Introducing ICT systems

3.2 Looking into the 'means of conveying a message'

The diagram in Figure 6 shows that, for communication to take place, there needs to be some means of conveying the message between the sender and the recipient. I am now going to look at the essential components of 'means of conveying a message'. In other words, I shall treat 'means of conveying a message' as a system and look at its components.

Three essential components of 'means of conveying a message are: a transmitter, a network and a receiver. Figure 7 shows these components in a block diagram. In a mobile phone system, for example, the 'transmitter' would be User l's mobile phone, the 'network' would be the mobile telephone network and the 'receiver' would be User 2's mobile phone.

Figure 7
Figure 7 A more detailed model of a communication system
Figure 7