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...)
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A needle telegraph is an electrical telegraph that uses indicating needles moved electromagnetically as its means of displaying messages. It is one of the two main types of electromagnetic telegraph, the other being the armature system, as exemplified by the telegraph of Samuel Morse in the United States. Needle telegraphs were widely used in Europe and the British Empire during the nineteenth century.
Needle telegraphs were suggested shortly after Hans Christian Ørsted discovered that electric currents could deflect compass needles in 1820. Pavel Schilling developed a telegraph using needles suspended by threads. This was intended for installation in Russia for government use, but Schilling died in 1837 before it could be implemented. In 1833 Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Eduard Weber in Göttingen built a telegraph line that was used for scientific study and communication between university sites. In 1837 Carl August von Steinheil adapted Gauss and Weber's rather cumbersome apparatus for use on various German railways. (Full article...)
General images
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Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander using an Ericsson videophone to speak with Lennart Hyland, a popular TV show host (1969) (from History of videotelephony) -
Code of letters and symbols for Chappe telegraph (Rees's Cyclopaedia) (from History of telecommunication) -
"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) -
First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television) -
Bell prototype telephone stamp(from History of the telephone)
Centennial Issue of 1976 -
Reconstruction of Aeneas Tacticus' hydraulic telegraph (4th c. B.C.) in Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, Athens, Greece. (from History of telecommunication) -
1896 telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone) -
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Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone) -
Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television) -
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo, first introduced in 1975 and based on the Lissajous curve (from History of broadcasting) -
Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone) -
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"Doc" Herrold is shown at the microphone of KQW, c. 1925 (from History of broadcasting) -
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The 1969 AT&T Mod II Picturephone, the result of decades long R&D at a cost of over $500M. (from History of telecommunication) -
British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment in 1897. (from History of radio) -
An early experiment demonstrating the refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio) -
Replica 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) -
Typical low-cost webcam used with many personal computers (from History of videotelephony) -
Innocenzo Manzetti considered the idea of a telephone in 1844 (from History of the telephone) -
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) -
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) -
Guglielmo Marconi (from History of broadcasting) -
The "Kerbango Internet Radio" was the first stand-alone product that let users listen to Internet radio without a computer. (from History of broadcasting) -
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Lee DeForest broadcasting Columbia phonograph records on New York station 2XG, 1916 (from History of broadcasting) -
Reis's telephone around 1861, first device called telephone (from History of the telephone) -
A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany (from History of telecommunication) -
The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television) -
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1856–1894) proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation. (from History of radio) -
Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone) -
AT&T magazine advertisement announcing commercial launch of Picturephone service. (from History of videotelephony) -
Actor 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) -
AT&T Picturephone (Mod II) fully enclosed in its housing, control pad at bottom (from History of videotelephony)
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Charles Logwood broadcasting at New York station 2XG, 1916 (from History of broadcasting) -
Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television) -
Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone) -
Portrait of John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, in 1925, founding director general of the BBC from 1922 to 1938 (from History of broadcasting) -
RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television) -
Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone) -
The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 7, 1876 (from History of the telephone) -
Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television) -
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) -
Tihanyi' Radioskop patent (1926) was recognized as Document of Universal Significance by the UNESCO (from History of television) -
A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone) -
An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television) -
Fessenden operating an underwater oscillator in 1915. (from History of radio) -
Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
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Selected biography -
Alexander Graham Bell (/ˈɡreɪ.əm/ ⓘ; born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist, and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.
Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices, which eventually culminated in his being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. (Full article...)
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