Question

Answer the following question in not more than 150 words.

What are the modes by which cyber space will expand the contemporary economic and social space of humans.

Answer 1

Human beings have used various methods of long-distance communication, among which the telegraph and the telephone were important. The telegraph was instrumental in the colonisation of the American West. The telephone became a critical factor in the urbanisation of America. Even today, the telephone is the most commonly used mode. In developing countries, satellite-enabled cell phones are important for rural connectivity. The world soon upgraded its copper cable systems to include optical fibre cables. These allow large quantities of data to be transmitted rapidly and securely, with virtually no errors. Today, the internet is the largest electronic network on the planet, connecting about 1,000 million people in more than 100 countries.

Artificial satellites, now, are successfully deployed in the Earth’s orbit to connect even the remote corners of the globe with limited on-site verification. These have rendered the unit cost and communication time invariant with respect to distance. Cyberspace is the world of electronic computerised space. It is encompassed by the Internet, such as the World Wide Web (www). In simple terms, it is the digital world for communicating or accessing information over computer networks without the physical movement of the sender and receiver. It is also referred to as the Internet. Cyberspace exists everywhere. It may be in an office, a sailing boat, a plane, or virtually anywhere.

There were fewer than 50 million Internet users in 1995, about 400 million in 2000, and over one billion in 2005. The next billion users are to be added by 2010. As billions use the Internet each year, cyberspace will expand the contemporary economic and social space of humans through e-mail, e-commerce, e-learning, and e-governance. The Internet, together with fax, television and radio, will be accessible to more and more people, cutting across place and time. It is these modern communication systems, more than transportation, that have made the concept of the global village a reality.