Data Communications

Chapter 3
Data and Signals

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 Terminology (1)
• Transmitter
• Receiver
• Medium
– Guided medium
• e.g. twisted pair, optical fiber
– Unguided medium
• e.g. air, water, vacuum

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 Terminology (2)
• Direct link
– No intermediate devices
• Point-to-point
– Direct link
– Only 2 devices share link
• Multi-point
– More than two devices share the link

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 Terminology (3)
• Simplex
– One direction
• e.g. Television
• Half duplex
– Either direction, but only one way at a time
• e.g. police radio
• Full duplex
– Both directions at the same time
• e.g. telephone

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 Frequency, Spectrum and
Bandwidth
• Time domain concepts
– Continuous signal
• Infinite number of points at any given time
– Discrete signal
• Finite number of points at any given time; maintains a constant
level then changes to another constant level
– Periodic signal
• Pattern repeated over time
– Aperiodic signal
• Pattern not repeated over time

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Continuous & Discrete Signals

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Periodic Signals

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 Sine Wave
• Peak Amplitude (A)
– Maximum strength of signal
– Typically volts
• Frequency (f)
– Rate of change of signal
– Hertz (Hz) or cycles per second
– Period = time for one repetition (T)
– T = 1/f
• Phase ()
– Relative position in time
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Varying Sine Waves

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 Frequency Domain Concepts
• Signal usually made up of many
frequencies
• Components are sine waves
• Can be shown (Fourier analysis) that any
signal is made up of component sine waves
• Can plot frequency domain functions

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Addition of
Frequency
Components

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Frequency
Domain

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 Spectrum & Bandwidth
• Spectrum
– range of frequencies contained in signal
• Absolute bandwidth
– width of spectrum
• Effective bandwidth
– Often just bandwidth
– Narrow band of frequencies containing most of the
energy
• DC component
– Component of zero frequency
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Signal with DC Component

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 Analog and Digital Data
Transmission
• Data
– Entities that convey meaning
• Signals
– Electric or electromagnetic representations of
data
• Transmission
– Communication of data by propagation and
processing of signals

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 Data
• Analog
– Continuous values within some interval
– e.g. sound, video
• Digital
– Discrete values
– e.g. text, integers

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 Signals
• Means by which data are propagated
• Analog
– Continuously variable
– Various media
• wire, fiber optic, space
– Speech bandwidth 100Hz to 7kHz
– Telephone bandwidth 300Hz to 3400Hz
– Video bandwidth 4MHz
• Digital
– Uses two (or more) DC components
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 Data and Signals
• Usually use digital signals for digital data
and analog signals for analog data
• Can use analog signal to carry digital data
– Modem
• Can use digital signal to carry analog data
– Compact Disc audio

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Analog Signals Carrying Analog
and Digital Data

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Digital Signals Carrying Analog
and Digital Data

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 Analog Transmission
• Analog signal transmitted without regard to
content
• May be analog or digital data
• Attenuated over distance
• Use amplifiers to boost signal
• Also amplifies noise

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 Digital Transmission
• Concerned with content
• Integrity endangered by noise, attenuation etc.
• Repeaters used
• Repeater receives signal
• Extracts bit pattern
• Retransmits
• Attenuation is overcome
• Noise is not amplified
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 Advantages of Digital
Transmission
• Digital technology
– Low cost LSI/VLSI technology
• Data integrity
– Longer distances over lower quality lines
• Capacity utilization
– High bandwidth links economical
– High degree of multiplexing easier with digital techniques
• Security & Privacy
– Encryption
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 Transmission Impairments
• Signal received may differ from signal
transmitted
• Analog - degradation of signal quality
• Digital - bit errors
• Caused by
– Attenuation and attenuation distortion
– Delay distortion
– Noise
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 Attenuation
• Signal strength falls off with distance
• Depends on medium
• Received signal strength:
– must be enough to be detected
– must be sufficiently higher than noise to be
received without error
• Attenuation is an increasing function of
frequency
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 Attenuation
• Signal strength is measured in decibels (dB)
• dB is a relative measure of loss (or gain)
• NdB = 10 log10 (P2 / P1)
– P2 = ending power level in watts
– P1 = beginning power level in watts
• Example: P1 = 10 watts, P2 = 5 watts
• Even easier – remember ½ rule
• Losses and gains are additive
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 Attenuation
• Signal to noise ratio shows the ratio of
signal power to noise power
• S/NdB = 10 log10 (signal power/noise
power)
• Example 1: Signal power = 1000 watts,
noise power = 20 mw
• Example 2: Signal power = 100 w, noise
power = 0.000002w
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 Delay Distortion
• Only in guided media
• Propagation velocity varies with frequency

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 Noise (1)
• Additional signals inserted between transmitter
and receiver
• Thermal
– Due to thermal agitation of electrons
– Uniformly distributed
– White noise
• Intermodulation
– Signals that are the sum and difference of original
frequencies sharing a medium
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 Noise (2)
• Crosstalk
– A signal from one line is picked up by another
• Impulse
– Irregular pulses or spikes
– e.g. External electromagnetic interference
– Short duration
– High amplitude

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 Data Rate and Bandwidth
• Any transmission system has a limited band
of frequencies
• This limits the data rate that can be carried
• The faster the frequency, the faster the data
rate

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 Channel Capacity
• Data rate
– In bits per second
– Rate at which data can be communicated
• Bandwidth
– In cycles per second of Hertz
– Constrained by transmitter and medium
• Baud rate
– Frequency with which the components change
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 BPS vs. Baud
• Data rate rarely the same as baud rate
• Examples:

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 Channel Capacity
• Nyquist
– Maximum data rate of a noiseless channel =
– 2 H log2 V bps
– Where H = frequency
– V = the number of discrete levels
– Example: H = 4000 Hz, V = 2

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 Channel Capacity
• Shannon (which includes noise)
– Maximum data rate (in bps) = H log2 (1 + S/N)
– H = frequency
– S = signal power in watts
– N = noise power in watts
– Example: H = 3400 Hz, S = 0.2 w, N = 0.0002 w
– Max data rate = 3400 log2 (1+1000)
– = 3400 x 9.97
– = 33898 bps
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 Review Questions
• List the advantages and disadvantages of
analog and digital
• What is the difference between data and
signals?
• List the three components of a signal
• What is a composite signal?
• How do you calculate a dB?
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 Review Questions
• How do you use the Nyquist formula?
– 4000 Hz, 8 signal levels, data rate?
– 50,000 bps data rate, 4000 Hz, how many
signal levels?
• How do you use the Shannon formula?
– 8000 Hz, signal power = 20w, noise power =
0.002w, what is the data rate?
– 5000 Hz, signal power = 50w, data rate =
20000bps, what is the possible noise power?
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