It is important and practical that components of a transmission chain can be separated and tested separately. To accomplish this, well-defined interfaces and measuring techniques, including agreed terms and definitions, are required.

This technical report has two main goals. It lays the foundation for agreement on the fundamental terms and definitions to be used world-wide in describing the transmission properties of a two-port or quadripole. The report builds a bridge between the classical quadripole theory and the scattering matrix presentation which is based on incident and reflecting square root of power waves at the input and output of a two-port. Finally, it is shown that the two concepts are bound together through simple equations and are fundamentally identical.

The quadripole theory was originally developed for voice- and carrier-frequency technologies and transmission, and later for microwaves, but both can be used through the whole frequency range.