the future already exists there is a significant community of specialists who rely heavily on facilities such as the Internet and the World Wide Web to do their jobs. A faster and more robust .
