Portal:Telecommunication

The Telecommunication Portal

Telecommunication, often used in its plural form, is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that feasible with the human voice, but with a similar scale of expediency; thus, slow systems (such as postal mail and pneumatic tube communication systems) are excluded from the field.

The transmission media in telecommunication have evolved through numerous stages of technology, from beacons and other visual signals (such as smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs), to electrical cable and electromagnetic radiation, including light. Such transmission paths are often divided into communication channels, which afford the advantages of multiplexing multiple concurrent communication sessions.

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, television and teleprinter, networks, radio, microwave transmission, optical fibre, and communications satellites.

The early telecommunication networks were created with metallic wires as the physical medium for signal transmission. For many years, these networks were used for telegraph and voice services. 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, and other notable pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic telecommunications. These included Charles Wheatstone and Samuel Morse (inventors of the telegraph), Antonio Meucci and Alexander Graham Bell (some of the inventors and developers of the telephone, see Invention 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).

With the proliferation of digital technologies since the 1960s, voice communication has been gradually supplemented by data. The limitations of metallic data transmission prompted the development of optics. The development of media-independent Internet technologies provided access to world-wide services for individual users without limitations to location or time. (Full article...)

Selected article -

AT&T's logo since 2015

AT&T Inc. (with "AT&T" being an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company) is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's fourth-largest telecommunications company by revenue and the largest wireless carrier in the United States. AT&T was ranked 13th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations, with revenues of $120.7 billion.

During most of the 20th century, AT&T had a monopoly on phone service in the United States. The company began its history as the American District Telegraph Company, formed in St. Louis in 1878. After expanding services to Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas through a series of mergers, it became Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1920, which was then a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The latter was a successor of the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1877. The American Bell Telephone Company formed the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) subsidiary in 1885. In 1899, AT&T became the parent company after the American Bell Telephone Company sold its assets to its subsidiary. The company was rebranded as AT&T Corp. in 1994. The 1982 United States v. AT&T antitrust lawsuit resulted in the divestiture of AT&T's ("Ma Bell") local operating subsidiaries which were grouped into seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), commonly referred to as "Baby Bells", resulting in seven independent companies, including Southwestern Bell Corporation (SBC). The latter changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images

The following are images from various telecommunication-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Guglielmo Marconi (from History of broadcasting)
Image 2Broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad in a 1921 portrait (from History of broadcasting)
Image 3In 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 a build an effective crystal radio receiver. (from History of radio)
Image 4A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 5Charles Logwood broadcasting at station 2XG, New York City, circa November, 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 6Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right). (from History of television)
Image 7Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 8AT&T Picturephone (Mod II) fully enclosed in its housing, control pad at bottom (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 9The Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo, first introduced in 1975 and based on the Lissajous curve (from History of broadcasting)
Image 10The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 11Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander using an Ericsson videophone to speak with Lennart Hyland, a popular TV show host (1969) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 12
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 13Actor portraying Alexander Graham Bell in a 1932 silent film. Shows Bell's second telephone transmitter (microphone), invented 1876 and first displayed at the Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia. (from History of the telephone)
Image 14Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 15Oliver Lodge's 1894 lectures on Hertz demonstrated how to transmit and detect radio waves (from History of radio)
Image 16The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 17An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 18Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 19Artist's conception: 21st-century videotelephony imagined in the early 20th century (1910) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 20Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 21The master telephone patent, 174465, granted to Bell, March 7, 1876 (from History of telecommunication)
Image 22"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)
Image 23DBS satellite dishes. (from History of television)
Image 24Reginald Fessenden (around 1906) (from History of radio)
Image 25British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment in 1897. (from History of radio)
Image 26Right side view, housing removed, one of its printed circuit boards exposed (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 27The 1969 AT&T Mod II Picturephone, the result of decades long R&D at a cost of over $500M. (from History of telecommunication)
Image 28Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 29Code of letters and symbols for Chappe telegraph (Rees's Cyclopaedia) (from History of telecommunication)
Image 30Typical low-cost webcam used with many personal computers (from History of videotelephony)
Image 31Public television in France uses 819 line b&w high definition, from 1959 until 1983 (TF1). (from History of television)
Image 32Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 33The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 34Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 35Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 36Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 38The first commercial AM Audion vacuum tube radio transmitter, built in 1914 by Lee De Forest who invented the Audion (triode) in 1906 (from History of radio)
Image 39Australian radio sets usually had the positions of radio stations marked on their dials. The illustration is a dial from a transistorised, mains-operated Calstan radio, circa 1960s. (Click image for a high resolution view, with readable callsigns.) (from History of broadcasting)
Image 40Reginald Fessenden, the "father" of radio broadcasting in the US (from History of broadcasting)
Image 41Naomi ("Joan") Melwit and Norman Banks at the 3KZ microphone, in the late 1930s (from History of broadcasting)
Image 42A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 43Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 44The Regency TR-1, which used Texas Instruments' NPN transistors, was the world's first commercially produced transistor radio in 1954. (from History of radio)
Image 45Caricature of Sir John Reith, by Wooding (from History of broadcasting)
Image 46The French Matra videophone (1970) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 47An exposed view of the Picturephone's rear circuit board (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 48A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany (from History of telecommunication)
Image 49Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 50Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 51The British Broadcasting Corporation's landmark and iconic London headquarters, Broadcasting House, opened in 1932. At right is the 2005 eastern extension, the John Peel wing. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 52The "Kerbango Internet Radio" was the first stand-alone product that let users listen to Internet radio without a computer. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 53Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 54Lee DeForest broadcasting Columbia phonograph records on pioneering New York station 2XG, in 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 55Modern Apple iPhone. This phone is considered a smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 56Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1856–1894) proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation (from History of radio)
Image 57The 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)
Image 581896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 59First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 60Donald Manson working as an employee of the Marconi Company (England, 1906) (from History of radio)
Image 61"Doc" Herrold is shown at the microphone of KQW, early 1920s. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 62A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 63Early experiment demonstrating refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio)
Image 64Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available. (from History of television)
Image 65Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 66AT&T magazine advertisement announcing commercial launch of Picturephone service. (from History of videotelephony)
Image 671917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 68Stock telegraph ticker machine by Thomas Edison (from History of telecommunication)
Image 69Around 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)
Image 70The 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)
Image 71The 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)
Image 72Emil Voigt, founder of 2KY on behalf of the Labor Council of New South Wales. This photo was taken in earlier days when Voight was a prominent British athlete, and winner of the Gold Medal for the five mile race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 73RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 74Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)

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Selected biography -

Baird in 1917

John Logie Baird FRSE (/ˈloʊɡi bɛərd/; 13 August 1888 – 14 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly demonstrated colour television system and the first viable purely electronic colour television picture tube.

In 1928 the Baird Television Development Company achieved the first transatlantic television transmission. Baird's early technological successes and his role in the practical introduction of broadcast television for home entertainment have earned him a prominent place in television's history. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies
Guglielmo Marconi Alexander Graham Bell Nikola Tesla Samuel Morse Thomas Edison Antonio Meucci Charles Bourseul Paul Gottlieb Nipkow Vladimir K. Zworykin Philo Farnsworth Ronald Hugh Barker

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that KWEM-LP in West Memphis, Arkansas, was established as a tribute to a radio station that in the late 1940s and 1950s helped launch the careers of B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf and Johnny Cash?
... that a Nebraska radio station chartered an aircraft to search for motorists stranded after a blizzard?
... that despite a "No Rock & Roll" sign in the studios of the Utica College radio station, students played it anyway?
... that despite little formal education, Earnest Andersson was a successful inventor, businessman, amateur athlete, race car driver, pilot, photographer, radio operator, pro golfer, and composer?
... that Australian hotelier and television personality Simon van Kempen recorded a single, "I Am Real", in 2011?
... that a Nevada radio station named "Sexy" blew into town with a windstorm?

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Telecommunications
History	Beacon Broadcasting Cable protection system Cable TV Communications satellite Computer network Data compression audio DCT image video Digital media Internet video online video platform social media streaming Drums Edholm's law Electrical telegraph Fax Heliographs Hydraulic telegraph Information Age Information revolution Internet Mass media Mobile phone Smartphone Optical telecommunication Optical telegraphy Pager Photophone Prepaid mobile phone Radio Radiotelephone Satellite communications Semaphore Semiconductor device MOSFET transistor Smoke signals Telecommunications history Telautograph Telegraphy Teleprinter (teletype) Telephone The Telephone Cases Television digital streaming Undersea telegraph line Videotelephony Whistled language Wireless revolution
Pioneers	Nasir Ahmed Edwin Howard Armstrong Mohamed M. Atalla John Logie Baird Paul Baran John Bardeen Alexander Graham Bell Emile Berliner Tim Berners-Lee Francis Blake (telephone) Jagadish Chandra Bose Charles Bourseul Walter Houser Brattain Vint Cerf Claude Chappe Yogen Dalal Donald Davies Amos Dolbear Thomas Edison Lee de Forest Philo Farnsworth Reginald Fessenden Elisha Gray Oliver Heaviside Robert Hooke Erna Schneider Hoover Harold Hopkins Gardiner Greene Hubbard Internet pioneers Bob Kahn Dawon Kahng Charles K. Kao Narinder Singh Kapany Hedy Lamarr Innocenzo Manzetti Guglielmo Marconi Robert Metcalfe Antonio Meucci Samuel Morse Jun-ichi Nishizawa Charles Grafton Page Radia Perlman Alexander Stepanovich Popov Tivadar Puskás Johann Philipp Reis Claude Shannon Almon Brown Strowger Henry Sutton Charles Sumner Tainter Nikola Tesla Camille Tissot Alfred Vail Thomas A. Watson Charles Wheatstone Vladimir K. Zworykin
Transmission media	Coaxial cable Fiber-optic communication optical fiber Free-space optical communication Molecular communication Radio waves wireless Transmission line data transmission circuit telecommunication circuit
Network topology and switching	Bandwidth Links Nodes terminal Network switching circuit packet Telephone exchange
Multiplexing	Space-division Frequency-division Time-division Polarization-division Orbital angular-momentum Code-division
Concepts	Communication protocol Computer network Data transmission Store and forward Telecommunications equipment
Types of network	Cellular network Ethernet ISDN LAN Mobile NGN Public Switched Telephone Radio Television Telex UUCP WAN Wireless network
Notable networks	ARPANET BITNET CYCLADES FidoNet Internet Internet2 JANET NPL network Usenet
Locations	Africa Americas North South Antarctica Asia Europe Oceania
Category Outline Commons

Telecommunications in Africa
Sovereign states	Algeria Angola Benin Botswana Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Comoros Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Djibouti Egypt Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Eswatini Ethiopia Gabon The Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Ivory Coast Kenya Lesotho Liberia Libya Madagascar Malawi Mali Mauritania Mauritius Morocco Mozambique Namibia Niger Nigeria Rwanda São Tomé and Príncipe Senegal Seychelles Sierra Leone Somalia South Africa South Sudan Sudan Tanzania Togo Tunisia Uganda Zambia Zimbabwe
States with limited recognition	Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic Somaliland
Dependencies and other territories	Canary Islands / Ceuta / Melilla (Spain) Madeira (Portugal) Mayotte / Réunion (France) Saint Helena / Ascension Island / Tristan da Cunha (United Kingdom) Western Sahara

Telecommunications in Asia
Sovereign states	Afghanistan Armenia Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Brunei Cambodia China Cyprus East Timor (Timor-Leste) Egypt Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Myanmar Nepal Oman Pakistan Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan Thailand Turkey Turkmenistan United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Northern Cyprus Palestine South Ossetia Taiwan
Dependencies and other territories	British Indian Ocean Territory Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Hong Kong Macau
Category Asia portal

Telecommunications in Europe
Sovereign states	Albania Andorra Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Italy Kazakhstan Latvia Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Moldova Monaco Montenegro Netherlands North Macedonia Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia San Marino Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Vatican City
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Kosovo Northern Cyprus South Ossetia Transnistria
Dependencies and other entities	Åland Faroe Islands Gibraltar Guernsey Isle of Man Jersey Svalbard
Other entities	European Union

Telecommunications in North America
Sovereign states	Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Canada Costa Rica Cuba Dominica Dominican Republic El Salvador Grenada Guatemala Haiti Honduras Jamaica Mexico Nicaragua Panama Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago United States
Dependencies and other territories	Anguilla Aruba Bermuda Bonaire British Virgin Islands Cayman Islands Curaçao Greenland Guadeloupe Martinique Montserrat Puerto Rico Saint Barthélemy Saint Martin Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saba Sint Eustatius Sint Maarten Turks and Caicos Islands United States Virgin Islands

Telecommunications in Oceania
Sovereign states	Australia Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu
Associated states of New Zealand	Cook Islands Niue
Dependencies and other territories	American Samoa Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Easter Island French Polynesia Guam Hawaii New Caledonia Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Pitcairn Islands Tokelau Wallis and Futuna