History of Telecommunication

Describe about the Telecommunication Technology for History of Telecommunication.

From the ancient times the use of humans tried to contact with each other by staying at a distance from each other. For this they used the smoke signals or the drums to alert or inform the other people at a distance. In Africa, America and some parts of Asia these techniques were used in the ancient time. As discussed by Okada et al. (2013), these equipments are used to transmit the signal and to receive the transmitted signal by the other stations. Until 1930 the wired the electronic telecommunication systems first appears in the scenario.

In the year 1838, the telegraph was invented. The telegraph was invented by Cook and Wheatstone and they demonstrated their telegraph machine to the directors of the London and Birmingham Railway. After six years the revolutionary communication language Morse codes by F.B Morse in the year 1844. In the same year, the first long distance message was sent from Baltimore to Washington. In the year   1970 the different private companies were nationalized. All the operations were maintained by the post offices (Hausman and Sidak 2014). In the year 1876 Graham Bell invented the telephone and demonstrated it publically. In the next year, 1878 the first telephone   companies were established. After this, in the year 1891, the telephone link between London and Paris were established and the international telephone services started with the establishment of this link.

The first automatic telephonic exchange for the public use was opened in Epsom, Surrey. This helped the people to make the calls without interference of the operator (Loomis and Wiedman 2012). After the First World War the number of services as well as the number of the telephones increased due the development in this field. In the next decade the rental and the call charges were reduced significantly (Hausman and Sidak 2014). Moreover the use of the coaxial cable in the telecommunication was introduced, as a result of now hundreds of calls can be sent over the pair of cables.

 In the year 1969, the large wide area network is developed by the ARPANET.  After different modifications to the primary invention, the internet is now used by the billions of people worldwide and the number of users is increasing day by day.

The basics in the telecommunication can be stated as the different equipments, the communication channel or medium, the different services and the networks used in the communication processes (Okada et al. 2013). The basic elements or the equipments used in the telecommunication processes are signal, transmitters, transmission medium, receiver and a Transceiver.

Basic Telecommunication Concepts

In the telecommunication the most important thing is the signal. The signals can be analog as well as digital. Specifically for the analog signals there are some physical factors that can affect the performance of the signal. These physical factors are sound, light, temperature etc (Okada et al. 2013).The transmitter is used to take the information as the input and convert it into the signal.

 The receiver is the equipment that is used to convert the signal to the usable information (Hausman and Sidak 2014).  At the end the transceiver thought as the tool that can act both as the transmitter and receiver of the signal.

The transmission media can be thought as the channel or medium that carries the signals. These channels can be free space, copper or co axial cable or the most efficient optical fiber (Loomis and Wiedman 2012).  These channels can be divided into more subparts like the simplex, half duplex and duplex.

Simplex

The simplex channel provides the single way communication. Thus while using this channel there is only one transmitter and only one receiver at the other end. In these channel it is impossible to transmit and receive at the simultaneously.

Figure 1: Simplex communication channel

(Source: Ndujiuba and Ibhaze 2016, pp-21)

Half duplex

The half duplex channel is more efficient than the simplex channel. In half duplex channel, it is possible to send and receive the information from both ends (Hausman and Sidak 2014).  If one end is sending data or information then the other end have to wait until it is complete to start the operation from the other end. In addition to that, the error detection can be done in this channel.

Figure2: Half duplex channel

(Source: Okada et al. 2013, pp-52)

Full duplex

In the full duplex channels the data can be sent and received in both ways.  In this process one end does not have to wait for its turn as it has to in the half duplex mode.  The duplex mode can be thought as a highway that has two lanes.

Figure: Full Duplex channel

(Source: Bruno and Manello 2015, pp-60)

The communication networks can be categorized into following categories, which are Metropolitan area network (MAN), local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN).

LAN-The LAN is mainly designed for the small physical areas like for an office, building or a factory.  This network type is also very helpful in sharing the available resources like the shared hard drives, printers etc. The LAN is used in connecting a small number of workstations in an office or factory (Al-Mufti and Kalenahalli 2014). The advantage of this network system is one of the workstations can became a server and the required software’s can be installed on it instead of installing on each of the workstations. 

Signals

MAN- The metropolitan area network is same as the LAN. This network type is used to cover a whole city.  Moreover, it can be said that a MAN can consist a number of LANs (Hausman and Sidak 2014). This type of net works are mainly maintained and operated by a private or public company.

WAN- The Wide area network is used to cover a large area like a state or a country. This kind of network is very complex and hard to maintain and troubleshoot.

According to the major telecommunication companies the telecommunication services are categorized into three categories, which are the narrowband services, voice band service, and broadband services.

Narrowband services- This handle the low data volumes.  In this service the data transmission rate is between the 45 to 300baud (Okada et al. 2013). These services are suitable for the low speed devices.

Voice band services- This services handles the data transmission between the 300 to 9600 baud.  The main use of this service is in the telephonic voice communication.

Broadband services-The broadband services are used to handle a large volume of data. This service helps in handling data up to 1 million baud or more (Ndujiuba and Ibhaze 2016). The satellite communication is an example of this kind of services.

The main difference between analog and digital communication technology is the difference between the concepts of “discrete time” and “continuous time”. In case of the continuous time signals, it has values at the every point of time (Aguas-Martínez et al. 2016). On the other hand the discrete signals have discrete values and are based on samples. Sample represents the signal values between the two time points.

Again the digital communication technology is mainly based on the discrete time signals (Okada et al. 2013). Moreover the signals in the digital communication technology is first sampled and then converted into the digital signals.

The digital communication technology is generally preferred in today telecommunication industry. There are several reasons behind this which can be stated as,

a) Being more robust than the analog technology, thus it can be used in the noisy mediums.

b) The digital signals can be packetized and transmitted through the packet network. This technique makes the whole communication process more reliable (Al-Mufti and Kalenahalli 2014). At the same time the output of the digital technology are also easy to store.

c) The multiplexing process is much simpler in the digital process that in turn helps in reducing the cost related to it (Hausman and Sidak 2014).

Transmission Media and its Categories

d) Several types of signals can be combined using digital communications technology, like audio, video, data, etc.

Often it is seen that the capacity of a medium is much higher than the requirement of an individual user (Celandroni et al. 2013). Specifically it can be said that, the bandwidth of a medium is greater than the number of signals that is going to be transmitted in those mediums.  The technical definition can be given by;

It is a way to transmitting multiple signals through a single transmission channel. By using a device known as multiplexer a finite number of signals are combined together to transmit over the medium and to use its full potential (Aguas-Martinez et al. 2016). At the other end another device known as demultiplexer is used to separate each and every signal by using the filtering process. 

In general there are three types of multiplexing are used in the telecommunication. These are a) Frequency division multiplexing (FDM), b) Time division multiplexing (TDM, and c) Wave division multiplexing (WDM).

TDM (Time Division Multiplexing)

The TDM is about using the transmission media or channel to send the signal depending upon the time slots (Hausman and Sidak 2014). In this technique a time slot is assigned for each of the signals. In this technique several low speed channels are multiplexed into a high-speed channel.

Figure 3: TDM

(Source: Loomis and Wiedman 2012, pp-53)

FDM (Frequency Division Multiplexing)

The FDM works primarily on the analog signals and their combination. In this multiplexing technique, signals are generated by transferring different device-modulated carrier frequencies. These modulated signals are then combined into one signal that can be transferred through the transmission media.

Figure 4: TDM

(Source: Hausman and Sidak 2014, pp-29)

WDM (Wave Division Multiplexing)

Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is the most promising concept in the multiplexing technology. This multiplexing technology uses the multiplexer at the transmitter to combine the signals and a demultiplexer at the receivers end.

Figure 5: WDM

(Source: Aguas-Martínez et al. 2016 pp-98)

Digital Carrier System

The digital carrier system can be thought as the medium which carries digital signals. It is   equivalent to the physical layer of the OSI model of networks (Hausman and Sidak 2014).  The Carriers can be categorized into two categories which are baseband and broadband. A baseband carrier includes direct current. On the other hand broadband carriers are mainly modulated by various methods into frequency bands.

As the human backbone helps in providing the sensory signals to the different body parts of the through the smaller nerves, in the similar way the network backbone transmission network helps in carrying the data to the smaller lines of transmission. These backbones can connect several numbers of local area networks and helps in building a wide area network.

Communication Networks

Figure 6: Backbone transmission network

(Source: Al-Mufti and Kalenahalli 2014, pp-72)

Optical networks

An optical network can be defined as a communication network that is built with optical fiber technology for the higher capacity and the speed of it. This network uses the optical fiber cables as the primary medium for conversion and the transmission of the data (Celandroni et al. 2013). By using an optical transmitter the electric signals are converted into the light pulses that can be sent over the optical fiber. 

Application of the digital career system- The digital career system helps in connecting the local area network to build the wide area network (Hausman and Sidak 2014). This wide area network helps the local area networks with the larger network like the internet.

Application of the network backbone transmission- The network backbone transmission helps in transmitting the information or the signal to the smaller transmission channels that are comprised under a larger network system (Belle et al. 2014). The backbone transmission network also provides support to the local area network and metro area network.

Application of optical networks – The optical fiber network helped the modern telecommunication industry to increase the transmission speed of the information or the signal. Now, the signal can be sent at the speed of light.

There are three major wireless technologies are in use in the modern telecommunication technology (Hausman and Sidak 2014). These are satellite communication technology, Bluetooth technology, wireless networking technology and the infrared technology.

The satellite technology is one of the hugely spread technology all over the world. It helps its users to stay connected irrespective of their geographical position (Al-Mufti and Kalenahalli 2014).  In this technology the user devices directly communicate with the orbiting satellites using the radio signals. Using the satellite technology and the GPS service it is possible to control the different mobile units like the delivery trucks from a centralized controlling location. 

The Bluetooth technology allows the user to create a connection between different electronic user devices wirelessly. After the connection is established then the users can share and transfer data between them (Celandroni et al. 2013). This technology generally connects the devices which are in certain range (20-50 feet).

The infrared technology is used in the transmission system that transmits information signals using LEDs (light emitting diodes) or Lasers (Hausman and Sidak 2014). This technology uses electromagnetic energy.  This energy uses a wavelength that is greater than the red light. This technology can provide speed from 100Kbps to 16Mbps.

Communication Services

The profitability and the productivity of a business depend on the effectiveness and efficiency of the different operations in the organization. The business environment is globalized now; as result of it the organizations have the offices or branches to maintain the local business of the organization (Belle et al. 2014).  Like the internet channel helped the customers to get their required products or services at their fingertips. They can order and get their products as per their wish. Also by the use of communication technology it is possible to track the shipment from the supplier. 

The key industries in the telecommunication sector are the service providers, wireless service providers, satellite telecommunication service providers, internet service providers, customer premise equipment development industry, network related and fiber optic manufacturing industry, satellite communication equipment development industry (Hausman and Sidak 2014).

Service provider organization: O₂ (A joint venture of BT group and Securicor)

Internet service provider: TalkTalk

Customer premise equipment development: British Glass

Satellite communication equipment development: Spectra UK Ltd

Customer premise equipment manufacturing: Binatone

Strategy of O₂: The business strategy of O₂ mainly focuses on the quality customers and not on the quantity of the customers. The telecom industry is one of the rapidly growing industries of UK (Bellé et al. 2014). The business strategies of O₂ are to sell and provide more and more services to the existing customers than acquiring the new customers.

Strategy of TalkTalk: The organization mainly concentrates on enhancing the customer experience. Campaigns are planned by targeting a specific segment of users.

Strategy of British Glass: The organization takes initiative to introduce strong leadership in the organization to have increased productivity and profitability in its business.

Strategy of Spectra UK Ltd: The organization provides services that are impartial and have the lowest prices compared to the other providers (Hausman and Sidak 2014). Also the organization uses trained engineers to provide efficient and quality services.

Strategy of Binatone: To deliver the quality services to its consumers Binatone tries to implement new solutions that can manage the day to day maintenance of their network (Bruno and Manello 2015). The leaders of the organizations try to take care of the activities that are happening in the network, so that they can take faster decisions to solve any problem.

Today the telecommunication is an important aspect of personal and business life. It helps in governing the way organizations do their business or a person interact with their dear ones .The telecommunication technology has evolved dramatically with respect to the last decade (Bellé et al. 2014). The broadband revolution is now helping the business organizations to get the required data in seconds from the other end of the world. The other stakeholders like the subsystem and equipment manufacturers helps in completing the networks.

Comparison of Digital and Analog Communication Technology

The revenue of the fixed voice services are declining day by day, at the same time the revenue from the mobile services has increased accordingly (Bruno and Manello 2015). Also this era of telecommunication is considered as the golden age of mobile broadband. It is expected that the number of mobile broadband users are going to be increased by 10 fold in the coming 5 years. Also the use of the HSPA/LTE is getting increased day by day in UK. This increase helps in providing better services to the consumers

Conclusion

As discussed in the above sections it can be concluded that the telecommunication technology has covered a long way from the smoke signals to the Internet. With all this improvements, the risks of failure related to the different communication channels are also a topic of serious concern. Moreover, it can be said that the different business organizations that depend on the telecommunication can have a bad impact of the failures and disruptions in the services. Therefore it is advised to use the latest technology and equipments like the optical fibers, network backbone transmission system must be used to effectively and efficiently use the different telecommunication technologies.

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