INTERNET AND BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Internet Business Communication

Internet Business Communication

Thesis Statement

The internet has changed the way business communication occurs through email, instant messaging, video conferencing, and social networks.

Introduction

A major step forward in the commercialization and growth of the Internet came in 1993 when the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign released the Mosaic Web browser. This browser was the first popular graphical Web browser that used a protocol called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to display information on attractively designed “pages” containing text and images that could be embedded with links pointing to other pages (Adler, Elmhorst, 2008). The intuitive presentation of HTML pages helped to popularize the Internet's “World Wide Web.” NCSA's Mosaic browser was quickly overtaken in popularity by the commercial Netscape Navigator browser, which came out in 1994.

The Internet is often conceived of as having several “layers.” At the bottom lies the physical layer—the wires, cables, fibers, and routers over and through which packet-switched communications travel (Adler, Elmhorst, 2008). Next, there is the logical layer, which contains the routing and presentation rules such as TCP/IP, HTML, and other protocols that govern the transfer of packets of data and their display. Next comes the application layer—the computer programs that people use to create and communicate content such as e-mail, Web pages, video, and voice. Finally, there is the content layer, which is the e-mail, Web sites, video, and other information that actually traverses this communications system (Adler, Elmhorst, 2008).

Discussion

The growth of the Internet and the use of TCP/IP have prompted telecommunications convergence and competition. The infrastructure originally built and optimized for wired telephone, wireless telephone, radio, broadcast TV, and cable TV is more and more being reconfigured to carry any kind of communication using IP. At the same time, new infrastructure such as fiber optics is being installed for purely IP communications. This development has had profound pro-competitive effects on the telecommunications industry and has brought substantial benefits to consumers (Adler, Elmhorst, 2008).

Formerly, distinct networks that had provided cable TV or telephone services exclusively, for example, are competing with one another to provide voice services, video services, and Internet access services to consumers. Internet applications and Web sites also provide voice and video directly over consumers' Internet connections. These developments have rendered separate regulatory regimes for each distinct service obsolete as the distinctions among them blur and as competition replaces public utility regulation in promoting consumer welfare (Adler, Elmhorst, 2008).

The Internet and the World Wide Web also have spawned convergence and competition in news, entertainment, commentary, and the arts, which in turn has expanded the amount of information and the range of opinions that are available to the average person. Traditional media outlets have been pressed to provide their services in a new variety of formats, for example. Major newspapers have Web sites with equivalent or greater readership than their print editions, on which they also provide video and user-generated commentary and content (Adler, Elmhorst, 2008). The Internet also has lowered barriers to competition ...