Portal:Telecommunication

The Telecommunication Portal

Earth station at the satellite communication facility Raisting Earth Station in Raisting, Bavaria, Germany

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 -

Digital subscriber line (DSL), originally digital subscriber loop, is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), the most commonly installed DSL technology, for Internet access.

In ADSL, the data throughput in the upstream direction (the direction to the service provider) is lower, hence the designation of asymmetric service. In symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL) services, the downstream and upstream data rates are equal. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images

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

Image 1The 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 2Broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad in a 1921 portrait (from History of broadcasting)
Image 3Stock telegraph ticker machine by Thomas Edison (from History of telecommunication)
Image 4AT&T magazine advertisement announcing commercial launch of Picturephone service. (from History of videotelephony)
Image 5The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 6Screen idol Rudolph Valentino at the microphone of WSB in Atlanta, 1923 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 7The 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 8The master telephone patent, 174465, granted to Bell, March 7, 1876 (from History of telecommunication)
Image 91917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 10The 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)
$Image 11An early experiment demonstrating the refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio)$

Image 11An early experiment demonstrating the refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio)
Image 12Right side view, housing removed, one of its printed circuit boards exposed (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 13A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 14DBS satellite dishes (from History of television)
Image 15An exposed view of the Picturephone's rear circuit board (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 16Code of letters and symbols for Chappe telegraph (Rees's Cyclopaedia) (from History of telecommunication)
Image 17AT&T Picturephone (Mod II) fully enclosed in its housing, control pad at bottom (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 18Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 19"Doc" Herrold is shown at the microphone of KQW, c. 1925 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 20Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)
Image 21Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 22Tihanyi' Radioskop patent (1926) was recognized as Document of Universal Significance by the UNESCO (from History of television)
Image 23A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 24In 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)
Image 25Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 26Typical low-cost webcam used with many personal computers (from History of videotelephony)
Image 27The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 28Ferdinand Braun (from History of broadcasting)
Image 29Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 30Donald Manson working as an employee of the Marconi Company (England, 1906) (from History of radio)
Image 31First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 32The Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo, first introduced in 1975 and based on the Lissajous curve (from History of broadcasting)
Image 33The French Matra videophone (1970) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 34Early 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)
Image 35Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 36Charles Logwood broadcasting at New York station 2XG, 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 37Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 38Reconstruction of Aeneas Tacticus' hydraulic telegraph (4th c. B.C.) in Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, Athens, Greece. (from History of telecommunication)
Image 39Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 40Naomi ("Joan") Melwit and Norman Banks at the 3KZ microphone, in the late 1930s (from History of broadcasting)
Image 41Lee DeForest broadcasting Columbia phonograph records on New York station 2XG, 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 42Actor 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 43Reginald Fessenden, the "father" of radio broadcasting in the U.S. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 44The 1969 AT&T Mod II Picturephone, the result of decades long R&D at a cost of over $500M. (from History of telecommunication)
Image 45Australian 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, c. 1960s. (Click image for a high resolution view, with readable callsigns.) (from History of broadcasting)
Image 46The "Kerbango Internet Radio" was the first stand-alone product that let users listen to Internet radio without a computer. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 47Artist's conception: 21st-century videotelephony imagined in the early 20th century (1910) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 48Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 49British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment in 1897. (from History of radio)
Image 50Reginald Fessenden (around 1906) (from History of radio)
Image 51Portrait of John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, in 1925, founding director general of the BBC from 1922 to 1938 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 52Around 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 53
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 541896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 55A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 56John Logie Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television)
Image 57Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander using an Ericsson videophone to speak with Lennart Hyland, a popular TV show host (1969) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 58The 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 59RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 60Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1856–1894) proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation. (from History of radio)
Image 61The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 62"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 63Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 64Oliver Lodge's 1894 lectures on Hertz demonstrated how to transmit and detect radio waves. (from History of radio)
Image 65An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 66Guglielmo Marconi (from History of broadcasting)
Image 67The 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)
Image 68Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 69The 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)
Image 70A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany (from History of telecommunication)
Image 71Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television)
Image 72Antonio Meucci, 1849, developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 73Innocenzo Manzetti considered the idea of a telephone in 1844 (from History of the telephone)
Image 74Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 75Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 76Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone)
Image 77Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 78Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 79Replica of the telettrofono at Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, Italy, invented by Antonio Meucci and credited by several sources as the first telephone. (from History of the telephone)

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Selected biography -

Vladimir Zworykin, c. 1956

Vladimir Kosma Zworykin (1888/1889 – July 29, 1982) was a Russian-American inventor, engineer, and pioneer of television technology. Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing cathode-ray tubes. He played a role in the practical development of television from the early thirties, including charge storage-type tubes, infrared image tubes and the electron microscope. (Full article...)

List of selected biographies

Did you know (auto-generated) -

... that one of the earliest Ukrainian science fiction novels, written in 1918 by Mykola Chaikovsky, features solar power and a radiotelephone?
... that a former radio host got a free apartment in New York City's King Manor and lived there for more than three decades?
... that ChatGPT developer John Schulman said that his first period of serious self-directed study was inspired by the television show BattleBots?
... that a San Francisco–area radio station sometimes had to be quiet to avoid disturbing patients at a nearby dentist's office?
... that Bill Maynard received letters thanking him for making Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt "the cleanest show on television"?
... that a Nebraska radio station chartered an aircraft to search for motorists stranded after a blizzard?

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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 Egypt Georgia India Indonesia Iran Iraq Israel Japan Jordan Kazakhstan North Korea South Korea Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Lebanon Malaysia Maldives Mongolia Myanmar Nepal Oman Palestine Pakistan Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia Singapore Sri Lanka Syria Tajikistan Thailand Timor-Leste (East Timor) Turkey Turkmenistan United Arab Emirates Uzbekistan Vietnam Yemen
States with limited recognition	Abkhazia Northern Cyprus 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 Indonesia 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 Cocos (Keeling) Islands Easter Island French Polynesia Guam Hawaii New Caledonia Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Pitcairn Islands Tokelau Wallis and Futuna