Talk:Communications system

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Media Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 30 August 2022 and 12 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Riverap2, VicDel7799, Smiths23, Dillonj3 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Dillonj3 (talk) 17:14, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: 2023SP Communication Research Methods

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 15 January 2023 and 11 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LivingDan (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by LivingDan (talk) 02:59, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Dubious edit

This edit seems odd, and I'm not 100% sure what the point of it is. It seems to have created a clickable [1] right at the top of the page. I won't revert the edit myself just because I don't understand it, but this is to bring it to more people's attention. I'm not sure if it's useful or appropriate to leave a message on the relevant IP user's currently non-existing Talk page, so I haven't done that myself, but I'm not opposed to someone else doing that either, if appropriate. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 19:26, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Transmission system

I have attempted to distinguish the above article from this one, but I may have strayed a bit too much towards WP:SYNTH. Might be better to merge as synonyms? My reasoning for not jumping to merge is that when referring to applications like 'healthcare communication systems', people are often more interested in what is being communicated and the end-user applications used to do so, with particular telecommunication technologies as tertiary considerations (especially on the network provider side, except end-user relevant metrics like those specified in SLAs). Tule-hog (talk) 19:11, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I would stick more closely to the cited definitions in Transmission system. Those are stating that the transmission system is technology that gets information from point A to point B. A communication system presumably adds the ability to selectively reach points C, D, F, etc. ~Kvng (talk) 14:29, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Gathering some reference quotes:

Technical references

• ITE defines transmission system as "the interface and transmission medium through which peer physical layer entities transfer bits"; I suppose 'peer' could mean only pairs, but it is not explicit there.
• However, the ITE also define digital transmission system as "a specific means of providing a digital section" where "[a digital section is] the whole of the means of digital transmission of a digital signal of specified rate between two consecutive digital distribution frames (or equivalent)". 'Two' is clearly explicit here. I figure 'or equivalent' is refering to DDFs here, to account for direct device-to-device connections.
  • A DDF is "a structure that provides flexibility of semipermanent interconnection of digital channels or digital circuits." A digital circuit is "a combination of two digital transmission channels permitting bidirectional digital transmission in both directions between two points, to support a single communication." A digital channel is "the means of unidirectional digital transmission of digital signals between two points." Again, 'two' is very explicit there.
  • The only difference between the definition of digital section and digital link is the use of "consecutive" in the former. They also note "a digital section forms either a part or the whole of a digital link, and includes terminating equipments at both ends, but excludes multiplexers" as well as "a digital link comprises one or more digital sections and may include multiplexing and/or demultiplexing, but not switching." I take this to mean that digital sections also cannot be switched, since otherwise the definition of digital link would be inconsistent.
• In the ATIS Telecom Glossary (which superceded FS1037C), a transmission system is a "part of a communication system organized to accomplish the transfer of information from one point to one or more other points by means of signals." Not sure if 'one or more' is about transmission or communication systems. A digital transmission system is "a transmission system in which (a) all circuits carry digital signals and (b) the signals are combined into one or more serial bit streams that include all framing and supervisory signal".
  • They define a communications system as "a collection of individual communications networks, transmission systems, relay stations, tributary stations, and data terminal equipment (DTE) usually capable of interconnection and interoperation to form an integrated whole. Note: The components of a communications system serve a common purpose, are technically compatible, use common procedures, respond to controls, and operate in unison."
    • A communications network is defined as "an organization of stations capable of intercommunications, but not necessarily on the same channel".

Less technical, asides

• This lecture claims point-to-point is the "simplest transmission link"
• This site (non-RS?) claims "a transmission system refers to the network and technology... responsible for the transportation of signals between different devices or networks".
• Another potential non-RS source flips the pair-as-transmission network-as-communication paradigm: "Information transmission system is a system that represents the main building blocks to convey information from one side (source) to another (destination). When this system represent point to point transmission it is called communication system. On the other hand, the information transmission system may represent multipoint to multipoint transmission in the form of shared channel which represent a network connectivity such as Internet." It's possible this is a translation error, or just the Iraqi usage.
• Another non-RS: "An extranet uses the public Internet as its transmission system..."
• Just noting that 'transmission system' seems to be used extensively as a synonym for transmission network of electricity distribution.
• Minnesota's government said in 1998 "currently the Internet uses the same transmission system as the telephone, but the cable television transmission system is equally adaptable to delivering Internet services."
• LawInsider says "telecommunications network means transmission systems and, where applicable, switching or routing equipment...".
• Frustrated aside that of the 29k+ terms defined in Newton's Telecom Dictionary, with over 160 uses of 'transmission system' throughout, they do not see fit to actually define the term!...
• As I see it, telecommunications link is distinguished from ITE's digital link in that the former is an abstraction of connections between network nodes, whereas the latter is specifically concerned with direct physical layer non-switched connections.

My summary as a layman:

The ITE would not consider the Internet a transmission system (currently claimed at the article, without reference), as switching is explicitly excluded from the definition of digital links (a superset of digital sections). The ATIS might, but it seems they would prefer 'communication system' for the Internet. ITE seems to emphasize point-to-point configuration, particularly in the digital context. ATIS simply emphasizes the use of signals (similar to ITE's first definition), but a transmission system is only a component of a broader communication system.

As a clarifying example, I think ITE would consider an Ethernet LAN (e.g. 10BASE2) bus topology a collection of transmission systems (one for each possible point-to-point connection; assuming my interpretation of 'or equivalent' was correct - perhaps they would not consider any part of the LAN a transmission system since there are no distribution frames), whereas ATIS would be more comfortable calling that entire network a single transmission system.

Other laymen usage varies, and legal/governmental usage seems to be similarly loose; they do seem to all vaguely gesture towards the means of communication. There is departure from the ITE definition's exclusion of switching.

Taking into account the ITE and ATIS definitions, I might say that the difference between a transmission system and a communication system is not so much transmission=point-to-point and communication=networked, rather the former concerns physical layer transmission technology (with emphasis on non-switching) and the latter concerns more general telecommunication networks. Tule-hog (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I've not read all of this carefully but these terms are squishy enough that your suggestion above to merge the two articles is looking more attractive. ~Kvng (talk) 19:12, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Missing computer science/networking perspective

The article currently appears to describe communication systems mainly from an electrical engineering perspective. However, the abstract use of the term in computer science and networking is largely missing.

Both uses are common and important, so the article should make clearer that “communication system” can refer both to physical/electrical systems and to abstract networked systems involving protocols, nodes, channels, and message exchange.

At present, the article does not align very well with related pages such as communication protocols. Expanding the article or clarifying its scope would improve consistency across these topics. Juunjus (talk) 09:48, 30 April 2026 (UTC)