Learn English – Difference in using ‘in’ and ‘on’

grammar

I am confused about using in and on for the following sentence:

  1. I have two channels only. Concurrent transmissions on both channels will cause problem.

  2. I have two channels only. Concurrent transmissions in both channels will cause problem.

A channel here is a wireless link, which is not visible. I am talking about two cellphone users who are trying to make calls simultaneously. However, there are only two channels available and both cannot be used at the same time.

Can anyone please explain which one is more currect and why?

Best Answer

Strictly speaking, one transmits over a channel:

In information theory, the Shannon–Hartley theorem tells the maximum rate at which information can be transmitted over a communications channel of a specified bandwidth in the presence of noise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theorem

In practice, you'll find that both on and in are also being used, albeit less frequently:

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n-gram

However, there may be a nuance: for example, a TV engineer might say my station transmits on Channel 5, but we are now transmitting a test in our UHF channel.

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