Courses and textbooks in the field of data transmission[1] as well as digital transmission[2][3] and digital communications[4][5] have similar content.

Digital transmission or data transmission traditionally belongs to telecommunications and electrical engineering. Basic principles of data transmission may also be covered within the computer science/computer engineering topic of data communications, which also includes computer networking or computer communication applications and networking protocols, for example routing, switching and inter-process communication. Although the Transmission control protocol (TCP) involves the term "transmission", TCP and other transport layer protocols are typically not discussed in a textbook or course about data transmission, but in computer networking.

The term tele transmission involves the analog as well as digital communication. In most textbooks, the term analog transmission only refers to the transmission of an analog message signal (without digitization) by means of an analog signal, either as a non-modulated baseband signal, or as a passband signal using an analog modulation method such as AM or FM. It may also include analog-over-analog pulse modulatated baseband signals such as pulse-width modulation. In a few books within the computer networking tradition, "analog transmission" also refers to passband transmission of bit-streams using digital modulation methods such as FSK, PSK và ASK. Note that these methods are covered in textbooks named digital transmission or data transmission, for example.[1]

The theoretical aspects of data transmission are covered by information theory và coding theory.