
220 ◾ Information Systems: What Every Business Student Needs to Know
CASE 1: CONNECTING REMOTE AREAS IN MICHIGAN
ree connection issues must be dealt with in order to access resources via the Internet.
People oen think about just two of them: the Internet backbone, which connects major
metropolitan areas and switching centers, and the last mile, which connects individual
users to “the Net.”
A last mile connection takes user messages to a nearby telecommunications switching
center. We assume this center has high-speed links to the rest of the world. In metropolitan
areas, that is usually true. But what about elsewhere? at is the middle mil ...