The Communication Story

- Ms. Shraddha Shukla

 History of Communication Technology
• Phase I – From telegraph to telephone to computers

1. Telegraph
“Telegraph” is a Greek expression which in English means “…to write far”. The earliest forms of
telegraphy the mankind saw was smoke, fire, drums signals often termed as “Jungle Telegraph”.
These were the very first methods to say something from a distance. As early as 1500s, the
contemporary thinkers had first started deliberating on the use of light and electric impulses as the
means of communication.
An electrical telegraph is a point-to-point text messaging system, primarily used from the 1840s
until the mid 20th century when it was slowly replaced by other telecommunication systems. It
used coded pulses of electric current through dedicated wires to transmit information over long
distances. It was first taken up in Britain in the form of the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph,
initially used mostly as an aid to railway signalling. This was quickly followed by a different
system developed in the United States by Samuel Morse.
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Cooke and Wheatstone Samuel Morse Electric
Electric Telegraph Telegraph

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The Morse system was adopted as the international standard in 1865, using a modified Morse
code developed in Germany.

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Wireless telegraphy developed in the early 20th century. Wireless telegraphy became important
for maritime use, and was a competitor to electrical telegraphy using submarine telegraph
cables in international communications. Telegrams became a popular means of sending messages
once telegraph prices had fallen sufficiently.

2. Telephones
Graham Bell’s attempt to improve the telegraph resulted in telephone. Until 1877, telegraph
remained the only means of long distance communication but the position was changed and the
telephone emerged as the rival technology in the field of communication. It was on the historic
day of 10th March 1876 when Bell told his assistant sitting in the next room on phone “Mr.
Watson – come here – I want to see you”. The words passed into history of communication as the
first “talk on phone”. This was the successful culmination of Graham Bell’s theory, the “harmonic
telegraph” which was based on the principle that several notes could be transmitted
simultaneously along the same wire. Telephonic conversations have raised the question of
evidence in law courts in this respect, they share the same treatment which was meted out to the
electronic communication until legal provisions were formulated to give them the due recognition.
In India the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 regulates telephonic conversations.
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3. Computers
A mixed research and development which was going on in the field of calculations and computing
resulted in the invention of computers. Blaise Pascal who built the first digital but non-electronic
computer in 1642 taught to the world the ABC of computer building. The computer as we know it
today had its beginning with a 19th Century English mathematics professor named Charles
Babbage. He is known as “the father of computers”. He designed the Analytical Engine (as
shown in the figure below) and it was this design upon which the basic framework of the
computers of today are based on.

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Generally speaking, computers can be classified into three generations. Each generation lasted for
a certain period of time, and each gave us either a new and improved computer or an improvement
to the existing computer.

First generation: (1937 – 1946) - In 1937 the first electronic digital computer was built by Dr.
John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). In 1943
an electronic computer name the Colossus was built for the military. Other developments
continued until in 1946 the first general– purpose digital computer, the Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was built. It is said that this computer weighed 30 tons, and
had 18,000 vacuum tubes which was used for processing. When this computer was turned on for
the first time lights dim in sections of Philadelphia. Computers of this generation could only
perform single task, and they had no operating system.

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Second generation: (1947 – 1962) - This generation of computers used transistors instead of
vacuum tubes which were more reliable. In 1951 the first computer for commercial use was
introduced to the public; the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC 1). In 1953 the
International Business Machine (IBM) 650 and 700 series computers made their mark in the
computer world. During this generation of computers over 100 computer programming languages
were developed, computers had memory and operating systems. Storage media such as tape and
disk were in use also were printers for output.

Third generation: (1963 – present) - The invention of integrated circuit brought us the third
generation of computers. With this invention computers became smaller, more powerful more
reliable and they are able to run many different programs at the same time. In1980 Microsoft Disk
Operating System (MS-Dos) was born and in 1981 IBM introduced the personal computer (PC)
for home and office use. Three years later Apple gave us the Macintosh computer with its icon
driven interface and the 90s gave us Windows operating system.

As a result of the various improvements to the development of the computer we have seen the
computer being used in all areas of life. It is a very useful tool that will continue to experience
new development as time passes.
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 History of Communication Technology
• Phase II – From ARPANET to the semantic web
The first workable prototype of the Internet came in the late 1960s with the creation of
ARPANET, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Originally funded by the U.S.
Department of Defence, ARPANET used packet switching to allow multiple computers to
communicate on a single network.

On October 29, 1969, ARPANET delivered its first message: a “node-to-node” communication
from one computer to another. (The first computer was located in a research lab at UCLA and the
second was at Stanford; each one was the size of a small house.) The message—“LOGIN”—was
short and simple, but it crashed the fledgling ARPA network anyway: The Stanford computer
only received the note’s first two letters.

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The technology continued to grow in the 1970s after scientists Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf
developed Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, a
communications model that set standards for how data could be transmitted between
multiple networks.

ARPANET adopted TCP/IP on January 1, 1983, and from there researchers began to assemble the
“network of networks” that became the modern Internet. The online world then took on a more
recognizable form in 1990, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide
Web. While it’s often confused with the internet itself, the web is actually just the most common
means of accessing data online in the form of websites and hyperlinks.

The web helped popularize the internet among the public, and served as a crucial step in
developing the vast trove of information that most of us now access on a daily basis.

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Semantic Web
The Semantic Web is an extension of the World Wide Web through standards set by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The goal of the Semantic Web is to make Internet data
machine-readable.
Till now, we have known computers who have their own language, a language which is not
comprehensible by humans. Though creating a marvel out of that, this quality of computers has its
own limitations; it cannot converse with us and it does not understand the language the human
society knows in any part of the world. They are passive receivers of commands and in that
respect just remain too obedient to do as to what the instruction says.
Tim Berners Lee, the father of world wide web is the first person who realised that a new form of
Web content that is meaningful to computers will unleash a revolution of new possibilities and
coined the term “semantic web”. In a semantic web situation, the computers are envisioned as
being more interactive, more responsive.
Data that is embedded in Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) has only limited use; it cannot
be used for purposes other than that for which it is meant. It is with the help of the Resource
Description Framework (RDF) processor that semantic technology works. With the use of
Uniform Resource Identifiers (UFI) for each of the terms in the language of the user, the matter
can be published with more ease.
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 History of Communication Technology
• Phase III – From dial-up to broadband to 4G

Before we move on to dial-up network, let us revise what is internet?

The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the
Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network
of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of
local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking
technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the
inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic
mail, telephony, and file sharing.
To understand the functioning of internet you should know a few terminologies like:
(i) HTML – Hypertext Markup Language is the code that is used to structure a web page and its
content. For example, content could be structured within a set of paragraphs, a list of bulleted
points, or using images and data tables.
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Image of a webpage on internet

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Image of the source of the previously shown webpage
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(ii) Hyperlink – In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a reference to data that the user can
follow by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element
within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks. The text that is linked from is called anchor
text.

(iii) HTTP – Hypertext Transer Protocol is the communication protocol used to connect to Web
servers on the Internet or on a local network (intranet). The primary function of HTTP is to
establish a connection with the server and send HTML pages back to the user’s browser.

(iv) WWW – WWW stands for World Wide Web, and it’s used mostly as a prefix. However, it
does indicate that a given website uses HTTP to communicate. The main difference between
WWW and HTTP is that they refer to different concepts. Simply put, HTTP is the protocol that
enables communication online, transferring data from one machine to another. WWW is the set of
linked hypertext documents that can be viewed on web browsers (such as Firefox, Google
Chrome, and more).
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(v) URL - A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed a web address, is a reference
to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving
it. Most web browsers display the URL of a web page above the page in an address bar. A typical
URL could have the form http://www.example.com/index.html, which indicates a protocol
(http), a hostname (www.example.com), and a file name (index.html).

(vi) Server – Every time you use the internet you are accessing a server. When you enter a URL
into a browser your computer communicates with the server hosting that website and pulls the
data onto your machine. In other words, a server is a computer that serves information to other
computers. These computers, called clients, can connect to a server through either a local area
network or a wide area network, such as the internet.

(vii) ISP (Internet Service Provider) - The term internet service provider (ISP) refers to a company
that provides access to the internet to both personal and business customers. ISPs make it possible
for their customers to surf the web, shop online, conduct business, and connect with family and
friends—all for a fee. Example: Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL etc.

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(viii) IP Address – An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each
device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP
address serves two main functions: host or network interface identification and location
addressing.

(ix) DNS (Domain Name System) - All computers on the Internet, from your smart phone or
laptop to the servers that serve content for massive retail websites, find and communicate with one
another by using numbers. These numbers are known as IP addresses. When you open a web
browser and go to a website, you don’t have to remember and enter a long number. Instead, you
can enter a domain name like example.com and still end up in the right place.
A DNS service such as Amazon Route 53 is a globally distributed service that translates human
readable names like www.example.com into the numeric IP addresses like 192.0.2.1 that
computers use to connect to each other. The Internet’s DNS system works much like a phone
book by managing the mapping between names and numbers. DNS servers translate requests for
names into IP addresses, controlling which server an end user will reach when they type a domain
name into their web browser.

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1. Dial-up Network

Dialup Internet access is a service provided by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) that allows
connectivity to the Internet through a standard telephone line using copper twisted pair (TP).
The following diagram shows the typical connection to the customer premises equipment
(modem) from the local exchange office.

Telephone Line Telephone Line

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The technology consists in using the phone line directly. A modem (Modulation Demodulation) in
the PC calls the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and connects with a speed of 56 Kbps. The ISP
then assigns an IP address to the user PC which is actually an internet address. Every time the
particular PC is connected to the ISP, a different and unique IP address is assigned. This feature of
the dial-up connection has an advantage over the broadband connection as in assigning a different
IP every time, not only that the user’s PC is identified but it gives added security to such PC from
hacking and vandalism as the changing of IP even changes the identity of the user’s PC.

2. Broadband

It is an upgraded form of the dial-up system which has its drawbacks in slow speed and its
inability to download video, e-mail, games, etc. in perfect manner. The broadband is also known
as “always on” connection provided over Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) –
enabled phone line which squeezes data down existing copper wire. It is the connection of present
day in which once PC is connected to a cable or the Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), it remains
connected until it is disconnected or unplugged. The DSL is an advanced way of transmitting
data; it runs through unused wires in existing phone line without disruption and can translate data
at 5 Mbps speed. A repetition of set up call to ISP every time a connection is required is not
necessary in broadband connection which only means that IP once assigned to the user PC
remains the same unless the change is wished for.
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3. 3G, 4G and 5G

More and more advancements and upgradation is continuing. Traditional telephone trunk
networks are now being converted to IP backbone which will make this high quality transmission
over single internet-based network. Fourth Generation (4G) technology is basically an extension
of Third Generation (3G) technology. It is high quality audio/video streaming over end-to-end IP.
It offers high data rates that will generate new trends for the market. 4G technology aimed at
ubiquitous computing, that will simultaneously connect to many high speed data networks, it is
apparently faultless and all-pervasive. 4G networks, when tied together with mobile phones with
in-built higher resolution digital cameras and also with High Definition capabilities will facilitate
video blogs. The technology is aiming at 100 Mbps and up to 1 Gigabytes per second over fixed
stations.
5G is the 5th generation mobile network. It is a new global wireless standard after 1G, 2G, 3G,
and 4G networks. 5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually
everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices. 5G is based on
OFDM (Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing), a method of modulating a digital signal
across several different channels to reduce interference. 5G uses 5G NR air interface alongside
OFDM principles. 5G also uses wider bandwidth technologies such as sub-6 GHz and mmWave.
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Thank You

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