Factors Influencing Digital Communication (Edexcel IGCSE ICT): Exam Questions

The venue promotes events on a website.

Gail uploads new images for the website.

Explain one reason why the image files should be compressed before uploading to the website.

Visitors usually bring a digital device to events at the venue.

The venue uses a barcode scanner that connects to the booking system.

The barcode scanner will be used in places where hundreds of mobile digital devices will be using wireless communication.

Explain the benefit of using wired communication rather than wireless communication between the barcode scanner and the booking system

Camille creates a home network.

Camille uses wired and wireless connectivity.

State what is meant by ‘latency’.

Camille shares family photographs online with friends.

Camille connects to a wireless access point to upload her photographs.

Explain one reason why moving closer to the wireless access point reduces transfer time.

Camille’s child, Sarah, uses websites and video sharing sites for her school work.

Sarah participates in an online meeting as part of a lesson.

Sarah uses wired connectivity. Her video is not synchronised with video from other participants.

Which one of these would cause this issue?

Joe streams a radio show online.

Joe must reduce latency when connecting an input device to a computer.

Which one of these is the best choice of connectivity for this?

Which one of these is the effect of latency?

Joe posts a link to the shows on an online community.

Explain one reason Joe does not upload posts that include videos when streaming a show.

Joe connects to different types of networks.

Joe checks the new connection and gets these results:

Explain the impact these results have on the experience of Joe’s audience.

A student is choosing a home internet package. Each package states its bandwidth.

State what is meant by bandwidth.

Kiri bids for an item on an online auction site. The auction closes at an exact time, and many people place bids in the last few seconds.

Explain why low latency is more important than high bandwidth for Kiri's bids.

Sami teaches a live online lesson from a village school. Students join the lesson from their homes using video calls.

The school's internet connection has low bandwidth and high latency.

Explain two ways the students' experience of the live lesson will be affected by the school's connection.

Noor uploads a large video file to an online storage service.

Which one of these reduces the volume of data that must be transferred?

Tomi's family has one home internet connection. At 7 am, a large file downloads in a few minutes. At 8 pm, the same file takes much longer to download.

Explain one reason why the download is slower at 8 pm.

Dara is a photographer. Dara is staying in a hotel and must upload 400 high-resolution photographs to a client's website before the next morning. The hotel provides wireless internet access in each room.

Explain two actions Dara could take to reduce the time it takes to upload the photographs.

An office is setting up a local area network (LAN). The manager is deciding whether to connect the computers using cables or wirelessly.

State one drawback of using wireless rather than wired communication in the office LAN.

A school sets up a temporary exam room in its sports hall for two weeks each year. Students use laptops in the exam room.

Explain one reason why the school should use wireless rather than wired connections for the laptops in the hall.

An architecture company is moving into a new two-floor office. It has 25 staff. Staff work at desks and also move between meeting rooms with laptops. They regularly send very large drawing files to each other and to a shared printer.

Discuss the use of wired and wireless communication for the company's local area network (LAN).

Which one of these describes mobile broadband?

Remi's family streams films and makes video calls every day. They are thinking of cancelling their fixed-line broadband and using mobile broadband only.

Explain one drawback to Remi's family of using mobile broadband only.

Asha is moving into a shared flat with three other students for one year while at university. The students will study online, stream video and play online games. Each student has a smartphone with a cellular data contract.

Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the ways the students could connect to the internet in the flat.

In your answer you should consider:

• fixed-line broadband

• mobile broadband

• using each student's own cellular data.