Impact of Technology

In our first assignment, we will look at the impact of technology on your organization. Topics should include: 1) what caused the technology implementation; and 2) a high-level description of the resulting functional changes.

Please write a 3 page (double spaced) paper discussing how technology has impacted your department/organization.

Staying abreast to technology changes had been a primary focus of my job up until this past Monday. For nearly seven years I worked for a retailer selling Verizon Wireless phones and service plans. This past Monday, I made a career change and began working as a Home Mortgage Consultant for Wells Fargo. The focus of this paper will be on my experiences while working as a manager for Verizon Wireless.

In August of 1999, I started my career with a company called Bell Atlantic that shortly thereafter became Verizon Wireless. At that time, Bell Atlantic was offering cellular service to customers utilizing two different types of networks. The first was analogue; the second was dual mode (analogue and digital). The latter was a relatively new technology that was designed to offer the customer more security and privacy while using their phone. It also required a less “powerful” phone, thereby increasing battery time and decreasing the amount of radio frequency energy and exposure. This change was brought on in part by new guidelines issued by the FCC in 1996.

The FCC established limits to ensure cellular phones were regulated and have to meet specific requirements before they may be released for public sale. One such limit is the SAR limit. SAR stands for Specific Absorption Rate. As described by Verizon Wireless on their website, “SAR is a measure of the rate of absorption of RF energy in the body. Tests for SAR are conducted with the phone transmitting at its highest power level in all tested frequency bands. Since 1996, the FCC has required that the SAR of handheld wireless phones not exceed 1.6 watts per kilogram, averaged over one gram of tissue. Although the SAR is determined at the highest power level, the actual SAR value of a wireless phone while operating can be less than the reported SAR value. This is because the SAR value may vary from call to call, depending on factors such as proximity to a cell site, the proximity of the phone to the body while in use, and the use of hands-free devices.”

As the nineties came to a close, so did the use of sole analogue technology. Verizon Wireless discontinued the sale of analogue phones and introduced tri-mode phones. These new phones support both the 850 and 1900 MHz bands, and analog (AMPS) in the 850 band. In layman’s terms, the phones are able to pick up signal from a larger variety of towers or sources. These phones are designed to give the best signal in any given area. Most recently, Verizon Wireless began introducing all-digital phones. These phones do not pick up analogue signals at all. The company has also begun upgrading their cellular network of towers and gradually eliminating those that emit analogue signals and replacing them with digital.

Aside from the changing network technology, Verizon Wireless has also had to continually upgrade the equipment they offer adding new technology in response to customer demand. These technology upgrades began with size. In the beginning, cellular phones were very cumbersome. The “bag phone” was one of the first cellular phones for a good number of people. The phone was analogue and was literally carried around in a bag. As technology changed and got smaller, they were able to introduce smaller phones and continue to do so. New technological advances also enabled them to begin offering phones with full color displays. More recently, Verizon Wireless started offering camera phones. These phones have the ability to take, send, and receive pictures right on the handset. Furthering this advance, they also offer camera phones with the ability to take short videos that can also be sent and received from the handset.

Not everyone desires a camera phone, but in today’s fast paced, high stress society, most people do desire technology that allows them to work “on-the-go”. To accommodate this, Verizon Wireless teamed up with Palm and RIM to offer PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants) that also function as phones.