Learning Objectives

• Essential aspects of telecommunications technology with an emphasis on the technologies underlying voice and data networks

• Key features of internet and intranet technologies

• The "business" requirements that have shaped the merging of computing and communications technologies

• The operational implications of managing telecommunications in an organization involving issues such as identifying application opportunities, technology adoption under externalities, standards, security and privacy issues, and the definition of a computing and communications architecture

• The strategic implications of telecommunications as a technology that has reduced coordination costs involving issues such as outsourcing, the growth of (electronic) markets vs. hierarchies and resultant changes in organizational boundaries

• The (changing) structure of the telecommunications industry

• The impact of value added applications enabled by communications technology such as the Internet, in particular Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).