Muthayammal College of Arts and Science.

Rasipuram-637408
Rasipuram Department of E&C

MUTHAYAMMAL COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE,

RASIPURAM-637408
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION
III YEAR/VI SEM
17UEL08-NETWORK
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS AND SECURITY
Unit-I (Transmission Methods)
1. Introduction to Data Communication:
Communication can be defined as
a exchange of information between two persons, and the
data communications can be defined as the exchange of information between two
computers.
The figure shows a simple form of computer communication have two computers called
Source (Sender) and Destination
Destination (Receiver) connected through a line called transmission
medium.

Fig 1(Simple Communication)

It is a simple form of communication system, but the real life communication system
involves many hardware devices and software techniques.
The following figure shows a simple real life communication systems contains various
components as mentioned.

Figure 1(Simple
(Simple Real time Data Communication)
1.1. Analog and Digital Signals:
Any signal can be classified into one of the two types as analog and Digital. An analog signal
is a continuously varying signal, similar to a sinusoidal wave.
w
In contrast a digital signal takes a form of pulses, Where we have something or nothing (1
Or 0).

Figure 2(Analog Signal and Digital Signal)

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1.2. Transmission Methods:

We have studied that the two types of signals are analog and digital, however the manner
in which these two types of signals can be transmitted are also of the same two types as
analog transmission and digital transmission.
Based on the type of information signal and transmission signal there are four
classifications of transmission technology.
Analog signal analog transmission
Digital signal Digital transmission
Digital signal Analog transmission
Analog signal digital transmission
1.2.1. Analog signal and analog transmission:
Telephone communication is the best example for this mode of communication.
Since the human voice is an analog signal which is transmitted as analog signal over the
transmission medium.

Figure 3(Telephone Communication)

On the way the signal suffers by attenuation, hence repeated amplifiers are used to
overcome this problem.
This amplifier amplifies the harmonics along with the original information signal.
For long distance communications there are several analog modulation techniques are
used as follows.
Amplitude modulation
Frequency modulation
Phase modulation.

1.2.1.1. Amplitude Modulation:

Amplitude modulation is the process in which

the amplitude of the carrier is varied in
accordance with the instantaneous amplitude of
the modulating voltage.

Here the frequency and phase angle of the

carrier signal are kept constant.

since the harmonics are easily occurs in the

amplitude of the signal, this method is highly
affected by the unwanted harmonics.

Figure 4(Amplitude Modulation)

With suitable amplifiers and filter circuits the

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original information is reconstructed.

1.2.1.2. Frequency modulation:

Frequency modulation is the process in

which the frequency of the carrier signal is
varied in accordance with the instantaneous
amplitude of the modulating signal by keeping
the amplitude and phase angle constant.

Since the amplitude is kept constant the

FM signal is free from harmonics, and the
harmonics are occurs in amplitude level only
hence it can also be easily clipped off from the
signal and original information can be easily
reconstructed.

Figure 5(Frequency Modulation)

1.2.1.3.Phase modulation:

Phase Modulation is the process in

which the Phase angle of the carrier
signal is varied in accordance with
instantaneous amplitude of the
modulating information signal by
keeping the amplitude and frequency
constant.
Since the amplitude of the PM signal is
kept constant, it is free from
harmonics.
But in PM the change in angle will
changes the wavelength and hence in
frequency. So both the FM and PM are
looking similar.

The phase angle is varied rapidly with

the variation in amplitude, for that
there is a need for very precious phase Figure 6(Phase Modulation)

shifting circuit and it is more complex

to construct in practical.

1.2.2. Digital signal Digital transmission:

We know that the information coming out of a computer is in the form of digital signals.

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We know that a digital signal has an infinite bandwidth, whereas any medium has only a
limited bandwidth, therefore as the signal is generated and enters the medium, at that
point of entry only limited frequencies are permissible on the medium depending upon its
bandwidth.
If we add all the frequencies admitted on the medium, the resultant signal would not be the
same as the digital signal.
Therefore the signals distorted from the original signal and the signal is traverses over the
medium, noise adds further distortion.
Beyond a certain distance, the signal becomes unrecognizable from the original one.
Hence hardware equipments called Regenerative Repeater are used to regenerate the
digital signal.

Figure 7(Digital line transmission with Repeaters)

The input to the repeater is a signal, which looks like a digital signal.
Therefore the repeater measures the signal values at regular intervals to recognize the 0s
and 1s in the signal and regenerate them hence there is no loss of information.
One repeater is not enough to regenerate the original signal with long transmission line.
Since the distance is much important factor that affecting the signal in the medium by
damping, so that the 0s and 1s can not be recognized properly at the long end.
To avoid this repeaters are placed in acceptable distance to regenerate the digital signal in
the line. Any transmission line with repeaters placed at the appropriate distance is called a
digital line.

1.2.3. Digital Signal Analog Transmission:

The signals are transferred as digital it requires a number of regenerative repeaters; hence
the digital signals are modulated using analog signals.

Figure 8 (Digital signal Transmitted as analog)

When computers were invented, the telephone network was already in existence.

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The digital signals are converted into analog signal and transmitted through the existing
telephone line.
For this a modem is used, modem is a device which performs modulation and
demodulations operations. Because the transmission can be of both directions.
At the source end the modem modulates the digital information into analog output suitable
for telephone medium.
At the destination it demodulates the analog signal into digital and reconstructs the original
information which was transmitted
Since we use the telephone line as medium, the bandwidth should be maintained as
4000Hz per channel.
In modem any one of the following modulation technique is used.
Amplitude Shift keying(ASK)
Frequency Shift Keying(FSK)
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)
Quadrate Amplitude Modulation(QAM)
By changing any one of the properties of the carrier signal the above type of modulation
techniques are done.

1.2.3.1. Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK):

It is the simplest digital

modulation technique where
a binary information signal
directly modulates the
amplitude of an analog
carrier.
Only two output amplitudes
are possible and ASK is
sometimes called as digital
amplitude modulation
(DAM).
Here the frequency and Figure 9(ASK Signal)
phase angle are kept
constant and the amplitude is altered between two levels. Those levels represent the binary
0 and binary 1.
At the receiving end, the modem measures the amplitudes at regular intervals to decode
them as 0s and 1s and then generates a digital signal.
This technique is normally used for transmitting data over Optical Fiber.
Noise affects the amplitude of a signal and ASK is highly susceptible to noise.

1.2.3.2. FREQUENCY SHIFT KEYING

In this conversion technique, the frequency of the analog carrier signal is modified to
reflect binary data.
This technique uses two frequencies, f1 and f2. One of them, for example f1, is chosen to
represent binary digit 1 and the other one is used to represent binary digit 0.

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Both amplitude and phase of the carrier wave are kept constant.
Both the frequency f1 and f2
should be in the range 0 to
4000Hz to use telephone line
bandwidth.
The modem at the destination
decodes these signals into 0s
and 1s by measuring the
frequencies in predefined time
intervals.
This technique is less prone to
noise unlike ASK.
Figure 10 (FSK Sigmal)

1.2.3.3. Phase Shift Keying

In this conversion scheme, the
phase of the original carrier signal
is altered to reflect the binary data.
When a new binary symbol is
encountered, the phase of the
signal is altered to 0 degree for
binary 0 and 180 degree to
represent binary 1.
Amplitude and frequency of the
original carrier signal is kept
intact.
In the figure the 0 bit indicates no
phase change at all, if the Figure 11(PSK Signal)
proceeding bit 1 changes the
phase to 180 degree.
This technique is more noise resistance and also more efficient than FSK.

1.2.3.4. Quadrate Amplitude Modulation (QAM):

The main limitation of PSK is the inability of the hardware equipment to distinguish small
differences in terms of phase changes and this puts a limitation on its data rate.
In QAM the ASK and PSK are combined to represent 0s and 1s, thus we can have x
variations in phase and y variations in amplitude.
QAM makes higher data rates possible.
1.3. Baud rate:
The number of times the signal level changes in a channel per second is called baud rate,
this signal level could be amplitude, frequency or phase.
But physically the hardware puts limitations on how many times this signal changes can
happen.
Bandwidth of the transmission medium defines the maximum and minimum frequency that
it allows for the carrier wave.

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Normally we associate one bit with each changes in the signal level, by associating more
than one bit for each signal level, we can achieve a higher data rates.
Let us consider the first case bit rate = baud rate using FSK technique with base frequency
of 1700Hz.
We can now have two frequencies say 1200Hz to represent 0 and 2200Hz to represent 1.
In this case the bit coming from the computer is examined by the modem, and depending
upon the bit value (0 or 1) the carrier signal is modulated at 1200Hz or 2200Hz frequency.
At the other end , the other modem demodulates the signal frequency and generates the
respective binary information that can be stored in memory.

Figure 12 (Signal Change using 2 Bits)

If we codify the binary information as two bits for a signal level, we need four levels to
represent the binary codes 00,01,10,11.
Let us assign four frequencies 500Hz, 1000Hz, 1500Hz and 2000Hz for the codes
mentioned above, with this four signal levels we represent 8 bits, hence the bit rate is twice
the baud rate.
Like this we can increase the bit rate as three bits, four bits and so, but in those cases the
number of signal levels representing each combination is also increases.
Since the bandwidth of telephone line is limited to 4000Hz, the interval (gap) between two
successive signal level representing two codes is reduced. This may cause error in the
receiver due to minimum frequency deviations.
Consider the following figure representing four signal levels representing four codes with
two bits each.

Figure 13 (Signal change using 2 bits)

1.4. Analog signal Digital Transmission:
In this method the analog signal is converted to digital signals and transmitted as digital
signal. There are several techniques are possible to achieve this, such as PCM, DPCM, QPCM,
Delta Modulation, adaptive Delta modulation and so.
1.4.1 Pulse code Modulation (PCM)
Let us discus Pulse code modulation technique, in this method the input analog signals are
converted into digital codes and vice versa by following steps in source and destination.
At Source
Sample the analog signal at regular interval ‘ts’ (Sampling).
Convert the samples into some discrete values (Quantization).
Assign codes to those discrete values(Coding).

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Convert these binary codes as digital signal by concatenating.

At Destination
Convert the digital signals into binary number.
Separate the discrete values of signals by using the number of bits for each
discrete value.
Reconstruct the original signal.
The above mentioned functions are done by using a device called Codec(Coder/Decoder) at
both the source and destination.
It may also be called as A/D converters and D/A converter build in same equipment.
Sampling: Sampling is the process of converting the amplitude of the input analog signal
into narrow rectangular pulses with a defined time interval.
Sampling theorem: Sampling theorem or Nyquist
theorem states that the sampling frequency
should be kept twice the maximum frequency of
the input analog signal fs ≥ 2 fm and hence the
original information can be reconstructed at
destination.
Quantization: it is the process of approximating
the sample amplitude to predefined amplitude
levels.
Coding: means that converting those quantized
samples to is assigned binary values using analog
to digital converter.
Decoding: is the process of converting the
received binary code into its equivalent sample
pulse using digital to analog converter, and this
process takes place in destination end.
Figure 14 (PCM Process)
1.5. Parallel Communication:

In parallel transmission, we transfer a word or a byte at a time. Therefore we need to have

those many wires parallel to each other. Each carrying a single bit.
Where eight wires are transmitting a byte of binary information at a time that means that
at a single clock.
This is very fast transmission method of
transferring data from one end to
another end.
There are some problems in this method
such that, more expensive due to more
number of wires.
It requires extreme accuracy and it can
not be guaranteed over long distance.
The digital signals may not be traverse at
the same speed due to the various
Figure 15 (Parallel Communication)

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characteristics of transmission medium, this gives rise to a problem called Skew.

The binary bits traverse to the destination in different speed, but in destination the binary
information is read at same time, hence the slow speed binary bit will be lost or error, this
make the transmission inaccurate, this is called skew.
To avoid this problem, parallel transmission is used only for very short distance and all the
parallel wires have to be absolutely identical.
This method is used for data transmission within computer system, such as CPU to memory
or registers via data bus.

1.6. Serial communication:

Over long distances, serial

communication is installed
using one or two wires.
While sending data serially,
characters or bytes have to be
separated and sent bit by bit
using parallel to serial
converter circuits.
At the destination, the
measurement of the signal
values is done in the middle of Figure 16 ( Serial Communication)
the bit duration because if the
values are taken at the edges the reading will be indeterminate.
At the destination all the bits are collected, measured and put together as bytes in the
memory of the destination.
In this method we have to identify the starting and ending points of a character, duration of
the bit, because the transmitter and receiver are having exactly different clock.
In order to identify the bit value and bits representing a character the clocks of both the
transmitter and receiver should be matched, the matching process is known as
synchronization.
There are three ways to achieve this namely Asynchronous, Synchronous and Isochronous
transmission of serial communications.
A line adapter called serial interface is generally used to achieve synchronization, UART,
USART are some examples of serial interface.

1.7. Asynchronous Communication:

In this method of serial communication each character is begins with a start bit and ends
with a stop bit.
According to this convention a negative voltage represents a binary 1 and a positive voltage
represents a binary 0.
When the line is idle there is no character is sent over the line.
Before sending a character a bit 0 is sent first as start bit, followed by this start bit all the
bits of character is sent.
Followed by the character bits parity bit is sent if the transmission provides error detection
and correction technique.

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At last a stop bit is sent to represent the first character is ends.

Figure 17 (Asynchronous Communication)

In destination if a start bit is recognized and the following bits are identified as character
bits until a stop bit is encountered.
In this method the source and destination should have a proper understanding about the
bit rate that is number of bits per character, and the receiver should start its clock after the
identification of a start bit, and ends its clock after the end bit is received.
1.8. Synchronous communication:
In synchronous transmission, the bit stream is combined into longer "frames," which may
contain multiple bytes.
Each byte is introduced onto the transmission link without a gap between it and the next
one.
It is left to the receiver to separate the bit stream into bytes for decoding purposes.
In other words, data are transmitted as an unbroken string of 1s and 0s, and the receiver
separates that string into the bytes, or characters, it needs to reconstruct the information.
The sender puts its data onto the line as one long string.
If the sender wishes to send data in separate bursts, the gaps between bursts must be filled
with a special sequence of 0s and 1s that means idle.
The receiver counts the bits as they arrive and groups them in 8-bit units.
Without gaps, start and stop bits, there is no built in mechanism to help the receiving
device adjust its bit synchronization midstream.

Figure 18 (Synchronous Communication)

Timing becomes very important because the accuracy of the received information is
completely dependent on the ability of the receiving device to keep an accurate count of the
bits as they come in.
The advantage of synchronous transmission is speed.
It is more useful for high-speed applications such as the transmission of data from one
computer to another. Byte synchronization is accomplished in the data link layer.
Although there is no gap between characters in synchronous serial transmission, there may
be uneven gaps between frames.
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1.9. Isosynchronous:

This method combines the approaches of asynchronous and synchronous communications.

In this method, as in the asynchronous method, each character has both start and stop bits.
However the idle period between the the characters is not random, for instance, all idle
periods of no transmission consists of an exact multiple of one character time interval.
Therefore, if the time to transmit a character is t , the time travel between characters
cannot to be t,2t,3t,…nt where n s a positive integer in Isosynchronous communication.

Figure 19 (Isosynchronous Communication)

The main reason for using Isosynchronous method to asynchronous method is speed.
In practice the asynchronous communication is limited to the data rate of 2,400Bps
according to the precision of the timing in transmitting and receiving modems. The
Isosynchronous communication can achieve the data rate of 19,200 Bps.
1.10. Simplex, Half duplex and full duplex Communications:

The classification of data communication is based on which of the communicating devices

can send data, at what time.
There are basically three classifications based on this as follows.
Simplex
Half Duplex or semi duplex
Duplex or full duplex.
1.10.1. Simplex:
In simplex mode, the communication is unidirectional. Where the any one of the
communicating device can send the data and other can only receive the data.
Example for simplex communication is radio and TV communication.

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Figure 20 (Simplex Communication)

1.10.2. Half Duplex:

Unlike simplex, in half duplex or semi duplex mode, both devices can transmit data through
the transmission medium but not in the same time.
That is if the device 1 sends information then the device 2 should receive it, but cannot
send back any data to the device 1 at the same time.
The device 2 can send the data to device 1 after the completion of device 1 transmission
Example of half duplex communication are conversation over Walkie -talkie.

Figure 21 (Half Duplex Communication)

1.10.3. Full Duplex:

In full duplex or simply in duplex mode, both the devices can transmit the data at same
time.
It is means that both the devices are capable of send and receive data at same time.
This can be done by using two wire circuit or four wire circuit.
In a two wire circuit, one wire is used for data and one for ground as in half duplex.
However, the bandwidth of the wire is divided into two channels for carrying data in either
direction.
Thus each channel can use only half the bandwidth normally.

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Figure 22 (Full Duplex Communication)

1.11. Multiplexing:

Multiplexing divides the physical line or medium in to several logical segments called
Channels.
In multiplexing different channels carries different data simultaneously over a same
physical medium.
Hardware equipment called multiplexer (MUX) combine the inputs from different sources
and load them on different channels of a medium.
At the destination, a demultiplexer (DEMUX) separates the signals and sends them to their
different destinations.
Since the bandwidth of a medium is limited, the capacity of each channel in the medium is
reduced while increasing the number of channels.

Figure 23 (Multiplexing)
1.12. Types of Multiplexing:
There are several kind of multiplexing techniques are available, in that the following are
some famous multiplexing techniques.
Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM)
Time division Multiplexing (TDM)
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
Code Division Multiplexing (CDM)

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1.12.1. Frequency Division Multiplexing:

FDM is an analog technology, where
we divides the spectrum or carrier
bandwidth in logical channels and
allocates one user to each channel.
Each user can use the channel
frequency independently and has
exclusive access of it.
All channels are divided such a way
that they do not overlap with each
other. Channels are separated by
Figure 24 (FDM)
guard bands.
Guard band is a frequency which is not
used by either channel; actually it separates the adjacent channels to avoid channel
overlapping.

Figure 25 (FDM for Analog and Digital Communication)

The best example for FDM is public telephone network and cable TV system.
Where different video signals of various stations are combined and transferred over a
single cable using multiplexing technique to our TV set.
By using a tuner circuit we essentially select a particular frequency band from the
bandwidth of the medium to choose a station.
If the communicating devices are computers, then the digital signals are passed through the
modem and to the multiplexer.
1.12.2. Time Division Multiplexing:
TDM is applied primarily on digital signals but can be applied on analog signals as well.
In TDM the shared channel is divided among its user by means of time slot.
Each user can transmit data within the provided time slot only.
Digital signals are divided in to frames, equivalent to time slot i.e. frame of an optimal size
which can be transmitted in given time slot.
TDM works in synchronized mode. Both ends, i.e. Multiplexer and De-multiplexer are
timely synchronized and both switch to next channel simultaneously.
When at one side channel A is transmitting its frame, on the other end De-multiplexer
providing media to channel A.
As soon as its channel A’s time slot expires this side switches to channel B. On the other
end De-multiplexer behaves in a synchronized manner and provides media to channel B.
Signals from different channels travel the path in interleaved manner.

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The TDM is basically classified into two types as follows

Synchronous TDM or TDM
Statistical TDM(STDM)
1.12.2.1. Synchronous TDM or TDM
Here the time slice is allotted to a
source node regardless of whether it
wants to send data or not.
Since every node has fixed time slot the
source and the destination nodes will
attain synchronization.
In synchronous TDM all nodes has a
buffer memory to hold the data until its
time slot arrives for transmission
Figure 26 (Synchronous TDM)
through the medium.
In statistical TDM the more frequent and greater utilizing node is monitored and more time
is allocated for those nodes, and less time slot is allocated for simple and idle nodes.
The main disadvantage of this type of TDM is waste of time at while a node has nothing to
send.
1.12.2.2. Statistical TDM (STDM):
This method of TDM is more
intelligent compared to the
synchronous TDM.
It monitors which machine or
terminal is sending data more
frequently and in greater quantity,
and allocates the time slice more
often to those nodes.
Relatively inactive terminals / nodes
get the time slice less often, while a
completely idle terminal/node may
not get any time slice at all.
Essentially statistical data is kept
about the activity of various source Figure 27 (Statistical TDM)
nodes and hence the name becomes
as statistical TDM.
1.12.2.3. Wavelength Division Multiplexing:
Light has different wavelength
(colors) In fiber optic mode,
multiple optical carrier signals are
multiplexed into one optical fiber
by using different wavelengths.
This is an analog multiplexing
technique and is done conceptually
in the same manner as FDM but
uses light as signals. Figure 28 (Wavelength Division Multiplexing)

Further, on each wavelength Time

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division multiplexing can be incorporated to accommodate more data signals.

1.12.2.4. Code Division Multiplexing

Multiple data signals can be transmitted over a single frequency by using Code Division
Multiplexing.
FDM divides the frequency in smaller channels but CDM allows its users to full bandwidth
and transmit signals all the time using a unique Code.
CDM uses orthogonal codes to spread signals.
Each station is assigned with a unique code, called chip. Signals travels with these codes
independently travelling inside the whole bandwidth.
The receiver in this case, knows in advance chip code signal it has to receive signals.

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