Editing Communication channel (section)

{{Short description|Physical or logical connection used for transmission of information}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=March 2021}}
{{Use American English|date=July 2021}}

[[Image:Utility Wires on a utility pole.jpg|thumb|Different types of physical transmission media supporting communication channels]]

A '''communication channel''' refers either to a physical [[transmission medium]] such as a wire, or to a [[connection-oriented communication|logical connection]] over a [[multiplexed]] medium such as a radio channel in [[telecommunications]] and [[computer network]]ing. A channel is used for [[information transfer]] of, for example, a digital [[bit stream]], from one or several ''[[Sender (telephony)|sender]]s'' to one or several ''[[receiver (information theory)|receivers]]''. A channel has a certain [[Channel capacity|capacity]] for transmitting information, often measured by its [[Bandwidth (signal processing)|bandwidth]] in [[Hz]] or its [[Data signaling rate|data rate]] in [[bits per second]].

Communicating an information [[signal]] across distance requires some form of pathway or medium. These pathways, called communication channels, use two types of media: [[Transmission line]]-based [[telecommunications cable]] (e.g. [[twisted-pair]], [[coaxial cable|coaxial]], and [[fiber-optic cable]]) and [[broadcast]] (e.g. [[Microwave transmission|microwave]], [[Communications satellite|satellite]], [[radio]], and [[Consumer IR|infrared]]).

In [[information theory]], a channel refers to a theoretical ''channel model'' with certain error characteristics. In this more general view, a [[Data storage device|storage device]] is also a communication channel, which can be sent to (written) and received from (reading) and allows communication of an information signal across time.