Types of Communication Devices

Communication devices have been around in one form or another since early in humanity's existence. Even in primitive times before history, people were using methods to communicate with each other. In more modern times, communication devices come in several different formats, and use different styles of communication, as well, to get a message across. Several types of devices are frequently used for communicating.

Defining a Communication Device

The idea of a communication device is broad, as almost any object can be used for communication. For our purposes, a communication device is anything that can be used to convey a message from one person to another. There have been many such devices over the course of human history.

Early Communication

Even before the written word, drums, fires, and smoke signals were used to relay warnings and other messages across long distances. Later, handwritten notes were sent by courier or via horseback, in a manner similar to a postal service. And in the Middle Ages, the invention of the printing press enabled books and later newspapers to be produced on a mass-market basis, and so they too became effective communication devices.

Early Electric Communication

As the end of the second millennium A.D. approached, major new technologies began to appear. One of the biggest innovations of the 19th century was the telegraph. Later, Alexander Graham Bell would create the first working telephone.

TV and Radio

In the early 1900s, researchers discovered how to use the radio waves that pervaded the planet. They eventually learned how to broadcast using these radio waves, so that audio could be delivered directly into people's homes. In the 1950s, television was invented, and in addition to audio broadcasts, people could now view actual visual broadcasts of people and places.

The Internet

Personal computers first became truly popular in the early 1980s. Not long after that, computers began to be networked with each other, and in the 1990s, the Internet as we know it today was effectively born. The Internet arguably ranks among the greatest inventions ever made, as it has made communication relatively instant even for people on opposite sides of the planet, and has provided access to even remote parts of the Earth.

References

• History of Communications Infrastructures