Modem

A modem (modulator-demodulator) is a device that modulates signals to encode digital information and demodulates signals to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data. Modems can be used with any means of transmitting analog signals, from light emitting diodes to radio. A common type of modem is one that turns the digital data of a computer into modulated electrical signal for transmission over telephone lines and demodulated by another modem at the receiver side to recover the digital data.

Modems are generally classified by the amount of data they can send in a given unit of time, usually expressed in bits per second (symbol bit/s, sometimes abbreviated "bps"), or bytes per second (symbol B/s). Modems can also be classified by their symbol rate, measured in baud. The baud unit denotes symbols per second, or the number of times per second the modem sends a new signal. For example, the ITU V.21 standard used audio frequency shift keying with two possible frequencies, corresponding to two distinct symbols (or one bit per symbol), to carry 300 bits per second using 300 baud. By contrast, the original ITU V.22 standard, which could transmit and receive four distinct symbols (two bits per symbol), transmitted 1,200 bits by sending 600 symbols per second (600 baud) using phase shift keying.

History

TeleGuide terminal
News wire services in the 1920s used multiplex devices that satisfied the definition of a modem. However the modem function was incidental to the multiplexing function, so they are not commonly included in the history of modems. Modems grew out of the need to connect teleprinters over ordinary phone lines instead of the more expensive leased lines which had previously been used for current loop–based teleprinters and automated telegraphs. In 1942, IBM adapted this technology to their unit record equipment and were able to transmit punched cards at 25 bits/second.

Mass-produced modems in the United States began as part of the SAGE air-defense system in 1958 (the year the word modem was first used), connecting terminals at various airbases, radar sites, and command-and-control centers to the SAGE director centers scattered around the U.S. and Canada. SAGE modems were described by AT&T's Bell Labs as conforming to their newly published Bell 101 dataset standard. While they ran on dedicated telephone lines, the devices at each end were no different from commercial acoustically coupled Bell 101, 110 baud modems.