Telecommunications

Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of transmission may be divided into <a href="/facts/Communication_channel/MtlxEShV">communication channels</a> for <a href="/facts/Multiplexing/YE7hK8cw">multiplexing</a>, allowing for a single medium to transmit several concurrent <a href="/facts/Session_(computer_science)/PRQuXhIL">communication sessions</a>. Long-distance technologies invented during the 20th and 21st centuries generally use electric power, and include the <a href="/facts/Electrical_telegraph/yrFhbvM8">telegraph</a>, <a href="/facts/Telephone/P7uEgWQX">telephone</a>, <a href="/facts/Television/X4YG5nT1">television</a>, and <a href="/facts/Radio/XFr909M2">radio</a>.
Early <a href="/facts/Telecommunication_network/NFCX0STS">telecommunication networks</a> used metal wires as the medium for transmitting signals. These networks were used for <a href="/facts/Telegraph/JhRYDSDu">telegraphy</a> and telephony for many decades. In the first decade of the 20th century, a revolution in <a href="/facts/Wireless_communication/GfDoFwfo">wireless communication</a> began with breakthroughs including those made in <a href="/facts/Radio_communications/XFr909M2">radio communications</a> by <a href="/facts/Guglielmo_Marconi/U7HXnDnq">Guglielmo Marconi</a>, who won the 1909 <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics/o6w1nCbr">Nobel Prize in Physics</a>. Other early pioneers in electrical and electronic telecommunications include co-inventors of the telegraph <a href="/facts/Charles_Wheatstone/935jnRhj">Charles Wheatstone</a> and <a href="/facts/Samuel_Morse/7KKMPBtY">Samuel Morse</a>, numerous <a href="/facts/Invention_of_the_telephone/9QsPFCGb">inventors and developers of the telephone</a> including <a href="/facts/Antonio_Meucci/XrDXtDTj">Antonio Meucci</a>, <a href="/facts/Philipp_Reis/9k6ujFE8">Philipp Reis</a>, <a href="/facts/Elisha_Gray/obW1Gztq">Elisha Gray</a> and <a href="/facts/Alexander_Graham_Bell/oQer2abq">Alexander Graham Bell</a>, inventors of radio <a href="/facts/Edwin_Armstrong/EI9gYvzm">Edwin Armstrong</a> and <a href="/facts/Lee_de_Forest/tMDkcLnV">Lee de Forest</a>, as well as inventors of television like <a href="/facts/Vladimir_K._Zworykin/K617CjfI">Vladimir K. Zworykin</a>, <a href="/facts/John_Logie_Baird/bkngND9Q">John Logie Baird</a> and <a href="/facts/Philo_Farnsworth/DkLaDoMT">Philo Farnsworth</a>.
Since the 1960s, the proliferation of digital technologies has meant that <a href="/facts/Human_voice/RPzaPWwh">voice</a> communications have gradually been supplemented by data. The physical limitations of metallic media prompted the development of optical fibre. The <a href="/facts/Internet/Xw1rVvJU">Internet</a>, a technology independent of any given medium, has provided global access to services for individual users and further reduced location and time limitations on communications.

Telecommunications open-in-new

Telecommunications