Geography World - Communications

Introduction

• Communication through satellites has emerged as a new area in communication technology since the 1970s.

• The first major breakthrough of the communication is the use of optic fiber cables (OFC) as it allows large quantities of data to be transmitted rapidly, securely, and are virtually error-free.

• However, with the digitization of information in the 1990s, telecommunication slowly merged with the computers and constituted an integrated network termed as the Internet.

• Today, Internet is the largest electronic network on the planet connecting more than 1,000 million people in more than 100 countries of the world.

• Indian satellite Aryabhatt was launched on April 19, 1979, Bhaskar-I in 1979, and Rohini in 1980.

• Further, on 18 June 1981, APPLE (Arian Passenger Payload Experiment) was launched through Arian rocket. Thereupon, a series of satellites have been launched for different purposes.

• Cyberspace is the world of electronic computerized space. It consists of the Internet such on the World Wide Web (www).

• Currently, the majority of the internet users in the world are living in U.S.A., U.K., Germany, Japan, China, and India.

• Cyberspace has been expanding the contemporary economic and social space of humans through e-mail, e-commerce, e-learning and e-governance.

• Likewise, these modern communication systems, more than transportation, have made the concept of global village a reality.