Chapter One:

1. Overview of Telecommunication
1.1. What is Telecommunication?
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In the modern age of
electricity and electronics, telecommunications now also includes the use of electrical devices such as the telegraph,
telephone as well as the use of radio and microwave communications, as well as fiber optics and their associated
electronics, plus the use of the satellites and the Internet.
1.2. Telecommunications network
A telecommunications network is a collection of terminals, links and nodes which connect to enable
telecommunication between users of the terminals. Networks may use circuit switching or message switching. Each
terminal in the network must have a unique address so messages or connections can be routed to the correct recipients.
The collection of addresses in the network is called the address space.
Examples of telecommunications networks are:
 Computer networks
 Internet
 Telephone network
 Mobile network
1.2.1. Components of telecommunication network
All telecommunication networks are made up of five basic components that are present in each network environment
regardless of type or use. These basic components include terminals, telecommunications processors,
telecommunications channels, computers, and telecommunications control software.
Terminals are the starting and stopping points in any telecommunication network environment. Any input or output
device that is used to transmit or receive data can be classified as a terminal component.
 Telecommunications processors support data transmission and reception between terminals and computers by
providing a variety of control and support functions. (i.e. convert data from digital to analog and back).
 Telecommunications channels are the way by which data is transmitted and received.

 Telecommunication channels are created through a variety of media of which the most popular include copper
wires and coaxial cables. Fiber-optic cables are increasingly used to bring faster and more robust connections to
businesses and homes.
 In a telecommunication environment computers are connected through media to perform their communication
assignments.

 Telecommunications control software is present on all networked computers and is responsible for controlling
network activities and functionality.

Sometimes, telecommunication systems are "duplex" (two-way systems) with a single box of electronics working as
both a transmitter and a receiver, or a transceiver. For example, a cellular telephone is a transceiver. The transmission
electronics and the receiver electronics in a transceiver are actually quite independent of each other.

Telecommunications in which multiple transmitters and multiple receivers have been designed to cooperate and to share
the same physical channel are called multiplex systems.

1.3. Types of Signals

1.3.1. Digital signal

A digital signal is a physical signal that is a representation of a sequence of discrete values (a quantified discrete-time
signal), for example an arbitrary bit stream, or of a digitized (sampled). A signal that is generated by means of a digital

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 1

modulation method (digital pass band transmission), produced by a modem, is in the first case considered as a digital
signal, and in the second case as converted to an analog signal.
1.3.2. Analog signal
An analog signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature (variable) of the signal is a representation
of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous/similar to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal
in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are meaningful.

1.4. Types of communications channels:

 A point-to-multipoint channel, also known as broadcasting medium. In this channel, a single sender transmits
multiple messages to different destination nodes. All wireless channels except radio links can be considered as
broadcasting media, but may not always provide broadcasting service. The downlink of a cellular system can
be considered as a point-to-multipoint channel, if only one cell is considered and inter-cell co-channel
interference is neglected.
 Multiple access channel: In this channel, multiple senders transmit multiple possible different messages over a
shared physical medium to one or several destination nodes.
 A unicasting channel is a channel that provides a unicasting service i.e. that sends data addressed to one
specific user. An established phone call is an example.
 A broadcasting channel is a channel that provides a broadcasting service i.e. that sends data addressed to all
users in the network. Cellular network examples are the paging service as well as the Multimedia Broadcast
Multicast Service.
 A multicasting channel is a channel where data is addressed to a group of subscribing users. LTE examples are
the Physical Multicast Channel (PMCH) and MBSFN (Multicast Broadcast Single Frequency Network).

Communication channel
The term communication channel is the physical medium that carries a signal between the transmitter and the receiver.
Examples of this include the atmosphere for sound communications, glass optical fibers for some kinds of optical
communications, coaxial cables for communications by way of the voltages and electric currents in them, and free
space for communications using visible light, infrared waves, ultraviolet light, and radio waves. This last channel is
called the "free space channel". The sending of radio waves from one place to another has nothing to do with the
presence or absence of an atmosphere between the two. Radio waves travel through a perfect vacuum just as easily as
they travel through air, fog, clouds, or any other kind of gas besides air.

In the example above, the "free space channel" has been divided into communications channels according to
frequencies, and each channel is assigned a separate frequency bandwidth in which to broadcast radio waves. This
system of dividing the medium into channels according to frequency is called "Frequency-Division Multiplexing"
(FDM).

Another way of dividing a communications medium into channels is to allocate each sender a recurring segment of time
(a "time slot", for example, 20 milliseconds out of each second), and to allow each sender to send messages only within
its own time slot. This method of dividing the medium into communication channels is called "Time-division
multiplexing" (TDM), and is used in optical fiber communication. Some radio communication systems use TDM
within an allocated FDM channel. Hence, these systems use a hybrid of TDM and FDM.

Modulation

The shaping of a signal to convey information is known as modulation. Modulation can be used to represent a digital
message as an analog waveform. Modulation can also be used to transmit the information of low-frequency analog
signals at higher frequencies. This is helpful because low-frequency analog signals cannot be effectively transmitted

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 2

over free space. Hence the information from a low-frequency analog signal must be impressed into a higher-frequency
signal (known as the "carrier wave") before transmission. There are several different modulation schemes available to
achieve this [two of the most basic being amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM)]. An example of
this process is a disc jockey's voice being impressed into a 97.1 MHz carrier wave using frequency modulation (the
voice would then be received on a radio as the channel "97.1 FM"). In addition, modulation has the advantage of being
about to use frequency division multiplexing (FDM).

What are the Various Communication Channels?

Physical Communication media are the physical channels through which information is transmitted between devices in
a network. Media may be classified as bounded for example, wires, cables, and optical fibers or unbounded for
example ether or airwaves through which radio, microwave, infrared and other signals are transmitted.

Bounded Media:
Wires:
For local telephone communication and short digital data transmission, twisted pair of wires are used. Wires are usually
made of copper, inexpensive and are easy to install. The speed of digital signals range from 9Kbps to 12Kps.

Coaxial Cables:
These are the second type of bounded media, which has higher bandwidth and noise immunity. Coaxial cables consist of
central copper wire surrounded by Teflon or PVC insulation over which a sleeve of copper mesh in extruded aluminum
is placed. The inner copper wire carries the signals at a very high rate of 10 Mega bits per second.
Optical Fibers:
These are the 3rd king of bounded media. It consists of a glass core, a plastic, or glass cladding and a protective coating.
The core diameter is between 8 and 200 micrometers. Light is propagated along an optical fiber as a set of guided light
waves called the modes of the optic fiber. The single mode has a large core dimension is less expensive when compared
to multi core dimension.

Advantages of Optical Fiber:

 High bandwidth
 Protection against electromagnetic interference
 They cannot be tapped easily
 Light weight and no corrosion.

Disadvantages of Optical Fiber:

 Difficult to join two fibers in the field without special equipment.

 They are fragile and cannot have sharp ends.

In the optic fibers electrical signals are transformed to light pulses by a modulator, transmitted over the fiber as light
waves, detected and converted back to electrical signals by photoelectric diodes. Optical fibers may be used to
communicate either analog or digital signals. In analog transmission the light intensity is varied continuously whereas in
digital transmission the light source is turned off/on.

Unbounded:
Radio Waves:
These are used in very high frequency band for communication between terminals and computers and between
computers. These are used by a packet radio, which has both transmission and receiving capacity. A packet radio is
connected to each terminal/computer and when the information is entered, computer transmits it, using packet radio and

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 3

received information from other terminal through packet radio. The main disadvantage is lack of security. The main
advantage is, it has high bandwidth of around 300MHz, with the digital transmission speed 24Kbps.

Wireless:
This communication is used between portable computers and servers. With wireless communication a laptop computer
can access files from stationary server nearby. Though wireless communication, a user can also send and receive email
from mail server.

Microwave Communication:
Using wave-guides and repeaters is another useful unbound media. At microwave frequencies, the electromagnetic
waves cannot bend or pass obstacles like hills. The transmitter and receiver are placed in a line of sight. The receivers
are placed at intervals of 30kms.They receive and retransmit the signals after duplication. These are called microwave
repeaters. They have a high bandwidth of 40 to 110GHz. And the transmission speed ranges up to 60 Gbps. They are
used to link bit metropolitan cities with heavy telephone traffic between them.
Satellites:
Communication satellites are now becoming very popular for data communication between computers. These satellites
are launched either by rockets or by space shuttles and parked in geostationary orbit at 36000km above the equator. The
speed of the satellite in this orbit equals the speed of rotation of earth and thus the satellite is stationary relative to earth.
One of the Indian satellite is INSAT-2B.It is a microwave relay station in the sky. The signals are sent at 6GHz to the
satellite from a transmitter on the earth. It is received, amplified and retransmitted to the earth at 4 GHz by a system
called a transponder mounted on the satellite.

The main advantage of the satellite is that it is a single microwave relay station visible from any where in a country.This
transmission can be between any two randomly chosen places.The bandwidth of signals which can be handled by a
transponder is about 36MHz which would give 1200 voice channels, each supporting 4800 bps data rate or 400 digital
channels of 64 kbps each.A satellite has many transponders thus providing enormous communication capability at costs
which favorably compute with microwave links on earth.

Features of satellite communication:

 The transmission and reception costs are independent of distance between the computers.
 Very high bandwidth is available, if a user has antenna, in his own premises or a radio link to an earth station.
 A signal sent to a satellite is broadcast to all receivers within the satellite’s range. Hence special security
precaution would be necessary.
 Higher frequency for uplink and downlink are used. The band 4 GHz to 6 GHz is called the C-Band and the
band 11GHz to 14GHz is called KU-Band.
 As the satellite system serves a larger number of users, it reduces the costs considerably.

Networking Guide: Physical Media – Wireless

Radio frequency (RF) refers to frequencies of radio waves. RF is part of electromagnetic spectrum that ranges from 3
Hz - 300 GHz. Radio wave is radiated by an antenna and produced by alternating currents fed to the antenna. RF is used
in many standard as well as proprietary wireless communication systems. RF has long been used for radio and TV
broadcasting, wireless local loop, mobile communications, and amateur radio.

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 4

 Picture: Radio waves radiated by a Base Station's antenna

Microwave is the upper part of RF spectrum, i.e. those frequencies above 1 GHz. Because of the
availability of larger bandwidth in microwave spectrum, microwave is used in many applications
such as wireless PAN (Bluetooth), wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), broadband wireless access or wireless
MAN (WiMAX), wireless WAN (2G/3G cellular networks), satellite communications and radar.

Picture: Microwave is used in satellite communication.

Infrared light is part of electromagnetic spectrum that is shorter than radio waves but longer than
visible light. Its frequency range is between 300 GHz and 400 THz, that corresponds to wavelength
from 1mm to 750 nm. Infrared has long been used in night vision equipment and TV remote
control. Infrared is also one of the physical media in the original wireless LAN standard, that's
IEEE 802.11. Infrared use in communication and networking was defined by the IrDA (Infrared
Data Association). Using IrDA specifications, infrared can be used in a wide range of applications,
e.g. file transfer, synchronization, dial-up networking, and payment. However, IrDA is limited in
range (up to about 1 meter). It also requires the communicating devices to be in LOS and within its
30-degree beam-cone.

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 5

 Picture: TV remote control uses infrared.

Society and telecommunication

Telecommunication has a significant social, cultural, and economic impact on modern society. In
2008, estimates placed the telecommunication industry's revenue at $3.85 trillion or just under 3
percent of the gross world product (official exchange rate). Several following sections discuss the
impact of telecommunication on society.

Economic impact
On the microeconomic scale, companies have used telecommunications to help build global business empires. This is
self-evident in the case of online retailer Amazon.com but, according to academic Edward Lenert, even the conventional
retailer Wal-Mart has benefited from better telecommunication infrastructure compared to its competitors. In cities
throughout the world, home owners use their telephones to organize many home services ranging from pizza deliveries
to electricians. Even relatively-poor communities have been noted to use telecommunication to their advantage. In
Bangladesh's Narshingdi district, isolated villagers use cellular phones to speak directly to wholesalers and arrange a
better price for their goods. In Côte d'Ivoire, coffee growers share mobile phones to follow hourly variations in coffee
prices and sell at the best price.[33]

Social impact

Telecommunication has played a significant role in social relationships. Nevertheless devices like the telephone system
were originally advertised with an emphasis on the practical dimensions of the device (such as the ability to conduct
business or order home services) as opposed to the social dimensions. It was not until the late 1920s and 1930s that the
social dimensions of the device became a prominent theme in telephone advertisements. New promotions started
appealing to consumers' emotions, stressing the importance of social conversations and staying connected to family and
friends.

Since then the role that telecommunications has played in social relations has become increasingly important. In recent
years, the popularity of social networking sites has increased dramatically. These sites allow users to communicate with
each other as well as post photographs, events and profiles for others to see. The profiles can list a person's age,
interests, sexual preference and relationship status. In this way, these sites can play important role in everything from
organising social engagements to courtship.

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 6

Prior to social networking sites, technologies like short message service(SMS) and the telephone also had a significant
impact on social interactions. In 2000, market research group Ipsos MORI reported that 81% of 15 to 24 year-old SMS
users in the United Kingdom had used the service to coordinate social arrangements and 42% to flirt.

Other impacts
In cultural terms, telecommunication has increased the public's ability to access to music and film. With television,
people can watch films they have not seen before in their own home without having to travel to the video store or
cinema. With radio and the Internet, people can listen to music they have not heard before without having to travel to
the music store.

Telecommunication has also transformed the way people receive their news. A survey by the non-profit Pew Internet
and American Life Project found that when just over 3,000 people living in the United States were asked where they got
their news "yesterday", more people said television or radio than newspapers.

Compiled by Molalign Ch. Page 7