Radio
Characteristics:
- Radio can use a “line of sight” transmission or a wide coverage transmission
- The line of sight transmission involves sending signal from one antenna to another as they are within sight of each other
- The radio equipment in the communication system involved are a transmitter and a receiver
- the transmitter and the receiver each have an antenna where signals can be send and received
- The data signal can only be detected if the receiver is in direction of the transmitter and does not have anything interfering with the signal
- this increases the security of the data being transmitted but does not affect the fact it is still prone to hackers
- wide area spread spectrum transmission uses more than one frequency at a time to send data
- spread signals radio signals jumps from one frequency to another which improves the security of the transmission and reduces interference
- a radiocommunication systems has two stations that may take turns sending and receiving using a single radio frequency. Two radio frequencies can be used at the same time
- Wireless LANs are popular as they have a wide coverage and can be accessed easily. However there may be performance issues and electromagnetic radiation emitted
- Speed: maximum of about 6 Mbps
- Capacity: Radio transmission media utilises frequency between 3KHz - 300GHz. Wireless LAN uses 2.4GHz
- Cost: medium
- Security: Low