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Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated astelecom, is the transmission ofinformation over a distance usingelectrical orelectronic means, typically through cables,radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of transmission may be divided intocommunication channels formultiplexing, allowing for a single medium to transmit several concurrentcommunication sessions. Long-distance technologies invented during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries generally use electric power, and include theelectrical telegraph,telephone,television, andradio.
Earlytelecommunication networks used metal wires as the medium for transmitting signals. These networks were used fortelegraphy and telephony for many decades. In the first decade of the 20th century, a revolution inwireless communication began with breakthroughs including those made inradio communications byGuglielmo Marconi, who won the 1909Nobel Prize in Physics. Other early pioneers in electrical and electronic telecommunications include co-inventors of the telegraphCharles Wheatstone andSamuel Morse, numerousinventors and developers of the telephone includingAntonio Meucci,Philipp Reis,Elisha Gray andAlexander Graham Bell, inventors of radioEdwin Armstrong andLee de Forest, as well as inventors of television likeVladimir K. Zworykin,John Logie Baird andPhilo Farnsworth.
Since the 1960s, the proliferation of digital technologies has meant thatvoice communications have gradually been supplemented by data. The physical limitations of metallic media prompted the development of optical fibre. TheInternet, 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...)
Videotelephony (also known asvideoconferencing orvideo calling ortelepresence) is the use ofaudio andvideo for simultaneoustwo-way communication.
Videophones were standalone devices for video calling (compareTelephone). Assmartphones and computers have become capable of video calling, the demand for a separate category of videophones has disappeared. (Full article...)
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Charles Bourseul (28 April 1829 – 23 November 1912) was a pioneer in development of the "make and break"telephone about 20 years beforeBell made a practical telephone. (Full article...)
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