Communications

Photo of Alexander Graham Bell speaking into his telephone in 1876.
Source: Early Office Museum

Communication refers to the process of sending and receiving messages or information.

Ever since language was invented, and possibly even before, humans have communicated with each other about their environment and activities.

This communication was first limited to the distances over which people could hear and see each other. However, as humans spread and communities grew, people invented innovative ways to communicate at greater distances.

Runners and horseback couriers were used to deliver messages over short distances. Smoke signals, flags, drums and bugles were used to send messages over greater distances.

At the same time people were also developing signals and codes they could use to send complex messages quicker and with less risk of misunderstandings. These could also be used to hide information from rivals or enemies. These codes remained very important right up to modern times for their ability to reduce the size of communications transmissions.

Modern communications

From the start of the Industrial Revolution, society began changing at an accelerating pace. Countries needed to send and receive information more quickly and over greater distances. Commerce, entertainment and warfare required more effective, and faster, methods of sending and receiving information.

Out of this, many advances in communications were developed, using scientific breakthroughs to harness new technologies.

Among the most important were the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television and, most recently, the internet.

Telecommunications

Telecommunications, in its simplest form, is the sending of messages over distance. (tele=distance; communicate = exchange ideas or knowledge).

Today the term is used mainly to refer to communications technologies carrying these messages either as electrical or light impulses along wires or as electromagnetic waves travelling through air or space.

Advances in communications
Source: : Image courtesy of John Klossner