In this stem you will learn about:

• transmission media including:
• – wired transmission, including twisted pair, coaxial cable and optic fibre
• – wireless transmission, including microwave, satellite,radio and infrared
• characteristics of media in terms of speed, capacity, cost and security
• the functions performed by hardware components in communication systems including
• – hubs and switches
• – routers
• – modems
• – bridges and gateways
• – network interface cards (NIC)
• – mobile phones
• – cable
• – wireless access points