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Standards and Protocols in Data CommunicationsStandards and Protocols in Data Communications
David E. Cook,University of Derby, United KingdomIntroduction 320
Standards Bodies 321
International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) 321
The Internet 321
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) 322
ATM Forum 322
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 322
Commit ́ee Consultatif International
T ́el ́ ephonique et T ́el ́ egraphique (CCITT) 322
Internetworking Models and Layering
Protocols 322
OSI (7-Layer) and TCP/IP Models 322
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) 324
Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) 324
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) 324TCP/IP Protocol Suites 324
Multicast and Unicast Control Protocols 325
IPv6 and the Future 325
Internet Applications and Their
Protocols 325
File Access (FTP, Telnet, NFS) 325
The World Wide Web (HTTP, HTML) 326
The Next Generation (XML, SOAP, .NET) 326
Emerging Multimedia Protocol Standards 326
E-commerce Enabling Protocols 326
SSL/TLS and HTTP 326
Emerging Mobile E-commerce Protocols 326
Conclusion 327
Glossary 327
Cross References 327
References 327INTRODUCTION
This chapter focuses on the importance of open standards
in the development of today’s interoperable and global
Internet. Many definitions are possible but this from the
ISO meets our needs:Standards are documented agreements contain-
ing technical specifications or other precise crite-
ria to be used consistently as rules, guidelines, or
definitions of characteristics, to ensure that ma-
terials, products, processes and services are fit for
their purpose. (ISO, 2002)Global standards protect users from incompatibility
problems between competing suppliers and government-
sponsored systems.
While providing an introduction to the most important
standards bodies and their historical background in the
world of data communications it also discusses the new
and emerging multimedia-dominated applications. Sev-
eral standard protocols for file interchange, in particular
those associated with the Internet and electronic com-
merce (e-commerce), are covered in detail. A variety of
applications have been spawned specifically for the
Internet as it has matured; these vary from the function-
ality required for good management to the World Wide
Web (WWW). The chapter covers the new and emerging
standards associated with e- and m-commerce (mobile
commerce). Currently the demand for wireless applica-
tions is creating a considerable number of variations on
existing protocols and several emerging new ones. These
later applications are dependent upon a variety of multi-
media approaches to file interchange that have become
increasingly popular as Web services. Originally the stan-
dards were driven by forces requiring data exchange as a
consequence of their businesses; today businesses solelydependent on the presence of exchangeable data have
emerged, and it is these that now demand new stan-
dards for interoperability. These businesses are those
that we now collectively know as e-commerce (Aaron,
1997). They in turn are attempting to accommodate and
assimilate into their structures new technologies of a
wireless nature under the banner of m-commerce. There-
fore, the future of e-commerce on the Internet requires
the development of more efficient standards in five ar-
eas: security, multimedia, document control standards,
banking (e-money), and associated enabling technolo-
gies.
Security is still the single most formidable block to the
growth of e-commerce. Consumer fears in this area are
well founded. Most of these fears are due to Internet fraud
and not the inability of technology to provide standards
for secure transactions. The use of the secure socket layer
(SSL) standard is commonplace and its details are covered
elsewhere in this book; however, we briefly consider the
major security standards.
Multimedia applications are the key to many on-
line sales and, given increasing availability of band-
width for mobile devices, this area will grow rapidly.
This chapter examines the modifications necessary to
the older standards as well as the current developments,
particularly MHEG, driven by the Working Group 12
(WG12).
Inevitably the increasing use of mobile applications is
forcing the introduction of specific protocols and stan-
dards to cope with the rapid growth in this area.
Document control standards are now increasingly
needed to cope with the potential for microtransactions
across the Web. One of the related problems is how
to recognize content providers contributions to multi-
media content. This area is being tackled by the Joint
Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) and Motion Picture320