History of telecommunication

People have always wanted to know about events in the distance as quickly as possible. In order to make this come true, humans have developed communication technologies. Let's take a look back at the history of how humans reached 5G.

• B.C.~

  Smoke signals

  

  They conveyed information by burning things and sending up smoke to communicate visually. It was used worldwide for purposes such as notifying allies of enemy attacks.

• 18th~19th century

  Semaphore

  

  A rope is used to change the shape of an "crossarm" made up of three several meter long sticks. The recipient of the information was able to see the shape of the armband through a telescope and understand its contents. There were 192 different shapes of armbars.In 1793, these semaphores were installed at intervals of 10km between Paris and Lille, and they transmitted information in the form of a bucket brigade. It took only two minutes to transmit the information between the two cities.

• 1837~

  Telegraph

  

  In 1835, Samuel Morse of the United States developed the wired telegraph. This was the first communication technology that used electricity to transmit information by printing the Morse code, which encoded letters and numbers with dots and dashes, on a piece of paper. The telegraph was first introduced to Japan in 1854, when it was sent to the Edo shogunate on Perry's second visit to Japan. After the telegraph was introduced, electricity became the most important component of communication technology.

• 1843~

  Facsimile

  

  This is a technology that uses telephone lines to send images. This technology was actually invented more than 30 years before the telephone was. In a facsimile, a sheet of paper is divided into small squares and the color information of each square is recorded. This information is transmitted as an electrical signal to the other facsimile, which prints the original image. The facsimile was first used in Japan around 1930, 80 years after its invention.

• 1876~

  Telephone

  

  When the telegraph made long-distance communication possible in real time, Graham Bell invented a telephone that allowed the user to hear the voice of the recipient. In those days, when you lifted the handset, you would first tell the telephone exchange operator the phone number of the person you were calling, and when you were connected to the other party's telephone, you could talk.

• 1895~

  Wireless telegraph

  

  In 1895, Marconi invented the wireless telegraph, which used radio waves to exchange information in Morse code. It was widely used in Japan, including the Navy.

• 1906~

  Radio broadcasting

  

  Up to this point, communication technology had been based on the one-to-one exchange of information, but radio broadcasts, which is for an unspecified number of people, began at this time.

• 1953~

  TV broadcasting

  

  In 1927, Kenjiro Takayanagi successfully conducted the world's first television broadcasting experiment using the cathode ray tube. However, due to the war, television broadcasting in Japan finally began in 1953. During the high economic growth period, black and white television was replaced by color, and the lifestyle of watching television with family groups was firmly established.

• 1980~

  1G

  

  In 1979, Japan began offering telephone service in cars. Later, shoulder phones were introduced that could be carried around. Surprisingly, those weighed as much as 3 kg. In 1987, the mobile phone service was introduced, and the analog mobile phone was introduced.

• 1990~

  2G

  

  With the advent of the digital mobile phone in 1993, mobile phones spread rapidly. Since then, mobile phones have been equipped with a series of new functions such as e-mail, i-mode, and camera functions.

• 2000~

  3G

  

  NTT DOCOMO launched FOMA. With even higher data transmission speeds, it became common to use the Internet, send and receive still images, and watch TV.

• 2010~

  4G

  

  It became possible to exchange large amounts of content, such as videos.

Conclusion

By these ways, humans have developed communication methods to exchange information with distant places. Communication technology will continue to evolve in response to the changing times.