Introduction to

Communication Technologies
HISTORY AND USES OF ICT
NICOLA TURING

REFERENCE: Form 3, Unit 4. Pages 141-148.

Senior Secondary Computer Studies, Andrew Nasalangwa.
Learning
outcomes
Students should be able to
demonstrate an understanding of
communication technologies, their
origins and applications.
Students must be able to:
❖Define the terms communication,
data communication,
telecommunication and network
❖Trace the history of the telephone,
cellular and internet communication
technologies
❖Outline the uses of networks
Definitions (1)
Communication
❖Process of using sounds, words, symbols, signs, pictures or signals to pass a message or
information from one person to another
❖Message origin = source or sender
❖Target recipient = receiver
Data communication
❖ Process of transmitting data signals from one point to another through a communication
channel
Telecomunication
❖ Use of technology to enable exchange of messages in the form of data over a wired or
wireless communication media
❖ Include use of telegraph, telephone, radio, television, computers
Telecommunication network
❖ Interconnection of telecommunication equipment such as telephones, mobiles, radios,
televisions and computers using transmission media or links
❖ Network enables flow of information from the source to destination
 Definitions (2)
Computer network
❖Interconnection of computers using transmission media and networking
devices to enable exchange of data and information

Information and communication technology

❖ Refers to the convergence of computer networks with telecommunication
networks like telephone, mobiles, radio, telephone to provide a
communication platform through which people can share information

Summary
History of telephones
❑Telegraph predated the telephone (series of dots and dashes
coded as electrical signals to transmit text characters over
long distances
❑1667 Robert Hooke: acoustic string phone
❑Speaking tubes were common within buildings and aboard
ships
❑1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone and
makes the world’s “first long-distance call”
❑1878 Bell demonstrates the phone to Queen Victoria
❑1878 First permanent telephone connection in UK between
two business in Manchester
❑1927 First transatlantic phone call from the US to the UK

For more details, check out the Wikipaedia article on the history of the telephone
Evolution of the telephone
Rotary dial
telephones

Touch tone dial

telephones

Mobile phones
Evolution of
mobile
phones
History of mobile phones
❖1973 – first demonstrated by Dr Martin Cooper
❖Communicate through cellular wireless networks set up by
governments or mobile service providers
❖Each phone has a SIM card (Subscriber Identification Module) - special
component which identifies each subscriber on the network

For more details, check out the Wikipaedia article on the history mobile phones
 Basic / conventional mobile
phone

Touch screen feature

Classification phones
of mobile
phones
Smartphones

Tablets
 Basic / conventional
mobile phone
❖Designed to make calls and send text messages
❖May have a few monochrome games
❖Characterised by:
❖Small size
❖Small, low resolution screen
❖Physical keypad
❖Limited memory capacity
❖Low processing power

❖Some more advanced phones may had colour

screen, low resolution camera, QWERTY keypad,
ability to access the internet
 Touch screen feature
phone
❖Wide touch screen
❖Ability to process graphics in full colour
❖Higher memory capacity and more powerful
processor
❖Can connect to internet
❖Higher resolution cameras
Smartphone
❖Advanced features that makes them operate like computers

❖Powerful processors

❖Large touch screen

❖Powerful operating system (Android, iOS, Windows)

❖Can run advanced applications like office documents, PDF

readers, video, games and maps

❖High memory capacity enabling processing of memort intensive

programs and data

❖Ability to access high speed internet and stream online vidoes

❖High resolution cameras with ability to take high definition

pictures and videos
 Tablets
❖Portable computer that uses a touch sensitive interface for
interaction with the user

❖Most tablets have a slot for a SIM card to be able to use

mobile communication networks (including voice calls, text
messaging and internet access)

❖General characteristics of tablets

❖Larger touchscreen than a smartphone
❖Larger internal memory capacity
❖Powerful processor
❖Ability to run several applications and connect to the
internet
❖High resolution screen and camera

Summary
 History of the
internet
❖Internet started life as ARPANET in the late 1960s
(collection of interconnected computers set up by the
American military as a way of transferring sensitive
data during the Cold War with Russia)
❖1980s network expanded and used by much wider
community including universities and research centres
❖Mid-1980s Tim Berners-Lee (British scientist working
in Switzerland) created the World Wide Web (WWW)
by developing the concept of an organised browser to
allow people to navigate and search the internet more
easily
❖1990s major increase in the range of services on offer
from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from search
engines to e-mail
Sir Tim Berners-Lee

For more details, check out the Wikipaedia article on the history of the internet
 History of the internet (1)
1958 US government creates the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is later responsible
for ARPANet and the Internet
1961 Leonard Kleinrock writes “Information Flow In Large Communication Nets,” a Ph.D thesis for
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This thesis is the first step toward establishing
packet-switching theory, which is the basis of the future Internet

1962 The earliest form of electronic mail comes into existence, provided by the Automatic Digital
Network, or AUTODIN
1963 J.C.R. Licklider, head of the Information Processing Techniques Office at ARPA, sent a memo
to colleagues outlining the challenges in establishing a time-sharing network of computers
with the software of the time. “Intergalactic Network concept” – everyone on the globe is
interconnected and can access programs and data at any site from anywhere
1964 Paul Baran compiles a series of reports titled “On Distributed Communications: Introduction
to Distributed Communications Networks” for the United States Air Force Project RAND. This
theory proposed distributed networks that would send data in pieces across many routes
rather than one. This was intended to make networks resistant to damage in the form of lost
nodes.
 History of the internet (2)
1967 Dr Lawrence Roberts writes the paper “Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer
Communications,” which helps define ARPANet
1967 Wesley Clark coins the term “Interface Message Processors” (IMP), which refers to packet-
switching devices that later evolve into modern network routers.
1969 ARPANet is formed out of the need for redundancy in communications to defend against
nuclear attack. It provides a means to connect different networks to each other, primarily
those owned by military and educational institutions
1971 The first network computer virus, Creeper, infects ARPANet. Written by Robert Thomas, it
was intended as an experiment in self-replicating software
1974 The word “Internet” first appeared in print—in a DARPA-published Request for Comments
document on TCP/IP, a new set of communications and networking protocols for managing
data transmissions on the new system
1976 Queen Elizabeth II of England became the first head of state to send an e-mail
1983 The Domain Name System (DNS) invented
 History of the internet (3)
1986 The National Science Foundation Network, or NSFNET, goes online. This enabled multiple
university supercomputer centers to connect, and it later evolved into a major route for data
moving through the Internet, an Internet backbone
1989 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
and the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). It becomes the primary medium of global
Internet-based communications years later
1990 Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML and a text browser, as well as a hypertext graphical user
interface (GUI) browser. Then he established the first successful communication between a
Hypertext Transfer Protocol client and a server via the Internet. These inventions, put
together, were the makings of Web pages as we know them today
1993 W3Catalog becomes the first World Wide Web search engine. It indexes the Web, enabling
users to find Web pages
1994 Jeff Bezos founded Amazon. A whole new world of e-commerce was born
1995 Sun Microsystems first released Java
1998 Google opened its first office
 History of the internet (4)
2001 Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger found Wikipedia, forming a user-made encyclopedia online
2004 Facebook was launched December 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates at
Harvard University, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes
2005 YouTube launched
2006 Google CEO Eric Schmidt introduced the term “cloud computing” at an industry conference.
“The Cloud” soon became another synonym for the Internet
2006 Twitter launched
2010 Apple launches iPad
2011 No. of internet users 2 billion, Twitter and Facebook play a large role in the Middle East revolts
2013 Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee and National Security Agency (NSA) contractor,
reveals that the NSA had in place a monitoring program capable of tapping the
communications of thousands of people, including U.S. citizens
2016 Google unveils Google Assistant, a voice-activated personal assistant program, marking the
entry of the Internet giant into the "smart" computerized assistant marketplace. Google joins
Amazon's Alexa, Siri from Apple, and Cortana from Microsoft

Summary
Uses of networks
Electronic
banking

Electronic Internet
government access at
home

Computer
network

Mobile E-commerce
communications

Point of sale
services
 Electronic banking
Electronic banking is the use of networked computer systems to offer banking services
including:
✓ Cash withdrawals
✓ Deposits
✓ Transfers
✓ Electronic payments

Electronic banking includes the following services and technologies:

✓ Automated teller machines (ATMs)
✓ Computer terminals that provide 24 hour services over a wide geographic region
✓ Enables you to withdraw cash / deposit money into your bank account
✓ Requires authentication by a debit card (plastic card with magnetic strip / chip) that
inserted into ATM and validated by the user entering a Personal Identification
Number (PIN)
✓ Internet banking
✓ Customers can perform transactions and view their statements online
✓ Mobile banking
✓ Mobile phones used to access bank account to withdraw, deposit and transfer cash
✓ Can transfer cash from mobile to mobile

Uses of networks
Fortnite
Internet access at
home and at work
❖Access using computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones

❖Use wired or wireless networks

❖Services include:
❖ Access to remote information
❖ Home shopping
❖ E-banking services, paying bills online
❖ E-health services
❖ News and other information services
❖ Person to person communication
❖ E-mail
❖ Messaging (eg What’s App, Messenger)
❖ Video conferencing (eg Skype, Zoom etc)
❖ Social Media
❖ Interactive entertainment
❖ TV and video on demand
❖ Multiplayer games online
❖ Participation in live TV programmes Uses of networks
E-commerce
E-commerce = buying and selling of goods online

eBay is an online shopping site Amazon (Amazon.com) is the

that's best known for its auctions world’s largest online retailer
and consumer to consumer sales.
It was originally a book seller,
It is also popular for online but sells a wide variety of
merchants to use as a sales channel. consumer goods and digital
media. It is also a prominent
eBay is available in many different cloud services provider.
countries

Uses of networks
Point of Sale
Services
Computer networks enable people to pay for
goods purchased in stores using electronic
money at the point of sale (either with a debit /
credit card or with their mobile phone).

Card payment machines connect to mobile

networks to take payments. Most allow
customers to pay in a number of ways including:
➢Chip & PIN
➢Contactless
➢Apple Pay
➢Android Pay
➢Google Pay

Uses of networks
 Mobile communications
Mobile communications can be viewed as
wireless computer networks
Mobile phone = special purpose computer for
enabling communication
Mobile phones facilitate services such as:
❖Voice communication
❖Data communication
❖Money transfer

Uses of networks
 Electronic
government
Computer networks
enable governments to
deliver efficient services
to their citizens including:
❑Payment of taxes
❑International trade
❑Applications for
government documents
❑Electronic identities and
passports

Summary Uses of networks

Benefits of computer networks (1)
❖Resource sharing
❖Sharing network-connected peripheral devices such as printers, scanners,
copiers or sharing software between multiple users can save money
❖Centralised access to data and information saves time and so increases
productivity
❖Sharing a single internet connection
❖Increased storage capacity

❖Remote communication
❖Transmission of data signals between 2 communication devices located in
different geographical areas
❖Remote client & remote server
❖Allows remote communication whereby workers can work from home
 Benefits of computer networks (2)
❖Distributed processing
❖Processing of data by interconnected computers in different geographical locations
❖Files reside on the user’s computer rather than on a central server – hence branch offices for
a large organisation could have their own servers that store data and other resources
required for daily operations, but update the central server regularly.
❖Most distributed processing systems contain sophisticated software that detects idle CPUs
on the network and parcels out programs to utilize them
❖Advantages:
❖ Failure of the central computer does not affect the operation of the other terminals
❖ Processing load shared equally so no time wastage

❖Cost effectiveness
❖Increases the efficient use of scarce resources (eg printers, files, applications)
❖Paperless communication environment – saves on postage, but also allows immediate
communication
❖Video conferencing can save on travel costs
❖Reliability
❖Data can be transferred with minimal or no error from source to destination
❖Even if a computer breaks down, users can still access data and information from other
computer, tablets and phones
Example of a computer network
Limitations of networks
❖Security issues
❖Danger of hacking
❖Danger or viruses or malware
❖Security needed to protect a network including a firewall, anti-virus protection
and encryption
❖High initial cost of network cabling and file servers
❖Ongoing maintenance and administration requires expertise
❖Sociocultural effects
❖Dangers of harmful content online, particularly for children and vulnerable adults
❖Spread of terrorism and drug trafficking (some using the “dark net”
❖Over reliance on networks
❖Requires adequate back up and failover systems
Summary / revision Definitions

History of
telephones

You should now be familiar

with the following topics – History of
click on the topic to go back to the
internet
that part of the presentation if
you want to review any of the
Uses of
information. computer
networks

Benefits
and
limitations
of
computer
networks