What is the main difference between Data Communications and Telecommunications? Where does the prefix "Tele" come from?
What will be an ideal response?
Data communications, as the name implies, is focused on the communication of data and information between computers and computer networks. Today, the term data encompasses a much broader range of elements, no longer consisting of just numbers and text. Data communications is formally considered as a subset of telecommunications, meaning that data communications is included within telecommunications, not the other way around. Even so, data communications covers a very large territory. Telecommunications includes many different types of communication besides data, such as voice and video, and includes telephony, telegraphy, and television. Therefore, telecommunications historically has supported other purposes beyond communications between computers and networks. The prefix "tele" comes from the Greek word for distant. In telecommunications, we are usually talking about great distances.