Telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of signs, signals, messages, words, writings, images and sounds
or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, optical or
other electromagnetic systems. Telecommunication occurs when the exchange
of information between communication participants includes the use of technology. It is transmitted
either electrically over physical media, such as cables, or via electromagnetic radiation.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Such
transmission paths are often divided into communication channels which afford the advantages
of multiplexing. The term 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.[9] 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,
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 notable pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic
telecommunications include Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse (inventors of
the telegraph), Alexander Graham Bell (inventor 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).
Basic elements
Telecommunication technologies may primarily be divided into wired and wireless methods. Overall
though, a basic telecommunication system consists of three main parts that are always present in some
form or another:
A receiver that takes the signal from the channel and converts it back into usable information for
the recipient.
For example, in a radio broadcasting station the station's large power amplifier is the transmitter; and
the broadcasting antenna is the interface between the power amplifier and the "free space channel".
The free space channel is the transmission medium; and the receiver's antenna is the interface between
the free space channel and the receiver. Next, the radio receiver is the destination of the radio signal,
and this is where it is converted from electricity to sound for people to listen to.
Sometimes, telecommunication systems are "duplex" (two-way systems) with a single box
of electronics working as both the transmitter and a receiver, or a transceiver. For example, a cellular
telephone is a transceiver. [34] The transmission electronics and the receiver electronics within a
transceiver are actually quite independent of each other. This can be readily explained by the fact that
radio transmitters contain power amplifiers that operate with electrical powers measured
in watts or kilowatts, but radio receivers deal with radio powers that are measured in
the microwatts or nanowatts. Hence, transceivers have to be carefully designed and built to isolate their
high-power circuitry and their low-power circuitry from each other, as to not cause interference.
Telecommunication over fixed lines is called point-to-point communication because it is between one
transmitter and one receiver. Telecommunication through radio broadcasts is called broadcast
communication because it is between one powerful transmitter and numerous low-power but sensitive
radio receivers.[34]
Telecommunications in which multiple transmitters and multiple receivers have been designed to
cooperate and to share the same physical channel are called multiplex systems. The sharing of physical
channels using multiplexing often gives very large reductions in costs. Multiplexed systems are laid out in
telecommunication networks, and the multiplexed signals are switched at nodes through to the correct
destination terminal receiver.
Telecommunication networks
A telecommunications network is a collection of transmitters, receivers, and communications
channels that send messages to one another. Some digital communications networks contain one or
more routers that work together to transmit information to the correct user. An analog communications
network consists of one or more switches that establish a connection between two or more users. For
both types of network, repeaters may be necessary to amplify or recreate the signal when it is being
transmitted over long distances. This is to combat attenuation that can render the signal
indistinguishable from the noise.[36] Another advantage of digital systems over analog is that their output
is easier to store in memory, i.e. two voltage states (high and low) are easier to store than a continuous
range of states.
Communication channels
The term "channel" has two different meanings. In one meaning, a channel is the physical medium that
carries a signal between the transmitter and the receiver. Examples of this include the atmosphere for
sound communications, glass optical fibers for some kinds of optical communications, coaxial cables for
communications by way of the voltages and electric currents in them, and free space for
communications using visible light, infrared waves, ultraviolet light, and radio waves. This last channel is
called the "free space channel". The sending of radio waves from one place to another has nothing to do
with the presence or absence of an atmosphere between the two. Radio waves travel through a
perfect vacuum just as easily as they travel through air, fog, clouds, or any other kind of gas.
The other meaning of the term "channel" in telecommunications is seen in the phrase communications
channel, which is a subdivision of a transmission medium so that it can be used to send multiple streams
of information simultaneously. For example, one radio station can broadcast radio waves into free space
at frequencies in the neighborhood of 94.5 MHz (megahertz) while another radio station can
simultaneously broadcast radio waves at frequencies in the neighborhood of 96.1 MHz. Each radio
station would transmit radio waves over a frequency bandwidth of about 180 kHz (kilohertz), centered at
frequencies such as the above, which are called the "carrier frequencies". Each station in this example is
separated from its adjacent stations by 200 kHz, and the difference between 200 kHz and 180 kHz
(20 kHz) is an engineering allowance for the imperfections in the communication system.
In the example above, the "free space channel" has been divided into communications channels
according to frequencies, and each channel is assigned a separate frequency bandwidth in which to
broadcast radio waves. This system of dividing the medium into channels according to frequency is called
"frequency-division multiplexing". Another term for the same concept is "wavelength-division
multiplexing", which is more commonly used in optical communications when multiple transmitters
share the same physical medium.
Another way of dividing a communications medium into channels is to allocate each sender a recurring
segment of time (a "time slot", for example, 20 milliseconds out of each second), and to allow each
sender to send messages only within its own time slot. This method of dividing the medium into
communication channels is called "time-division multiplexing" (TDM), and is used in optical fiber
communication. Some radio communication systems use TDM within an allocated FDM channel. Hence,
these systems use a hybrid of TDM and FDM .
Modulation
The shaping of a signal to convey information is known as modulation. Modulation can be used to
represent a digital message as an analog waveform. This is commonly called "keying" a term derived
from the older use of Morse Code in telecommunications and several keying techniques exist (these
include phase-shift keying, frequency-shift keying, and amplitude-shift keying). The "Bluetooth" system,
for example, uses phase-shift keying to exchange information between various devices. [37][38] In addition,
there are combinations of phase-shift keying and amplitude-shift keying which is called (in the jargon of
the field) "quadrature amplitude modulation" (QAM) that are used in high-capacity digital radio
communication systems.
Modulation can also be used to transmit the information of low-frequency analog signals at higher
frequencies. This is helpful because low-frequency analog signals cannot be effectively transmitted over
free space. Hence the information from a low-frequency analog signal must be impressed into a higher-
frequency signal (known as the "carrier wave") before transmission. There are several different
modulation schemes available to achieve this [two of the most basic being amplitude modulation (AM)
and frequency modulation(FM)]. An example of this process is a disc jockey's voice being impressed into
a 96 MHz carrier wave using frequency modulation (the voice would then be received on a radio as the
channel "96 FM").[39] In addition, modulation has the advantage that it may use frequency division
multiplexing (FDM).
Abstract