NIST and Your Communications Infrastructure

NIST and Your Communications Infrastructure

NIST research and services are critical to the U.S. communications industry, which leads the world in new technologies and efficient operation.

Modern communications signals travel via copper wire and glass fibers as well as through air and space. Whether it be light signals in a transoceanic optical cable, radio frequency signals from a broadcast tower, a phone conversation relayed by satellite, or microwaves from a cellular base station, it is the laws of electromagnetism that describe what is happening. That accounts for why the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory (EEEL) is the portion of the National Institute of Standards and Technology most extensively involved with the communications industry.

And within EEEL, it is the Electromagnetic Technology Division that has the most extensive technical connection with the communications industry. Researchers in the division develop many of the standards and testing procedures by which satellite communications can be finely tuned. Division researchers also develop measurement techniques by which insulators, conductors, and other materials central to the communications infrastructure are tested. Researchers in the division also are key players in the microwave communications sector by developing the standards and measurement protocols for monitoring microwave power, which is one of the most fundamental test requirements for an industry that includes cellular phone technology. Other division researchers focus on the detailed technical issue of noise in signals, a fact of life for every communications technology and, indeed, for any technology involving signal detection and processing.

And that's not nearly all....

Other divisions of NIST are also in the communications fray. Again within EEEL, researchers in the Optoelectronics Division have their hands in virtually every aspect of light-based communication from from the laser-based sources of the signals travelling through optical fibers to optical detectors that see the light and convert it to electrical signals that in turn, end up as voices on phones or data on a computer screen. In the Physics Laboratory, the Time and Frequency Division is responsible for maintaining and improving the national standards of time and frequency that the entire communications infrastructure stands upon.

The Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) is another part of NIST that is building strong and extensive linkages with the communications industry, including both vendors and users. A short list of its programs reveals the breadth of ITL's relevance in modern communications systems:

Don't forget the Advanced Technology Program....

Two of the ATP's focused programs--Digital Data Storage and Digital Video in Information Networks--have plenty to do with what communications technologies will be like in the future.