What does telecommunication mean?
What does it actually do?
What are the basic components of this science that has done so much to change our world and our everyday lives?
In this section you can find the answers to the fundamental questions about communication over distance.
People imagine telecommunications means communications using only electrical or electronic technology, but that isn't so.
'Tele' is a Greek word meaning 'far off' so the purest definition is 'communications over a distance'.
In other words, telecommunications means ...
Over the past 200 years, the distance we've been able to send signals has expanded a million times.
The furthest we used to be able to send a signal was as far as the eye could see, or the ear could hear. So the 'maximum transmission distance' was a few miles.
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People talk of telecommunications as 'instant' - but it never is. In fact nothing in life is instant - not even face-to-face conversation. Light and sound move at defined speeds with measurable delays. What matters is the perception of delay - whether it is natural or artificial....
Each of the main technologies of the telecommunications age has used a different type of signal - and a different way of passing messages
Each of those signal types has different characteristics that determine what you can communicate, how fast and how far.