 knew more about a subject of interest than I did. Looking back now it's pretty easy to see that radio and television- "broadcasting" as we know it-was undergoing massive change driven by technology and gated by regulatory actions. "Moore's Law" was making an impact. I'm grateful for many gifts over the years. High on the list is a strong interest and appreciation for learning. I strongly believe my interest is a direct result of the influence of parents and other family members interest in reading and learning. Call it a "desire to now"-maybe curiosity-fed by teachers, librarians, writers, and more recently, the wonders of the Internet. This basic trait has served me well over the years and continues to keep me going. Associated with this charac- teristic is the vast sea of knowledge that seems to keep growing almost faster than any human can hope to keep up with. With this I wish you well and hope this effort contributes to your curiosity, sense of learning, and ultimate success in your professional and personal endeavours. Fred W. Huffman Richardson, Texas March 6, 2003 BASIC FUNDAMENTALS, DEFINITIONS, AND KEY TERMS Picture a group of 104 people in a room at a conference. The make up of the group is about 51% telecom heads, 45% transmission equip- ment manufacturers, and 5% broadcasters. The broadcasters finished their once a year presentations, yet another attempt to tell the telecom people that their network performance is and has been unsatisfac- tory, again (!), for the past year. One more time they didn't get it. A broadcaster cites a 3-hour service interruption and states emphatic- ally and profoundly that they couldn't even get a telephone call acknowledging the outage until an hour after service was restored. The amount of time, energy, and passion put into attempts to gain a common understanding of service-outage would amaze and amuse even the most disinterested casual observer. What's the problem? In a nutshell, and no pun intended, the group is suffering from a communications problem. Actually, that