Portal:Telecommunication
The Telecommunication Portal
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that feasible with the human voice, but with a similar scale of expediency; thus, slow systems (such as postal mail) are excluded from the field.
The transmission media in telecommunication have evolved through numerous stages of technology, from beacons and other visual signals (such as smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs), to electrical cable and electromagnetic radiation, including light. Such transmission paths are often divided into communication channels, which afford the advantages of multiplexing multiple concurrent communication sessions. Telecommunication is often used in its plural form.
Other examples of pre-modern long-distance communication included audio messages, such as coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, and loud whistles. 20th- and 21st-century technologies for long-distance communication usually involve electrical and electromagnetic technologies, such as telegraph, telephone, television and teleprinter, networks, radio, microwave transmission, optical fiber, and communications satellites.
A revolution in wireless communication began in the first decade of the 20th century with the pioneering developments in radio communications by Guglielmo Marconi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909, and other notable pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic telecommunications. These included Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse (inventors of the telegraph), Antonio Meucci and Alexander Graham Bell (some of the inventors and developers of the telephone, see Invention of the telephone), Edwin Armstrong and Lee de Forest (inventors of radio), as well as Vladimir K. Zworykin, John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth (some of the inventors of television).
The early telecommunication networks were created with copper wires as the physical medium for signal transmission. For many years, these networks were used for basic phone services, namely voice and telegrams. Since the mid-1990s, as the internet has grown in popularity, voice has been gradually supplanted by data. This soon demonstrated the limitations of copper in data transmission, prompting the development of optics. (Full article...)
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The history of the Internet has its origin in information theory and the efforts of scientists and engineers to build and interconnect computer networks. The Internet Protocol Suite, the set of rules used to communicate between networks and devices on the Internet, arose from research and development in the United States and involved international collaboration, particularly with researchers in the United Kingdom and France.
Computer science was an emerging discipline in the late 1950s that began to consider time-sharing between computer users, and later, the possibility of achieving this over wide area networks. J. C. R. Licklider developed the idea of a universal network at the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Independently, Paul Baran at the RAND Corporation proposed a distributed network based on data in message blocks in the early 1960s, and Donald Davies conceived of packet switching in 1965 at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), proposing a national commercial data network in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)General images
The master telephone patent, 174465, granted to Bell, March 7, 1876 (from History of telecommunication)
An exposed view of the Picturephone's rear circuit board (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Lee DeForest broadcasting Columbia phonograph records on pioneering New York station 2XG, in 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander using an Ericsson videophone to speak with Lennart Hyland, a popular TV show host (1969) (from History of videotelephony)
Naomi ("Joan") Melwit and Norman Banks at the 3KZ microphone, in the late 1930s (from History of broadcasting)
The 1969 AT&T Mod II Picturephone, the result of decades long R&D at a cost of over $500M. (from History of telecommunication)
Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
The "Kerbango Internet Radio" was the first stand-alone product that let users listen to Internet radio without a computer. (from History of broadcasting)
Australian radio sets usually had the positions of radio stations marked on their dials. The illustration is a dial from a transistorised, mains-operated Calstan radio, circa 1960s. (Click image for a high resolution view, with readable callsigns.) (from History of broadcasting)
The Nipkow disk. This schematic shows the circular paths traced by the holes, which may also be square for greater precision. The area of the disk outlined in black shows the region scanned. (from History of television)
AT&T Picturephone (Mod II) fully enclosed in its housing, control pad at bottom (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
The Marconi Company was formed in England in 1910. The photo shows a typical early scene, from 1906, with Marconi employee Donald Manson at right. (from History of broadcasting)
Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
The Kyocera VP-210 Visual Phone was the first commercial mobile videophone. The Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) phone was introduced in Japan (1999). (from History of videotelephony)
British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment in 1897. (from History of radio)
Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo, first introduced in 1975 and based on the Lissajous curve (from History of broadcasting)
Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
The Regency TR-1, which used Texas Instruments' NPN transistors, was the world's first commercially produced transistor radio in 1954. (from History of radio)
Broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad in a 1921 portrait (from History of broadcasting)
A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Code of letters and symbols for Chappe telegraph (Rees's Cyclopaedia) (from History of telecommunication)
Stock telegraph ticker machine by Thomas Edison (from History of telecommunication)
Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right). (from History of television)
Bell prototype telephone stamp(from History of the telephone)
Centennial Issue of 1976
Early experiment demonstrating refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio)
Reginald Fessenden, the "father" of radio broadcasting in the US (from History of broadcasting)
The British Broadcasting Corporation's landmark and iconic London headquarters, Broadcasting House, opened in 1932. At right is the 2005 eastern extension, the John Peel wing. (from History of broadcasting)
AT&T magazine advertisement announcing commercial launch of Picturephone service. (from History of videotelephony)
Guglielmo Marconi (from History of broadcasting)
Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available. (from History of television)
1896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Oliver Lodge's 1894 lectures on Hertz demonstrated how to transmit and detect radio waves (from History of radio)
Typical low-cost webcam used with many personal computers (from History of videotelephony)
Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in a 1926 silent film. Shows Bell's first telephone transmitter (microphone), invented 1876 and first displayed at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. (from History of the telephone)
DBS satellite dishes. (from History of television)
1917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Emil Voigt, founder of 2KY on behalf of the Labor Council of New South Wales. This photo was taken in earlier days when Voight was a prominent British athlete, and winner of the Gold Medal for the five mile race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. (from History of broadcasting)
Caricature of Sir John Reith, by Wooding (from History of broadcasting)
A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany (from History of telecommunication)
Donald Manson working as an employee of the Marconi Company (England, 1906) (from History of radio)
Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
The first commercial AM Audion vacuum tube radio transmitter, built in 1914 by Lee De Forest who invented the Audion (triode) in 1906 (from History of radio)
Modern Apple iPhone. This phone is considered a smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Artist's conception: 21st-century videotelephony imagined in the early 20th century (1910) (from History of videotelephony)
Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Around 1920, radio broadcasting started to get popular. A group of women gathered around the radio at the time. (from History of radio)
Right side view, housing removed, one of its printed circuit boards exposed (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
In the 1920s, the United States government publication, "Construction and Operation of a Simple Homemade Radio Receiving Outfit", showed how almost any person handy with simple tools could a build an effective crystal radio receiver. (from History of radio)
"Doc" Herrold is shown at the microphone of KQW, early 1920s. (from History of broadcasting)
Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1856-1894) proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation (from History of radio)
Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
"Fiction becomes fact": Imaginary "Edison" combination videophone-television, conceptualized by George du Maurier and published in Punch magazine. The drawing also depicts then-contemporary speaking tubes, used by the parents in the foreground and their daughter on the viewing display (1878). (from History of videotelephony)
Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
The French Matra videophone (1970) (from History of videotelephony)
Charles Logwood broadcasting at station 2XG, New York City, circa November, 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Reginald Fessenden (around 1906) (from History of radio)
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 Samuel F. B. Morse, c. 1857 |
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