Physical layer: Solutions for in-class and practice problems

1. If the signal power is twice the noise power, what is SNR in dB?

Answer: SNR ( dB ) = 10 log10 ---- = 10 log10( 2 ) = 3 dB

S
 N
2. Find the frequency of a 1500nm wavelength signal. Use speed of light in vacuum.
Answer: 200 THz
8
v v 8 3 × 10
λ = -- , or f = --- . Speed of light in vacuum is 3 × 10 m/s. Therefore f = ----------------------------- , since nm is nanome-
f λ 1500 × 10
–9

–9 14 12
ters, which is 10 m. Therefore f = 2 × 10 = 200 THz since THz is TeraHertz, which is 10 Hz.
3. If the bandwidth of a communication channel is 3000 Hz, what is maximum rate at which data can be transmitted
if the SNR is 30 dB?
Answer: 29.9kbps.
Use Shannon’s channel capacity formula. First we need to compute the S/N fraction from the SNR dB value.
Since
SNR ( dB )
------------------------
SNR ( dB ) = 10 log10 ---- ; therefore ---- = 10
S S 10 S
. If SNR in dB is 30, ---- = 1000
 N N N
log10x
C = H log2 1 + ---- = 3000 log2( 1 + 1000 ) . To calculate log2x = --------------
S
- . Using this we get
 N log102
log101001
C = 3000 -----------------------
- = 29.9kbps .
log102
4. A color page of size 8” by 10” is represented using 400 by 400 pixels/sq. inch. Use three bytes per pixel. Assume
that the page has already been scanned and we have a data file of the information. What is the physical-layer
delay to send this data across a 5 km T1 link whose twisted pair medium has a dielectric constant is 2.1? [Hint:
see Attenuation slide for definition of T1, and note that the 5.5 km indicated there is the maximum distance for
the T1 data rate, which means links can be shorter than this indicated length.]
Answer: 199.000024sec.
See slides on propagation delay and emission delay. Because of pipelining, we need to add the propagation delay
of only one bit (the last bit) to the emission delay. Propagation delays incurred by all other bits overlap with the
L S
transmission (emission) delay. Therefore physical-layer delay = --- + --- .
v r
L = 5km . v , speed of light in the twisted pair medium of the T1 link, is obtained using
8
c 3 × 10 8
v = ------ = ----------------- = 2.07 × 10 m/s. The dielectric constant, ε , is 2.1 as specified in the problem. Therefore
ε 2.1
L 5000
--- = ------------------------- = 24.15 microseconds (denoted as µs ).
v 8
2.07 × 10
To find the data size, S , in bits, we calculate 400 × 400 × 8 × 10 × 3 × 8 bits. Multiply number of pixels/sq. in,
by area of page in sq. inches, by 3 bytes for the three colors, by 8 to convert from bytes to bits. We get
5
3072 × 10 bits. Next, to find the data rate of the transmitter, r , note it is a T1 link. T1 is a standard telecommu-
5
3072 × 10
nication rate of 1.544 Mbps. Therefore emission delay is ---------------------------- = 199 sec.Thus the physical-layer delay is
6
1.544 × 10
199seconds plus 24.15 µs which is 199.000024seconds. Note the propagation delay is negligible.
Why does packetization delay not appear in this problem? This is because it is block data and not stream data.
5. Assume the following characteristics for a communication link: bandwidth: 600 MHz; dielectric constant: 1.7;
channel capacity (maximum): 1Gbps. The one-way propagation delay across this link is 1ms.
a. What is the required signal-to-noise ratio at the receiver to achieve the maximum channel capacity? Express
in dB.
Answer: Use Shannon’s channel capacity formula. H=600 MHz; C = 1Gbps; C = H log 2( 1 + S ⁄ N )
1000 ⁄ 600
2 – 1 = 2.17 ; To compute the answer in dB, 10log(2.17) = 3.36dB.

b. What is the length of this link?

8
c 3 × 10 8
v = ------ = ----------------- = 2.3 × 10 m ⁄ s . Therefore the length of the link can be obtained from the propagation
ε 1.7
delay, which is L ⁄ v . Therefore, L is given by
8
( 2.3 × 10 m/s × 0.001s ) = 230000m = 230Km .

c. If the physical-layer delay to send an already-created data packet across the link at the maximum channel
capacity is 2ms, what is the size of the packet? Express your answer in KB (Kilo-bytes).
Since physical-layer delay = propagation delay + emission delay, emission delay is 1ms (since propagation
9 –3 6
delay is specified to be 1ms). Emission delay = S ⁄ r ; since r = 1Gbps , S = 1 × 10 × 1 × 10 = 10
6
bits or 1Mbit. This is equal to 1 × 10 ⁄ 8 = 125000 bytes. Since 1024 bytes = 1 KB, the answer is
125000 ⁄ 1024 = 122.07 KB.
6. Consider an ADPCM telephony codec. It generates data at 32kbps. What is the size constraint on packets if there
is a 20ms delay requirement to get telephony traffic across a 5km 64kbps twisted pair link? Use a dielectric con-
stant of 2.1. As this is a streamed data application, include packetization delay and physical-layer delay. For this
problem, neglect the packet header.
Answer: 53 bytes

From problem 4, we know that propagation delay on a 5km twisted pair with dielectric constant of 2.1 is
24.15 µs . This is streamed data and so the remaining delay components are packetization delay and emission
delay. Assume packet length is x bits. We solve for x in
x x
------ + ------ = 20 – 0.024 . If packet length is x bits, since the ADPCM codec is generating data at 32kbps, it will
32 64
x x
take ------ ms to fill a packet. Then it takes ------ ms for transmission (emission) delay. Since our budget is 20ms and
32 64
propagation delay is 24.15 µs , which is 0.024 ms, we get the RHS (Right Hand Side) of the equation. We get
x = 427bits , which is 53 bytes. Note the need to round down! So that we do not exceed the delay budget. The t