The foundation of LANs and all networks is the transmission medium. Transmission media fall into 3 categories: metallic, optical fiber and the open space. Metallic media are in 2 legacy types: coax and twisted pair, with a 3rd emerging type: powerline. Transmission media are characterized primarily by two factors: raw bandwidth (in Hertz), and noise/interference, which in turn determine the transmission capacity in bits/sec. Transmission capacity of a medium also depends on the signaling technique (e.g., modulation) used to transmit the signal. Discuss the evolution of transmission media up to now, and prediction of such evolution into the future, as the demand for bandwidth keeps rising. Also explore signal handling techniques, such as modulation, OFDM, and MIMO, particularly used in wireless systems.