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Telecommunications Engineer

Designs the networks that carry phone calls, internet data, and broadcasts around the world.

Did you know?

Charles Kao's 1966 idea that ultra-pure glass fibres could carry light signals won him the 2009 Nobel Prize and underpins today's internet.

How subjects help

Physics: Understand how radio waves and light carry signals through the air and fibre cables.
Mathematics: Work out where to place phone masts so signals cover a whole town without gaps.
Computer Science: Program the equipment that squeezes calls and videos into data and routes it.

A famous name

Alexander Graham Bell: Patented the telephone in 1876, starting modern telecommunications.

Try it yourself: Pass a message through a network

Each person (or toy) is a "tower". A note may only be passed to a tower close by, never across the room.
Draw a map of the towers and the connections between them.
Send a folded note from one corner to the other. Which path used the fewest passes?
Now one tower "breaks". Can the message still get through? Draw the backup route.

Telecommunications and network engineers plan how messages hop between towers and cables, and build backup routes so a single fault doesn't cut people off.

Also try: Draw a circuit and trace the power.

Known for it in

USA, South Korea, Finland, Sweden, Japan