Telecommunications
The term "telecommunication" refers to the process of transmitting information through a variety of technologies such as radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. Its beginnings can be traced back to the need for humans to communicate over greater distances than could be covered using the human voice, but in a manner that was just as quick and easy. As a result, methods that take a long time (like the postal service) are not considered viable options in this arena.
The transmission media used in telecommunications have gone through a number of stages of technological development. These stages include the use of beacons and other types of visual signals (such as smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs), followed by the use of electrical cable and electromagnetic radiation, which can include light. Transmission lines like this are often segmented into communication channels, which enables the multiplexing of numerous communication sessions happening at the same time. The term "telecommunications" is often written with a "p."
Other forms of pre-modern long-distance communication included the use of auditory signals such as lung-blown horns, loud whistles, and coded drumbeats. Long-distance communication in the 20th and 21st centuries is typically accomplished through the use of electrical and electromagnetic technologies. Examples of these technologies include the telegraph, the telephone, television and teleprinter, networks, radio, microwave transmission, optical fibre, and communications satellites.
A revolution in wireless communication began in the first decade of the 20th century with the pioneering developments in radio communications made by Guglielmo Marconi, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909. This led to the development of the first generation of mobile phones and other wireless devices. These individuals included Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse, who were responsible for the invention of the telegraph; Antonio Meucci and Alexander Graham Bell, who were responsible for the development of the telephone; for more information on the invention of the telephone, see that article; Edwin Armstrong and Lee de Forest, who were responsible for the invention of radio; Vladimir K. Zworykin, John Logie Baird, and Philo Farnsworth; and many more (some of the inventors of television).
According to Article 1.3 of the Radio Regulations (RR), the definition of telecommunication is as follows: "Any transmission, emission or receipt of signs, symbols, letters, pictures and sounds or intelligence of any sort by wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems." This definition is the same as those that are included in the annex to the constitution and convention of the International Telecommunication Union (Geneva, 1992).
Copper wires were the physical medium for the transmission of signals in the first forms of communication networks, which were initially developed. Voice communications and telegraph transmissions were the primary functions of these networks for a significant portion of their history. Since the middle of the 1990s, when the internet first started gaining widespread use, speech has been increasingly replaced by data. This quickly highlighted the limits of copper in terms of data transfer, which ultimately led to the invention of optics.