Internet Protocol (IP) telephony can yield big cost savings to both corporations and consumers. It is more efficient than the plain old telephone service (POTS) and is poised to undergo huge growth. Before that growth can occur, however, designers who want to use the technology have to vault hurdles concerning latency, quality, and security. Quality of service (QoS) is the primary problem impeding this growth. A traditional problem with this technology, QoS must improve enough to enable Internet-based services to compete with traditional telephony providers. Many industry pundits think this scenario won’t happen unless IP overcomes these problems . Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve heard endless predictions about the new millennium, and some of these predictions will even come true. But there’s one low-risk prediction that you can make: Electronic systems will increasingly require point-to-point serial links at the 1-Gbps-and-higher rate between pc boards, chassis, and subsystems. This requirement means that the demands on the physical link will increase, and, if you don’t prepare properly, the physical link will become the slowest and thus the weakest link in your signal-path chain. Read the rest of this entry »