What Is Telecommunication

What is telecommunication?

Goro Oba

The Department of Telecommunication,

Michigan State University

Abstract

What is telecommunication? Although a considerable number of studies have been actually conducted on telecommunication, I have never had academic opportunity to examine what it is. While the word ЃetelecommunicationЃf has been brought to public attention, how many of us can exactly define it? How many of us can explain it in cultural context as well as in technological context? In my opinion, the word ЃetelecommunicationЃf seems to be going forward itself so that our consciousness cannot catch up with it. As a new graduate student of the department of telecommunication, I hope to comprehensively understand what telecommunication is, and organize present issues systematically through this article. According to the requirement, this article consists of the following: areas and issues in telecommunication; key questions that telecommunication tries to answer; methods for studying, researching, and creating in telecommunication; and my learning and career goals for my telecommunication MA.

What is telecommunication?

In order to answer a kind of vague question such as what telecommunication is, I would like to focus on the areas in telecommunication in the beginning. Carne (1995) proposed the following:

Telecommunication means communication from afar; it is the action of communicating-at-distance. In the broadest sense, it can include several ways of communicating (letters, telegraphs, telephone, etc); however, it is customary to associate it only with electronic communication systems such as telephone, data communication, radio, and television. (p.5)

From this viewpoint, one may say that telecommunication is literally one of the ways of communication to receive or send massages. The question I have to ask here is what communication is. We unconsciously use the word ЃecommunicationЃf in a daily life. Then, how can we define communication, whose categories seem to range widely? In 1985 Charp and Hines described communication as the method by which we exchange sounds, signals, pictures and languages between people and places (p.13). From this definition, I realize that discussion in a class, conversation with someone by phone, writing a letter, reading a newspaper, and watching television are all grouped into the same category named communication because we exchange something with somebody by them.

The question is what differentiates one communication from the other at more detailed categories. The first thing I notice is that the way of communication is different from each other: in some cases, communication from one to many or many to many, in the others, however, communication in person. In addition, it seems to depend on whether it is mediated or not. Another illustration of the point is the definition of mass communication, possibly the most familiar way of communication to us. Mass communication is usually defined as one-to-many or point-to-multipoint communication, in which a single message is communicated from a single source to hundreds or thousands of receivers, with relatively restricted opportunities for the audience to communicate back to the source (Straubhaar & LaRose, 1997, p.11). Before examining the definition of mass communication, I would like to focus on another important point included in this passage: what we exchange in communication is message. Elsewhere in their article, they defined the message as the content of the communication, the information that is to be exchanged (p.7). Accordingly, the passages by them reveal that the purpose of communication is to exchange information. Let me now return to mass communication again. Sending information to a large number of viewers, television generally belongs to a group of mass communication, as do newspapers. This is the reason why television and newspapers are called the mass media. Compared to them, information is not sent to many receivers by telephone. This means that telephone is not categorized as one of the mass media. However, strict distinction between mass communication and telecommunication seems to be difficult. According to Carne (1995), telecommunication in which information flows simultaneously from a single (transmitting) site to a large number of (receiving) sites is known as mass communication (p.6). Telecommunication has a wide application, and mass communication belongs to telecommunication by definition.

Rather, from the passage by Carne, I should emphasize a couple of notable features of telecommunication. One is that information flows simultaneously in telecommunication. Another important point is that telecommunication includes other kind of communication than for one-to-many communication, which is known as mass communication; it could be one-to-one, personal communication such as a telephone call or an electronic mail. Then, what makes simultaneity or personal communication possible? With this issue in mind, I will again take a look at the definition of telecommunication that I cited earlier. ЃgIt is customary to associate it [telecommunication] only with electronic communication systems such as telephone, data communication, radio, and television,Ѓh said Carne (1995, p.5). All electronic communication systems mentioned above have networks with which they provide information. A network is a group of switches, terminal equipment, software and peripheral hardware interconnected with communications channels that are used to establish connections among the network users (Charp and Hines, 1985, Glossary). It follows from what has been said thus far that telecommunication is to exchange ЃeinformationЃf by ЃetechnologyЃf symbolized by a network.

The fact that both information and technology are essential for telecommunication is a very important point because they are thought to be valuable in contemporary life, and, therefore, telecommunications industry is enjoying prosperity. Valance (1993) depicted the industry vividly:

In the last few years, the telecommunications industry has begun to merge with the communications service sector which, in turn, has converged with information service and entertainment service to produce the hydra-headed information technology or IT industry. An exciting combination of customer demand, increasing competition and advancing technology has created a fast-moving industry, which is constantly transforming itself in the development of new areas of business.