What is Telecommunications? - Definition from Techopedia

Telecommunications

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What Does Telecommunications Mean?

Telecommunications refers to the exchange of information by electronic and electrical means over a significant distance. A complete telecommunication arrangement is made up of two or more stations equipped with transmitter and receiver devices. A single co-arrangement of transmitters and receivers, called a transceiver, may also be used in many telecommunication stations.

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Telecommunications devices include telephones, telegraph, radio, microwave communication arrangements, fiber optics, satellites and the Internet.

Telecommunications is also known as telecom.

Techopedia Explains Telecommunications

Telecommunications is a universal term that is used for a vast range of information-transmitting technologies such as mobile phones, land lines, VoIP and broadcast networks.

In telecommunications, data is transmitted in the form of electrical signals known as carrier waves, which are modulated into analog or digital signals for transmitting information. Analog modulation such as that used in radio broadcasting is an amplitude modulation. Digital modulation is just an updated form of this.

Telecommunications and broadcasting are administered worldwide by an agency of the United Nations called the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Most countries have their own agencies for enforcing telecommunications regulations.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.