Communication source in the context of "Data processing"

Means of communication or media are used by people to communicate and exchange information with each other as an information sender and a receiver. Diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication are called mass media.

In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication channel or storage in a storage medium. An early example is an invention of language, which enabled a person, through speech, to communicate what they thought, saw, heard, or felt to others. But speech limits the range of communication to the distance a voice can carry and limits the audience to those present when the speech is uttered. The invention of writing, which converted spoken language into visual symbols, extended the range of communication across space and time.

The process of encoding converts information from a source into symbols for communication or storage. Decoding is the reverse process, converting code symbols back into a form that the recipient understands, such as English, Spanish, etc.

In telecommunications, information transfer is the process of moving messages containing user information from a source to a sink via a communication channel. In this sense, information transfer is equivalent to data transmission which highlights more practical, technical aspects.

The information transfer rate may or may not be equal to the transmission modulation rate.

In telecommunications, an interference is that which modifies a signal in a disruptive manner, as it travels along a communication channel between its source and receiver. The term is often used to refer to the addition of unwanted signals to a useful signal. Common examples include:

• Electromagnetic interference (EMI)
• Co-channel interference (CCI), also known as crosstalk
• Adjacent-channel interference (ACI)
• Intersymbol interference (ISI)
• Inter-carrier interference (ICI), caused by doppler shift in OFDM modulation (multitone modulation).
• Common-mode interference (CMI)
• Conducted interference

Noise is a form of interference but not all interference is noise.