Timeline of Communication Systems: Introduction The timeline of communication systems presents a chronological overview of the most important events in the history of communication systems from the 4th millennium B.C. to the present. It shows that from the very beginning - the first Sumerian pictographs on clay tablets to today's state-of-the-art technologies - broadband communication via fiber-optic cables and satellites - the amount of information collected, processed and stored, the capabilities to do so, as well as the capable speed of information transmission exponentially accelerate.

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Chappe's fixed optical network Claude Chappe built a fixed optical network between Paris and Lille. Covering a distance of about 240kms, it consisted of fifteen towers with semaphores. Because this communication system was destined to practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such secretly, even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning, they just transmitted codes they did not understand. Depending on weather conditions, messages could be sent at a speed of 2880 kms/hr at best. Forerunners of Chappe's optical network are the Roman smoke signals network and Aeneas Tacitus' optical communication system. For more information on early communication networks see Gerard J. Holzmann and Bjoern Pehrson, The Early History of Data Networks.

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