Information Technology & Communication

Telecommunication is the extension of communication over a distance. In practice it also recognizes that something may be lost in the process; hence the term ‘telecommunication’ covers all forms of distance and/or conversion of the original communications, including radio, telegraphy, television, telephony, data communication and computer networking.

The elements of a telecommunication system are a transmitter, a medium (line) and possibly a channel imposed upon the medium (see baseband and broadband as well as multiplexing), and a receiver. The transmitter is a device that transforms or encodes the message into a physical phenomenon; the signal. The transmission medium, by its physical nature, is likely to modify or degrade the signal on its path from the transmitter to the receiver. The receiver has a decoding mechanism capable of recovering the message within certain limits of signal degradation. In some cases, the final “receiver” is the human eye and/or ear (or in some extreme cases other sense organs) and the recovery of the message is done by the brain.

Telecommunication can be point-to-point, point-to-multipoint or broadcasting, which is a particular form of point-to-multipoint that goes only from the transmitter to the receivers.

One of the roles of the telecommunications engineer is to analyse the physical properties of the line or transmission medium, and the statistical properties of the message in order to design the most effective encoding and decoding mechanisms.

When systems are designed to communicate through human sense organs (mainly vision and hearing), physiological and psychological characteristics of human perception will be taken into account. This has important economic implications and engineers will research what defects may be tolerated in the signal yet not affect the viewing or hearing experience too badly.

Examples of human (tele)communications

In a simplistic example, consider a normal conversation between two people. The message is the sentence that the speaker decides to communicate to the listener. The transmitter is the language areas in the brain, the motor cortex, the vocal cords, the larynx, and the mouth that produce those sounds called speech. The signal is the sound waves (pressure fluctuations in air particles) that can be identified as speech. The channel is the air carrying those sound waves, and all the acoustic properties of the surrounding space: echoes, ambient noise, reverberation. Between the speaker and the listener (the receiver), might be other devices that do or do not introduce their own distortions of the original vocal signal (e.g. telephone, HAM radio, IP phone, etc.) The penultimate receiver is the listener’s ear and auditory system, the auditory nerve, and the language areas in the listener’s brain that will “decode” the signal into meaningful information and filter out background noise.

All channels have noise. Another important aspect of the channel is called the bandwidth. A low bandwidth channel, such as a telephone, cannot carry all of the audio information that is transmitted in normal conversation, causing distortion and irregularities in the speaker’s voice, as compared to normal, in-person speech.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Communication is the process of exchanging information, usually via common system of symbols. It takes a wide variety of forms, from two people having a face-to-face conversation, to hand signals, to messages sent over global telecommunication networks. The process of communication is what allows us to interact with other people; without it, we would be unable to share knowledge or experiences with anything outside of ourselves. Common forms of communication include speaking, writing, gestures, and broadcasting.

The hand, a phenomenom exclusive to Humans (and Chimpanzees) is perhaps the “original communication tool” where it can express caring, hatred, construction, destruction, aprooval or condemnation. To the deaf it is “their way out”, to the blind, it is their way in. To the artist, it is their way through, to the writer, it is the way with.

The Latin root word of “communication” is comunicare, which has three possible meanings
1. “to make common”, which is probably derived from either 2 or 3
2. cum + munus, i.e. having gifts to share in a mutual donation.
3. cum + munire, i.e. building together a defense, like the walls of a city

Defining communication

There is no single definition of communication that satisfies everyone. In 1970, Frank Dance had identified 126 published definitions. [1]

Types of communication

To some people “Communication” implies two different, and sometimes conflicting, things. On the one hand, it means to have a thoughtful exchange of views (dialogue) with a small number of people, perhaps just one. But it can also mean to disseminate broadly a simple message (compare broadcasting), without deep thought or appeals for feedback.

Interpersonal

The most basic forms of communication are primarily those which involve communicating with people immediately present, such as one-on-one and group conversations.

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is communication over spatial distances. The term is most often used in describing electronic means of communication, but can also include methods such as smoke signals and semaphore.

Animal

Humans are not the only creatures who communicate. Animals share information with each other in a variety of ways.

Academic study

The various aspects of communicating have long been the subject of human study. In ancient Greece, the study of rhetoric, the art of effective speaking and persuasion, was a vital subject for students.

In the early 20th century, many specialists began to study communication as a specific part of their academic disciplines. Communication studies began to emerge as a distinct academic field in the mid-20th century. Marshall McLuhan was one of the early pioneers.

Communication technology

As regards human communication these diverse fields can be divided into those which cultivate a thoughtful exchange between a small number of people (debate, talk radio, e-mail, personal letters) on the one hand; and those which disseminate broadly a simple message (Public relations, television, Hollywood films.)

Our indebtedness to the Romans in the field of communication does not end with the root “communicare”. They devised what might be described as the first real mail or postal system in order to control the empire from Rome by gathering knowledge about events in faroff places.

As the Romans well knew, communication is as much about taking in towards the centre as it is about putting out towards the extremes.

In virtual management an important issue is computer-mediated communication.

The view people take to communication is changing, as new technologies change the way they communicate and organize. This new trend in communication, decentralized personal networking, is termed smartmobbing.

References

[1] Dance, Frank. “The ‘concept’ of communication. Journal of Communication, 20, 201-210 (1970).

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.