Portal:Telecommunication
The Telecommunication Portal
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electrical or electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of transmission may be divided into communication channels for multiplexing, allowing for a single medium to transmit several concurrent communication sessions. Long-distance technologies invented during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries generally use electric power, and include the electrical telegraph, telephone, television, and radio.
Early telecommunication networks used metal wires as the medium for transmitting signals. These networks were used for telegraphy and telephony for many decades. In the first decade of the 20th century, a revolution in wireless communication began with breakthroughs including those made in radio communications by Guglielmo Marconi, who won the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics. Other early pioneers in electrical and electronic telecommunications include co-inventors of the telegraph Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse, numerous inventors and developers of the telephone including Antonio Meucci, Philipp Reis, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell, inventors of radio Edwin Armstrong and Lee de Forest, as well as inventors of television like Vladimir K. Zworykin, John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth.
Since the 1960s, the proliferation of digital technologies has meant that voice communications have gradually been supplemented by data. The physical limitations of metallic media prompted the development of optical fibre. The Internet, 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. (Full article...)
Selected article -
Videotelephony, also known as video chat, videoconferencing, video calling, or telepresence, is the use of audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication.
Videophones were standalone devices for video calling (compare Telephone). As smartphones and computers have become capable of video calling, the demand for a separate category of videophones has disappeared. (Full article...)
General images
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo, first introduced in 1975 and based on the Lissajous curve (from History of broadcasting) -
Antonio Meucci, 1849, developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone) -
Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television) -
Guglielmo Marconi (from History of broadcasting) -
Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone) -
Typical low-cost webcam used with many personal computers (from History of videotelephony) -
Portrait of John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, in 1925, founding director general of the BBC from 1922 to 1938 (from History of broadcasting) -
The 1969 AT&T Mod II Picturephone, the result of decades long R&D at a cost of over $500M. (from History of telecommunication) -
"Doc" Herrold is shown at the microphone of KQW, c. 1925 (from History of broadcasting) -
Donald Manson working as an employee of the Marconi Company (England, 1906) (from History of radio) -
Code of letters and symbols for Chappe telegraph (Rees's Cyclopaedia) (from History of telecommunication) -
Lee DeForest broadcasting Columbia phonograph records on New York station 2XG, 1916 (from History of broadcasting) -
The earliest photograph of a television picture, showing the face of Oliver Hutchinson in June 1926. The television picture was projected using Baird's television camera. (from History of television) -
Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander using an Ericsson videophone to speak with Lennart Hyland, a popular TV show host (1969) (from History of videotelephony) -
Tihanyi' Radioskop patent (1926) was recognized as Document of Universal Significance by the UNESCO (from History of television) -
A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone) -
Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone) -
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The French Matra videophone (1970) (from History of videotelephony) -
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The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television) -
Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television) -
Around 1920, radio broadcasting started to get popular. The Brox Sisters, a popular singing group, gathered around the radio at the time. (from History of radio) -
Bell prototype telephone stamp(from History of the telephone)
Centennial Issue of 1976 -
The Kyocera VP-210 Visual Phone was the first commercial mobile videophone. The Personal Handy-phone System (PHS) phone was introduced in Japan (1999). (from History of videotelephony) -
"Fiction becomes fact": Imaginary "Edison" combination videophone-television, conceptualized by George du Maurier and published in Punch magazine. The drawing also depicts then-contemporary speaking tubes, used by the parents in the foreground and their daughter on the viewing display (1878). (from History of videotelephony) -
Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone) -
Broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad in a 1921 portrait (from History of broadcasting) -
The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television) -
John Logie Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television) -
The master telephone patent, 174465, granted to Bell, March 7, 1876 (from History of telecommunication) -
AT&T Picturephone (Mod II) fully enclosed in its housing, control pad at bottom (from History of videotelephony)
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Fessenden operating an underwater oscillator in 1915. (from History of radio) -
Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone) -
Artist's conception: 21st-century videotelephony imagined in the early 20th century (1910) (from History of videotelephony) -
Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television) -
Screen idol Rudolph Valentino at the microphone of WSB in Atlanta, 1923 (from History of broadcasting) -
The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
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A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany (from History of telecommunication) -
The Marconi Company was formed in England in 1910. The photo shows a typical early scene, from 1906, with Marconi employee Donald Manson at right. (from History of broadcasting)
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The Regency TR-1, which used Texas Instruments' NPN transistors, was the world's first commercially produced transistor radio in 1954. Size: 3×5×1.25 inch (7.6×12.7×3.2 cm) (from History of radio) -
Charles Logwood broadcasting at New York station 2XG, 1916 (from History of broadcasting) -
Naomi ("Joan") Melwit and Norman Banks at the 3KZ microphone, in the late 1930s (from History of broadcasting) -
Oliver Lodge's 1894 lectures on Hertz demonstrated how to transmit and detect radio waves. (from History of radio) -
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An early experiment demonstrating the refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio) -
In the 1920s, the United States government publication, "Construction and Operation of a Simple Homemade Radio Receiving Outfit", showed how almost any person handy with simple tools could build an effective crystal radio receiver. (from History of radio) -
The Nipkow disk. This schematic shows the circular paths traced by the holes, which may also be square for greater precision. The area of the disk outlined in black shows the region scanned. (from History of television) -
Early pioneers of radio science and technology in the United States, including Charles Steinmetz, David Sarnoff, Irving Langmuir, and Alfred Goldsmith in 1921, photographed next to the antenna feed wires of the New Brunswick Marconi Station, one of the first transatlantic radio links. The photo includes Albert Einstein as a visiting guest. (from History of radio)
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Selected biography -
Charles Bourseul (28 April 1829 – 23 November 1912) was a pioneer in development of the "make and break" telephone about 20 years before Bell made a practical telephone. (Full article...)
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