Noun

Singular telecommunication

Plural countable and uncountable; plural telecommunications

telecommunication (countable and uncountable; plural telecommunications)

1. (uncountable) The science and technology of the communication or messages over a distance, especially using electric, electronic or electromagnetic impulses
2. (countable) A message so transmitted

Telecommunication is the transmission of messages, over significant distances, for the purpose of communication. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as smoke, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, or sent by loud whistles, for example.

In the modern age of electricity and electronics, telecommunications has typically involved the use of electric means such as the telegraph, the telephone, and the teletype, the use of microwave communications, the use of fiber optics and their associated electronics, and/or the use of the Internet. The first breakthrough into modern electrical telecommunications came with the development of the telegraph during the 1830s and 1840s. The use of these electrical means of communications exploded into use on all of the continents of the world during the 19th century, and these also connected the continents via cables on the floors of the ocean. These three systems of communications all required the use of conducting metal wires.

A revolution in wireless telecommunications began in the first decade of the 20th century, with Guglielmo Marconi winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 for his pioneering developments in wireless radio communications. Other early inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic telecommunications included Samuel F.B. Morse and Joseph Henry of the United States, Alexander Graham Bell of Canada, Lee de Forest of the U.S., who invented the amplifying vacuum tube called the triode, Edwin Armstrong of the U.S., John Logie Baird of England, and Nikola Tesla whose most important inventions were created in the United States.

Telecommunications play an important role in the world economy and the worldwide telecommunication industry's revenue was estimated to be $3.85 trillion in 2008. The service revenue of the global telecommunications industry was estimated to be $1.7 trillion in 2008, and is expected to touch $2.7 trillion by 2013.