Telecommunications engineering
Telecommunications engineering is a subfield of
Telecommunication is a diverse field of engineering connected to
technologies.History
Telecommunication systems are generally designed by telecommunication engineers which sprang from technological improvements in the telegraph industry in the late 19th century and the radio and the telephone industries in the early 20th century. Today, telecommunication is widespread and devices that assist the process, such as the television, radio and telephone, are common in many parts of the world. There are also many networks that connect these devices, including computer networks, public switched telephone network (PSTN),[citation needed] radio networks, and television networks. Computer communication across the Internet is one of many examples of telecommunication.[citation needed] Telecommunication plays a vital role in the world economy, and the telecommunication industry's revenue has been placed at just under 3% of the gross world product.[citation needed]
Telegraph and telephone
Samuel Morse independently developed a version of the electrical telegraph that he unsuccessfully demonstrated on 2 September 1837. Soon after he was joined by Alfred Vail who developed the register — a telegraph terminal that integrated a logging device for recording messages to paper tape. This was demonstrated successfully over three miles (five kilometres) on 6 January 1838 and eventually over forty miles (sixty-four kilometres) between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore on 24 May 1844. The patented invention proved lucrative and by 1851 telegraph lines in the United States spanned over 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometres).[3]
The first successful
The first commercial telephone services were set up in 1878 and 1879 on both sides of the Atlantic in the cities of
In 1880, Bell and co-inventor Charles Sumner Tainter conducted the world's first wireless telephone call via modulated lightbeams projected by photophones. The scientific principles of their invention would not be utilized for several decades, when they were first deployed in military and fiber-optic communications.
Radio and television
Over several years starting in 1894 the Italian inventor
Satellite
The first U.S. satellite to relay communications was
The first and historically most important application for communication satellites was in intercontinental
After commercial long distance telephone service was established via communication satellites, a host of other commercial telecommunications were also adapted to similar satellites starting in 1979, including mobile satellite phones, satellite radio, satellite television and satellite Internet access. The earliest adaption for most such services occurred in the 1990s as the pricing for commercial satellite transponder channels continued to drop significantly.
Computer networks and the Internet
On 11 September 1940, George Stibitz was able to transmit problems using teleprinter to his Complex Number Calculator in New York and receive the computed results back at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.[14] This configuration of a centralized computer or mainframe computer with remote "dumb terminals" remained popular throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. However, it was not until the 1960s that researchers started to investigate packet switching — a technology that allows chunks of data to be sent between different computers without first passing through a centralized mainframe. A four-node network emerged on 5 December 1969. This network soon became the ARPANET, which by 1981 would consist of 213 nodes.[15]
ARPANET's development centered around the Request for Comment process and on 7 April 1969, RFC 1 was published. This process is important because ARPANET would eventually merge with other networks to form the Internet, and many of the communication protocols that the Internet relies upon today were specified through the Request for Comment process. In September 1981, RFC 791 introduced the Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and RFC 793 introduced the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) — thus creating the TCP/IP protocol that much of the Internet relies upon today.
Optical fiber
Optical fiber can be used as a medium for telecommunication and computer networking because it is flexible and can be bundled into cables. It is especially advantageous for long-distance communications, because light propagates through the fiber with little attenuation compared to electrical cables. This allows long distances to be spanned with few repeaters.
In 1966 Charles K. Kao and George Hockham proposed optical fibers at STC Laboratories (STL) at Harlow, England, when they showed that the losses of 1000 dB/km in existing glass (compared to 5-10 dB/km in coaxial cable) was due to contaminants, which could potentially be removed.
Optical fiber was successfully developed in 1970 by
After a period of research starting from 1975, the first commercial fiber-optic communications system was developed, which operated at a wavelength around 0.8 µm and used GaAs semiconductor lasers. This first-generation system operated at a bit rate of 45
The first wide area network fibre optic cable system in the world seems to have been installed by Rediffusion in Hastings, East Sussex, UK in 1978. The cables were placed in ducting throughout the town, and had over 1000 subscribers. They were used at that time for the transmission of television channels, not available because of local reception problems.
The first
In the late 1990s through 2000, industry promoters, and research companies such as KMI, and RHK predicted massive increases in demand for communications bandwidth due to increased use of the
Concepts
Basic elements of a telecommunication system
Transmitter
Transmission medium
The absence of a material medium in
Receiver
Wired communication
Wired communications make use of underground communications cables (less often, overhead lines), electronic signal amplifiers (repeaters) inserted into connecting cables at specified points, and terminal apparatus of various types, depending on the type of wired communications used.[18]
Wireless communication
Wireless communication involves the transmission of information over a distance without help of wires, cables or any other forms of electrical conductors.
Roles
Telecom equipment engineer
A telecom equipment engineer is an electronics engineer that designs equipment such as routers, switches, multiplexers, and other specialized computer/electronics equipment designed to be used in the telecommunication network infrastructure.
Network engineer
A network engineer is a computer engineer who is in charge of designing, deploying and maintaining computer networks. In addition, they oversee network operations from a network operations center, designs backbone infrastructure, or supervises interconnections in a data center.
Central-office engineer
A central-office engineer is responsible for designing and overseeing the implementation of telecommunications equipment in a central office (CO for short), also referred to as a wire center or telephone exchange[21] A CO engineer is responsible for integrating new technology into the existing network, assigning the equipment's location in the wire center, and providing power, clocking (for digital equipment), and alarm monitoring facilities for the new equipment. The CO engineer is also responsible for providing more power, clocking, and alarm monitoring facilities if there are currently not enough available to support the new equipment being installed. Finally, the CO engineer is responsible for designing how the massive amounts of cable will be distributed to various equipment and wiring frames throughout the wire center and overseeing the installation and turn up of all new equipment.
Sub-roles
As structural engineers, CO engineers are responsible for the structural design and placement of racking and bays for the equipment to be installed in as well as for the plant to be placed on.
As
Overall, CO engineers have seen new challenges emerging in the CO environment. With the advent of Data Centers, Internet Protocol (IP) facilities, cellular radio sites, and other emerging-technology equipment environments within telecommunication networks, it is important that a consistent set of established practices or requirements be implemented.
Installation suppliers or their sub-contractors are expected to provide requirements with their products, features, or services. These services might be associated with the installation of new or expanded equipment, as well as the removal of existing equipment.[22][23]
Several other factors must be considered such as:
- Regulations and safety in installation
- Removal of hazardous material
- Commonly used tools to perform installation and removal of equipment
Outside-plant engineer
The
The plant facilities can be delivered via underground facilities, either direct buried or through conduit or in some cases laid under water, via aerial facilities such as telephone or power poles, or via microwave radio signals for long distances where either of the other two methods is too costly.
Sub-roles
As
As
As civil engineers, OSP engineers are responsible for drafting plans, either by hand or using Computer-aided design (CAD) software, for how telecom plant facilities will be placed. Often when working with municipalities trenching or boring permits are required and drawings must be made for these. Often these drawings include about 70% or so of the detailed information required to pave a road or add a turn lane to an existing street. Structural calculations are required when boring under heavy traffic areas such as highways or when attaching to other structures such as bridges. As civil engineers, telecom engineers provide the modern communications backbone for all technological communications distributed throughout civilizations today.
Unique to telecom engineering is the use of air-core cable which requires an extensive network of air handling equipment such as compressors, manifolds, regulators and hundreds of miles of air pipe per system that connects to pressurized splice cases all designed to pressurize this special form of copper cable to keep moisture out and provide a clean signal to the customer.
As political and social ambassador, the OSP engineer is a telephone operating company's face and voice to the local authorities and other utilities. OSP engineers often meet with municipalities, construction companies and other utility companies to address their concerns and educate them about how the telephone utility works and operates.[citation needed] Additionally, the OSP engineer has to secure real estate in which to place outside facilities, such as an easement to place a cross-connect box.
See also
- Computer engineering
- Computer networking
- Electronic design automation
- Electronic engineering
- Electronic media
- Fiber-optic communication
- History of telecommunication
- Information theory
- List of electrical engineering topics(alphabetical)
- List of electrical engineering topics(thematic)
- Professional engineer
- Radio
- Receiver (radio)
- Telecommunication
- Telephone
- Television
- Telecommunications cable
- Transmission medium
- Transmitter
- Two-way radio
- Wired communication
- Wireless
References
- ^ S2CID 109942681. Retrieved September 22, 2012.
- ^ "Program criteria for telecommunications engineering technology or similarly named programs" (PDF). Criteria for accrediting engineering technology programs 2012-2013. ABET. October 2011. p. 23. Retrieved September 22, 2012.
- ^ Calvert, J. B. (April 2000). "The Electromagnetic Telegraph".
- ^ Dibner, Bern (1959). The Atlantic Cable. Burndy Library Inc.
- ^ Redfern, Martin (29 November 2005). "Wiring up the 'Victorian internet'". BBC News.
- ^ "Connected Earth: The telephone". BT. 2006.
- ^ "History of AT&T". AT&T. 2006.
- The World's Work: A History of Our Time. XIII: 8408–8422. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
- ^ Glover, Bill (2006). "History of the Atlantic Cable & Submarine Telegraphy".
- ISBN 9780313347436. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ^ Vujovic, Ljubo (1998). "Tesla Biography". Tesla Memorial Society of New York.
- ^ "The Baird Television Website".
- ^ "Significant Achievements in Space Communications and Navigation, 1958-1964" (PDF). NASA-SP-93. NASA. 1966. pp. 30–32. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
- ^ "George Stlibetz". Kerry Redshaw. 1996.
- ISBN 0-684-83267-4.
- ^ Hellman, Martin E. (11 June 2003). "Moore's Law and Communications". Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ^ "Radio Frequency, RF, Technology and Design, Radio Receiver Technology". Radio-Electronics.com. Archived from the original on 27 January 2012. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ^ "Wired Communications". The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (3rd ed.). The Gale Group, Inc. 1979 [First published 1970]. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ^ "What is wireless communication technology and its types". EngineersGarage. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ^ "ATIS Telecom Glossary 2007". atis.org. Archived from the original on 2008-03-02. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
- ^ Overstreet, Frank. "What is a Central Office". www.frankoverstreet.com. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ^ "GR-1275, Central Office/Network Environment Equipment Installation/Removal Generic Requirements". Telcordia.
- ^ "GR-1502, Central Office/Network Environment Detail Engineering Generic Requirements". Telcordia.
Further reading
- Dahlman, Erik; Parkvall, Stefan; Beming, Per; Bovik, Alan C.; Fette, Bruce A.; Jack, Keith; Skold, Johan; Dowla, Farid; Chou, Philip A.; DeCusatis, Casimer (2009). Communications engineering desk reference. Academic Press. p. 544. ISBN 978-0-12-374648-1.
External links
- Media related to Communication engineering at Wikimedia Commons