Portal:Telecommunication

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The Telecommunication Portal

Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information with an immediacy comparable to face-to-face communication. As such, slow communications technologies like postal mail and pneumatic tubes are excluded from the definition. Many transmission media have been used for telecommunications throughout history, from smoke signals, beacons, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs to wires and empty space made to carry electromagnetic signals. These paths of transmission may be divided into communication channels for multiplexing, allowing for a single medium to transmit several concurrent communication sessions. Several methods of long-distance communication before the modern era used sounds like coded drumbeats, the blowing of horns, and whistles. Long-distance technologies invented during the 20th and 21st centuries generally use electric power, and include the 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 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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Whitacre Tower, AT&T's corporate headquarters in Dallas

AT&T Inc., simply known as AT&T, an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's third-largest telecommunications company by revenue and the second-largest wireless carrier in the United States behind Verizon but ahead of T-Mobile. As of 2023, AT&T was ranked 13th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations, with revenues of $122.4 billion.

During most of the 20th century, AT&T had a monopoly on phone service in the United States. The company began its history as the American District Telegraph Company, formed in St. Louis in 1878. After expanding services to Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas through a series of mergers, it became Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in 1920, which was then a subsidiary of American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The latter was a successor of the original Bell Telephone Company founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1877. The American Bell Telephone Company formed the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) subsidiary in 1885. In 1899, AT&T became the parent company after the American Bell Telephone Company sold its assets to its subsidiary. The company was rebranded as AT&T Corp. in 1994. The 1982 United States v. AT&T antitrust lawsuit resulted in the divestiture of AT&T's ("Ma Bell") local operating subsidiaries which were grouped into seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), commonly referred to as "Baby Bells", resulting in seven independent companies, including Southwestern Bell Corporation (SBC). The latter changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. (Full article...)

General images

The following are images from various telecommunication-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The 1969 AT&T Mod II Picturephone, the result of decades long R&D at a cost of over $500M. (from History of telecommunication)
Image 2Manfred von Ardenne in 1933 (from History of television)
Image 3Ferdinand Braun (from History of television)
Image 4Antonio Meucci's telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 5Historical marker commemorating the first telephone central office in New York State (1878) (from History of the telephone)
Image 6A French Gower telephone of 1912 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (from History of the telephone)
Image 7DBS satellite dishes (from History of television)
Image 8The Philco Predicta, 1958. In the collection of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from History of television)
Image 9
Bell prototype telephone stamp
Centennial Issue of 1976
(from History of the telephone)
Image 10Baird in 1925 with his televisor equipment and dummies "James" and "Stooky Bill" (right) (from History of television)
Image 11The Marconi Company was formed in England in 1910. The photo shows a typical early scene, from 1906, with Marconi employee Donald Manson at right. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 12The "Kerbango Internet Radio" was the first stand-alone product that let users listen to Internet radio without a computer. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 13Around 1920, radio broadcasting started to get popular. The Brox Sisters, a popular singing group, gathered around the radio at the time. (from History of radio)
Image 14The first commercial AM Audion vacuum tube radio transmitter, built in 1914 by Lee De Forest who invented the Audion (triode) in 1906 (from History of radio)
Image 15AT&T magazine advertisement announcing commercial launch of Picturephone service. (from History of videotelephony)
Image 16Tivadar Puskás proposed the telephone switchboard exchange in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 17Philo Farnsworth in 1924 (from History of television)
Image 18The Regency TR-1, which used Texas Instruments' NPN transistors, was the world's first commercially produced transistor radio in 1954. (from History of radio)
Image 19The master telephone patent granted to Bell, 174465, March 10, 1876 (from History of the telephone)
Image 20Caricature of Sir John Reith, by Wooding (from History of broadcasting)
Image 21First television test broadcast transmitted by the NHK Broadcasting Technology Research Institute in May 1939 (from History of television)
Image 22An early Smart TV from 2012 running the discontinued Orsay platform (from History of television)
Image 23The first mass-produced Czechoslovak TV-set Tesla 4001A (1953–57) (from History of television)
Image 241917 wall telephone, open to show magneto and local battery (from History of the telephone)
Image 25A German rotary dial telephone, the W48 (from History of the telephone)
Image 26Antonio Meucci, 1854, constructed telephone-like devices. (from History of the telephone)
Image 271896 Telephone (Sweden) (from History of the telephone)
Image 28In the 1920s, the United States government publication, "Construction and Operation of a Simple Homemade Radio Receiving Outfit", showed how almost any person handy with simple tools could a build an effective crystal radio receiver. (from History of radio)
Image 29Right side view, housing removed, one of its printed circuit boards exposed (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 30Private conversation, 1910 (from History of the telephone)
Image 31The 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)
Image 32Oliver Lodge's 1894 lectures on Hertz demonstrated how to transmit and detect radio waves. (from History of radio)
Image 33Top of cellular telephone tower (from History of the telephone)
Image 34A replica of one of Claude Chappe's semaphore towers (optical telegraph) in Nalbach, Germany (from History of telecommunication)
Image 35Australian radio sets usually had the positions of radio stations marked on their dials. The illustration is a dial from a transistorised, mains-operated Calstan radio, circa 1960s. (Click image for a high resolution view, with readable callsigns.) (from History of broadcasting)
Image 36Philipp Reis, 1861, constructed the first telephone, today called the Reis telephone. (from History of the telephone)
Image 37Family watching TV, 1958 (from History of television)
Image 38Charles Logwood broadcasting at station 2XG, New York City, circa November, 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 39The British Broadcasting Corporation's landmark and iconic London headquarters, Broadcasting House, opened in 1932. At right is the 2005 eastern extension, the John Peel wing. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 40Donald Manson working as an employee of the Marconi Company (England, 1906) (from History of radio)
Image 41Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander using an Ericsson videophone to speak with Lennart Hyland, a popular TV show host (1969) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 42Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the invention of the telephone in 1876. (from History of the telephone)
Image 43Guglielmo Marconi (from History of broadcasting)
Image 44AT&T Picturephone (Mod II) fully enclosed in its housing, control pad at bottom (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 45The Australian Broadcasting Corporation logo, first introduced in 1975 and based on the Lissajous curve (from History of broadcasting)
Image 46Old Receiver schematic, c.1906 (from History of the telephone)
Image 47"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)
Image 48An exposed view of the Picturephone's rear circuit board (courtesy: Richard Diehl) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 49Typical low-cost webcam used with many personal computers (from History of videotelephony)
Image 50"Doc" Herrold is shown at the microphone of KQW, early 1920s. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 51Lee DeForest broadcasting Columbia phonograph records on pioneering New York station 2XG, in 1916 (from History of broadcasting)
Image 52The 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)
Image 53Reginald Fessenden, the "father" of radio broadcasting in the US (from History of broadcasting)
Image 54Color bars used in a test pattern, sometimes used when no program material is available (from History of television)
Image 55The master telephone patent, 174465, granted to Bell, March 7, 1876 (from History of telecommunication)
Image 56Thomas Edison invented the carbon microphone which produced a strong telephone signal. (from History of the telephone)
Image 57Broadcasting pioneer Frank Conrad in a 1921 portrait (from History of broadcasting)
$Image 58Early experiment demonstrating refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio)$
Image 58Early experiment demonstrating refraction of microwaves by a paraffin lens by John Ambrose Fleming in 1897 (from History of radio)
Image 59A 19th century acoustic tin can or "lovers' telephone" (from History of the telephone)
Image 60Emil Voigt, founder of 2KY on behalf of the Labor Council of New South Wales. This photo was taken in earlier days when Voight was a prominent British athlete, and winner of the Gold Medal for the five mile race at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. (from History of broadcasting)
Image 61Reginald Fessenden (around 1906) (from History of radio)
Image 62Actor 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)
Image 63The French Matra videophone (1970) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 64Elisha Gray, 1876, designed a telephone using a water microphone in Highland Park, Illinois. (from History of the telephone)
Image 65Stock telegraph ticker machine by Thomas Edison (from History of telecommunication)
Image 66Naomi ("Joan") Melwit and Norman Banks at the 3KZ microphone, in the late 1930s (from History of broadcasting)
Image 67RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced television set, which sold in 1946–1947 (from History of television)
Image 68Ferdinand Braun (from History of broadcasting)
Image 69Artist's conception: 21st-century videotelephony imagined in the early 20th century (1910) (from History of videotelephony)
Image 70Ad for the beginning of experimental television broadcasting in New York City by RCA in 1939 (from History of television)
Image 71Apple iPhone smartphone (from History of the telephone)
Image 72British Post Office engineers inspect Guglielmo Marconi's wireless telegraphy (radio) equipment in 1897. (from History of radio)
Image 73Code of letters and symbols for Chappe telegraph (Rees's Cyclopaedia) (from History of telecommunication)
Image 74Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1856–1894) proved the existence of electromagnetic radiation. (from History of radio)

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Meucci in 1878

Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci (/meɪˈuːtʃi/ may-OO-chee, Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo meˈuttʃi]; 13 April 1808 – 18 October 1889) was an Italian inventor and an associate of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a major political figure in the history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone.

Meucci set up a form of voice-communication link in his Staten Island, New York, home that connected the second-floor bedroom to his laboratory. He submitted a patent caveat for his telephonic device to the U.S. Patent Office in 1871, but there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound in his caveat. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound by undulatory electric current. Despite the longstanding general crediting of Bell with the accomplishment, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities supported celebrations of Meucci's 200th birthday in 2008 using the title "Inventore del telefono" (Inventor of the telephone). The U.S. House of Representatives in a resolution in 2002 also acknowledged Meucci's work in the invention of the telephone, although the U.S. Senate did not join the resolution and the interpretation of the resolution is disputed. (Full article...)

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