Telecommunications, communications over a distance using technology to overcome that distance. It usually means the transmission of words, sounds, pictures, or data in the form of electronic signals or impulses, sent either as an individual message between two parties or as a broadcast to be received at many locations. While broadcasting is far removed from private communications, a new range of one-to-one communication services (including video-on-demand, and other personal information and entertainment services provided over cable networks and so-called “Webcasting” over the Internet) will blur the current clear distinction between the two, assisted by a move towards replacing conventional standalone televisions with integrated “media centre” computers or “infotainment machines” that are used for entertainment as well as computing, messaging, and other information processing. Since its invention in the 1860s and 1870s by Alexander Graham Bell and others, the telephone has become the most familiar form of telecommunications. More recently, voice telephony has been supplemented by a range of computer-based telecommunication services. These have become popular through the Internet and World Wide Web—vast computer networks that provide many people with the means to exchange information. With low-cost broadband connections reaching ever more homes and offices, this delivery mechanism is beginning to offer not only high-speed Internet service but new premium (paid-for) content including streamed video and audio programmes (so-called narrowcasting), educational resources, online sophisticated shopping and banking facilities, gaming and personal dating services, online access to archived films and television programmes, and much more yet to be devised. NETWORKS Hardware This usually covers items such as telephones, transmitters, cables, interface devices, switches, and computers. In the past, telecommunications have relied heavily on hardware, such as dedicated switching elements, and on the logic providing its control functions. A situation is now developing in which more of the system relies on elements operating under computer (software) control. Because this software can be upgraded, this makes it easy to add new, enhanced functionality later. Software This is code that instructs a computer or network device. Until the 1980s, most of the operational instructions used by a telecommunications network were hard-wired or pre-set. The advent of digital systems and data networks has led to a much wider range of network services. Software solutions are well suited to the complexity and flexibility inherent in these services. Internet It is evident from the recent growth in data communications that the telephone network is far from exhausted. The Internet—an expanded group of computer networks that shares a common set of protocols and address space—has grown over the past 25 years and now links around 40 million people worldwide. Also see World Wide Web.