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The Open University

Exploring communications technology

The Open University via OpenLearn

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Overview

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This free course, Exploring communications technology, looks at some of the principles underpinning communications technology. It looks at the properties of signals and media (such as optical fibre and radio waves), error control, data compression, and the principles of 4G mobile communications, wi-fi and DSL broadband.

Syllabus

  • 1 Signals and modulation
  • 1.1 Periodic signals
  • 1.2 Non-periodic signals
  • 1.3 Digital signals and modulation
  • 1.4 Amplitude-shift keying (ASK)
  • 1.5 Frequency-shift keying (FSK)
  • 1.6 Phase-shift keying (PSK)
  • 1.7 Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM)
  • 1.8 Bandwidth
  • 1.9 Summary
  • 2 Error control
  • 2.1 EAN-13 code and error detection
  • 2.2 Reed-Solomon codes and error correction
  • Reed-Solomon codes and error correction continued
  • 2.3 Summary
  • 3 Perceptual source-coding and lossy compression
  • 3.1 Introduction
  • 3.2 Sampling and quantisation
  • 3.3 Quantisation
  • 3.4 Perceptual encoding
  • 3.5 MPEG audio layer 3 (MP3)
  • MP3 continued
  • 3.6 MPEG-4 AAC (advanced audio coding)
  • 3.7 Image and video compression
  • 3.8 Summary
  • 4 Broadband, mobile and WiFi
  • 4.1 Introduction; access and core networks
  • 4.2 Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)
  • 4.3 Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) broadband
  • 4.4 VDSL2
  • 4.5 4G mobile broadband
  • 4.6 WiFi
  • 4.7 WiFi maximum transmission rate
  • 4.8 WiFi multiple access
  • 4.9 Summary

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4.4 rating at OpenLearn based on 5 ratings

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