In telecommunication, the term steady-state condition has the following meanings:

  • In a communications circuit, a condition in which some specified characteristic of a condition, such as a value, rate, periodicity, or amplitude, exhibits only negligible change over an arbitrarily long period.
  • In an electrical circuit, the condition that exists after all initial transients or fluctuating conditions have damped out, and all currents, voltages, or fields remain essentially constant, or oscillate uniformly.
  • In fiber optics, synonym for equilibrium mode distribution.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from MIL-STD-188