Frequency-division multiplexing
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Frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) is a form of signal multiplexing where multiple baseband signals are modulated on different frequency carrier waves and added together to create a composite signal.
[edit] Non telephone
FDM can also be used to combine multiple signals before final modulation onto a carrier wave. In this case the carrier signals are referred to as subcarriers: an example is stereo FM transmission, where a 38 kHz subcarrier is used to separate the left-right difference signal from the central left-right sum channel, prior to the frequency modulation of the composite signal. A television channel is divided into subcarrier frequencies for video, color, and audio. DSL uses different frequencies for voice and for upstream and downstream data transmission on the same conductors, which is also an example of frequency duplex.
Where frequency division multiplexing is used as to allow multiple users to share a physical communications channel, it is called frequency-division multiple access (FDMA).
FDMA is the traditional way of separating radio signals from different transmitters.
In the 1860 and 70s, several inventors attempted FDM under the names of Acoustic telegraphy and Harmonic telegraphy. Practical FDM was only achieved in the electronic age. Meanwhile their efforts led to an elementary understanding of electroacoustic technology, resulting in the invention of the telephone.
[edit] Telephone
For long distance telephone connections, 20th century telephone companies used L-carrier and similar co-axial cable systems carrying thousands of voice circuits multiplexed in multiple stages.
For short distances, cheaper balanced pair cables were used for various systems including Bell System K- and N-Carrier. Those cables didn't allow such large bandwidths, so only 12 voice channels (Double Sideband) and later 24 (Single Sideband) were multiplexed into four wires, one pair for each direction with repeaters every several miles, approximately 10 km. See 12-channel carrier system. By the end of the 20th Century, FDM voice circuits had become rare. Modern telephone systems employ digital transmission, in which time-division multiplexing (TDM) is used instead of FDM.
Since the late twentieth century Digital Subscriber Lines have used a Discrete multitone (DMT) system to divide their spectrum into frequency channels.
The concept corresponding to frequency division multiplexing in the optical domain is known as wavelength division multiplexing.
