Data Communication

- Any process that permits the passage from a sender to one or more receivers of
information of any nature, delivered in any easy to use form by any
electromagnetic system." This definition helps historians trace the roots of data
communication considerably further than modern digital equipment.
- Exchange of digital information between two digital devices is data
communication

Early History

According to the History of Computing organization, data communication has its

earliest roots in Samuel Morse's 1837 exhibition of a telegraph system. An account of
data communication history posted by telecommunications experts at General Telecom,
LLC also points to a telegraph patent that inventor Charles Wheatstone filed that same
year. By 1843, telegraph service had become adopted by the Great Western Railway, an
endorsement that allowed the service to expand across the nation.

Telecom Developments

Improving on the telegraph, according to the History of Computing, Alexander

Graham Bell introduced the telephone in 1876. Though standard telephone lines did not
carry data traffic until nearly a hundred years later, the development of early
telecommunications---coupled with an 1895 invention by Guglielmo Marconi, the radio-
--laid the groundwork for numerous subsequent developments in communication
technology. In 1947, Bell Labs introduced the transistor, a device that found integration
in myriad subsequent electronic products. The U.S. government expanded on these
technologies in 1958 with its launch of a communications-oriented satellite, and the first
facsimile transmission over standard telephone lines occurred four years later.

Computer Connections
After the first fax transmission in 1962, the modulation of data into sound for
transmission across telephone lines spread in popularity for several years. Though
modulation/ demodulation, or modem, technology continued to carry slower data traffic
for the remainder of the 20th century, according to the History of Computing, the 1969
development of Internet Protocol (IP) marked a significant milestone in data
communication history. Within the following decades, early packet communication
technologies like Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Frame Relay and Integrated
Services Digital Network (ISDN) emerged as a viable solution for commercial and high-
end residential data needs. By 1991, more than 1 million servers had come online using
Internet Protocol technology, and the World Wide Web emerged as the primary
component of the Internet by the mid-1990s.

Wireless
As wired data communication expanded, a separate form of data exchange that
required no wires experienced a concurrent development. According to the wireless
communication reference website WirelessCommunication.nl, wireless technologies
developed rapidly during World War I. By 1921, the first commercial radio voice
broadcast, a communication channel that transmitted data in the form of modulated
radio waves, had taken place and police dispatchers had adopted the technology. In
1974, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) began allocating wireless
spectrums for wireless communication, and wireless companies began integrating radio
packet data as early as 1984. This technology evolved into the various digital wireless
packet data protocols used into the 21st century.
 Data Communication
(Assignment # 1)

Borres, Grace Loraine M.

BSCpE IV-3