> Telecommunications - including all electronic communications both
> commercial & non-commercial (including the telephony, broadcast media,
~~~~~~~~~
I don't agree that broadcasting is telecommunications.
Telecommunications involves a two-way, point-to-point, communication
system. The Internet is point-to-point in general, although this can
support applications which resemble broadcasting. Packets can be
broadcast on networks and received by a router and fanned out to
multiple sub-nets, so in this sense some aspects of Internet
communications are arguably broadcasting - but normal mass media
broadcasting, involving one-way, one-to-many, analogue or digital
signals carried by radio-waves, on coaxial cable or fibre should
never be confused with telecommunications.
Telecommunications (apart from SPAM and telemarketing) is
fundamentally more democratic then centrally controlled broadcasting.
I basically agree with the rest of Paul's post. However two points:
1 - "Online". This is generally an umbrella term for being connected
to a packet switched network, such as the Internet. Here in
Australia, apart from Compuserve perhaps, and some historical
curiosities (Austpac . . ) we don't have such services which are
not the Internet. So the term tends to be used as a safe generic
term to encompass the Internet and anything which is similar.
2 - I think a useful distinction could be made between a transaction
involving a physical operation with, for instance, a credit card
in an ATM machine, and a business transaction which relied purely
on the exchange of information - eg. sending the credit card
number or its equivalent via the network.
Is putting a magnetic striped card into an ATM "electronic
commerce"?
On the other hand, is a transaction involving physical use of a
stored value card, "electronic commerce"? Its more electronic
than the mag-stripe card, because the stored value card contains
a chip and changes its state as a result of the transaction.
This is a messy field, and loose use of terminology makes it messier
still. I think that it is probably impossible to arrive at clear
definitions of terms, but that its worth thinking about the
borderline cases and nuances to avoid using the terms too loosely.
At least the "electronic commerce" field does not yet seem to have
deliberately contradictary and incommunicative terms such as "Video
Dialtone" and "Wireless Cable".
- Robin
| Robin Whittle Consumer advocacy in telecommunications, |
| especially privacy. |
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| First Principles Research and expression - music, tele- |
| communications, Internet music marketing,|
| human factors in technology adoption. |
| Consulting and technical writing. |
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| Real World Interfaces Electronics and software for music. |
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