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Telecommunications and Networking

1. Telecommunication involves sending messages for the purpose of
communication. Telecommunications is a general term for a vast array of
technologies that send information over distances. Mobile phones, land lines,
satellite phones and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) are all telephony
technologies -- just one field of telecommunications. Radio, television and
networks are a few more examples of telecommunication.

A complete, single telecommunications circuit consists of two stations, each

equipped with a transmitter and a receiver. The transmitter and receiver at any
station may be combined into a single device called a transceiver. The medium of
signal transmission can be electrical wire or cable (also known as "copper"),
optical fiber or electromagnetic fields. The free-space transmission and reception
of data by means of electromagntetic fields is called wireless.

The simplest form of telecommunications takes place between two stations.

However, it is common for multiple transmitting and receiving stations to
exchange data among themselves. Such an arrangement is called a
telecommunications network. The Internet is the largest example. On a smaller
scale, examples include:

• Corporate and academic wide-area networks (WANs)

• Telephone networks
• Police and fire communications systems
• Taxicab dispatch networks
• Groups of amateur radio operators

Data is conveyed in a telecommunications circuit by means of an electrical signal

called the carrier or carrier wave. In order for a carrier to convey information, some
form of modulation is required. The mode of modulation can be broadly
categorized as either analog or digital. In analog modulation, some aspect of the
carrier is varied in a continuous fashion. The oldest form of analog modulation is
amplitude modulation (AM), still used in radio broadcasting at some frequencies.
Digital modulation actually predates analog modulation; the earliest form was
Morse code. During the 1900s, dozens of new forms of modulation were
developed and deployed, particularly during the so-called "digital revolution" when
the use of computers among ordinary citizens became widespread.
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In some contexts, a broadcast network, consisting of a single transmitting station

and multiple receive-only stations, is considered a form of telecommunications.
Radio and television broadcasting are the most common examples.

Telecommunications and broadcasting worldwide are overseen by the International

Telecommunication Union (ITU), an agency of the United Nations (UN) with
headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Most countries have their own agencies that
enforce telecommunications regulations formulated by their governments. In the
United States, that agency is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

While most people associate telecommunications with modern technologies, the

strict definition of the term encompasses primitive and even ancient forms of
telecommunication. Among these is the use of smoke signals as a kind of visual
telegraph. Puffs of smoke were time-released by smothering a fire with a blanket,
then quickly removing and replacing the blanket. Widely used by the American
Indians, smoke signals could communicate short messages over long distances,
assuming a clear line of sight.

Other forms of early telecommunications include relay fires or beacons. Used for
mostly in warfare, relay fires required a handful of men posted along a range of
hilltops, with the last man closest to the area where troop movement was expected.
When armies were spotted in the distance, he would light a bonfire. The fire could
be seen from a good distance away by the next man in the relay, who would in turn
light his own bonfire, and so the fires were lit in succession along the range,
creating an effective telecommunications signal that traveled back over several
miles in a relatively short period of time. Finally, the last man in the relay would
light a beacon to signal his army below that the opponent was en-route.

The arrangement of a ship's flags and semaphores were other forms of

telecommunications. A semaphore was a mechanical device atop a tower with
paddle-like blades or flags. The device would be set in a specific position to
communicate information.

Throughout the 19th century, telecommunications devices became more

sophisticated with the advent of electricity, leading to the telegraph, Morse code,
and signal lamps. A signal lamp, the optical version of the telegraph, is a powerful
lamp with shutters that block the light in long or short durations to translate to the
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dots and dashes of Morse code. A heliograph is another optical telegraph -- a

mirror used to reflect light to mimic a signal lamp.

In the 20th century, telecommunications reached beyond our planet. In June 1969,
the world watched and listened as astronauts walked on the moon. Twenty years
later, in August 1989, we would see pictures of Neptune arrive back from the
Voyager 2 spacecraft, riding radio waves that traveled over roughly three billion
miles (4.8 billion km) to reach us in a matter of a few hours.

Strides in telecommunications have changed the world immeasurably. While

pockets of humankind were once isolated from each other, people now have
multiple ways to see and hear what is occurring on the other side of the world in
real time. Satellite technology, television, the Internet and telephony keep the
globe connected in a humming buzz of interactive voices and pictures. In short,
telecommunications has come a long way from smoke signals.

1.2 The Function of Telecommunication What Are the Types of

Communication Networks?

Types
Telecommunication can take place over the telephone, mobile devices, the Internet,
through the radio or other electronic instrument. It also involves a variety of
mediums including voice, video or Internet transactions. Those in the medical field
can even assist in the performance of telesurgery on patients thousands of miles
away through telecommunication devices.

Significance
Computer networking, or a web of computers transferring information back and
forth, has allowed telecommunications to progress. Without the engineering
principle that connected multiple computers over an extended distance,
telecommunication would be improbable, and in some cases impossible.

Potential
According to Vinton G. Cerf, senior vice president of the data services division of
MCI telecommunications division, the Internet has doubled in size every year since
1988. It is truly a global infrastructure and one of the first infrastructures to grow
so rapidly in less than a decade.
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1.3 History Telecommunication

Telecommunication is communication at a distance by technological means,

particularly through electrical signals or electromagnetic waves. The word is often
used in its plural form, telecommunications, because it involves many different
technologies.

Early means of communicating over a distance included visual signals, such as

beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical
heliographs. Other examples of pre-modern long-distance communication included
audio messages such as coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, and loud whistles.
Modern technologies for long-distance communication usually involve electrical
and electromagnetic technologies, such as telegraph, telephone, and teleprinter,
networks, radio, microwave transmission, fiber optics, 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. Other highly notable
pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic
telecommunications include Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse (telegraph),
Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Edwin Armstrong, and Lee de Forest (radio),
as well as John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth (television).

The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way

telecommunication networks grew from 281 petabytes of (optimally compressed)
information in 1986, to 471 petabytes in 1993, to 2.2 (optimally compressed)
exabytes in 2000, and to 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007. This is the
informational equivalent of two newspaper pages per person per day in 1986, and
six entire newspapers per person per day by 2007. Given this growth,
telecommunications play an increasingly important role in the world economy and
the global telecommunications industry was about a $4.7 trillion sector in 2012.
The service revenue of the global telecommunications industry was estimated to be
$1.5 trillion in 2010, corresponding to 2.4% of the world’s gross domestic product
(GDP).

The word telecommunication was adapted from the French. It is a compound of the
Greek prefix tele- (τηλε-), meaning "distant", and the Latin communicare, meaning
"to share". The French word télécommunication was first invented in the French
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Grande Ecole "Telecom ParisTech" formerly known as "Ecole nationale supérieure

des télécommunications" in 1904 by the French engineer and novelist Édouard
Estaunié.

History
Greek hydraulic semaphore systems were used as early as the 4th century BC. The
hydraulic semaphores, which worked with water filled vessels and visual signals,
functioned as optical telegraphs. However, they could only utilize a very limited
range of pre-determined messages, and as with all such optical telegraphs could
only be deployed during good visibility conditions.

During the Middle Ages, chains of beacons were commonly used on hilltops as a
means of relaying a signal. Beacon chains suffered the drawback that they could
only pass a single bit of information, so the meaning of the message such as "the
enemy has been sighted" had to be agreed upon in advance. One notable instance
of their use was during the Spanish Armada, when a beacon chain relayed a signal
from Plymouth to London that signaled the arrival of the Spanish warships.

Systems since the Middle Ages

A replica of one of Chappe's semaphore towers in Nalbach, Germany
In 1792, Claude Chappe, a French engineer, built the first fixed visual telegraphy
system (or semaphore line) between Lille and Paris. However semaphore systems
suffered from the need for skilled operators, and expensive towers at intervals of
10–30 kilometers (6–20 mi). As a result of competition from the electrical
telegraph, Europe's last commercial semaphore line in Sweden was abandoned in
1880.

Telegraph and telephone History of the telephone

Experiments on communication with electricity, initially unsuccessful, started in
about 1726. Scientists of including Laplace, Ampère, and Gauss were involved. A
practical electrical telegraph was proposed in January 1837 by William Fothergill
Cooke, who considered it an improvement on the existing "electromagnetic
telegraph"; an improved five-needle, six-wire system developed in partnership with
Charles Wheatstone entered commercial use in 1838. Early telegraphs used several
wires connected to a number of indicator needles.

Businessman Samuel F.B. Morse and physicist Joseph Henry of the United States
developed their own, simpler version of the electrical telegraph, independently.
Morse successfully demonstrated this system on 2 September 1837. Morse's most
important technical contribution to this telegraph was the simple and highly
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efficient Morse Code co-developed with his associate Alfred Vail, which was an
important advance over Wheatstone's more complicated and expensive system, and
required just two wires. The communications efficiency of the Morse Code
preceded that of the Huffman code in digital communications by over 100 years,
but Morse and Vail developed the code purely empirically, with shorter codes for
more frequent letters.

The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed on 27

July 1866, allowing transatlantic electrical communication for the first time. An
earlier transatlantic cable had operated for a few months in 1859, and among other
things, it carried messages of greeting back and forth between President James
Buchanan of the United States and Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

However that first transatlantic cable soon failed, and the project to lay a
replacement line was delayed for five years by the American Civil War. The first
transatlantic telephone cable (which incorporated hundreds of electronic
amplifiers) was not operational until 1956, only six years before the first
commercial telecommunications satellite, Telstar, was launched into space.

The conventional telephone now in use worldwide was first patented by Alexander
Graham Bell in March 1876. That first patent by Bell was the master patent of the
telephone, from which all other patents for electric telephone devices and features
flowed. Credit for the invention of the electric telephone has been frequently
disputed, and new controversies over the issue have arisen from time-to-time. As
with other great inventions such as radio, television, the light bulb, and the digital
computer, there were several inventors who did pioneering experimental work on
voice transmission over a wire, who then improved on each other's ideas. However,
the key innovators were Alexander Graham Bell and Gardiner Greene Hubbard,
who created the first telephone company, the Bell Telephone Company in the
United States, which later evolved into American Telephone & Telegraph
(AT&T), at times the world's largest phone company.

The first commercial telephone services were set up in 1878 and 1879 on both
sides of the Atlantic in the cities of New Haven, Connecticut, and London,
England.