CHAPTER 3

DATA & SIGNALs

 LESSON OUTCOMES

• Student can differentiate between analog and

digital signals.
• Student can draw sine waves.
• Student can describe transmission
impairment.
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1. Introduction b. Aperiodic Digital
Signals
2. Analog and Digital
i. Bit Rate
3. Periodic & Aperiodic ii. Bit Length
a. Periodic Analog Signals iii. Transmission of Digital
i. Sine Wave Signals
ii. Wavelength 4. Transmission
iii. Time & Frequency Impairment
Domain
iv. Composite Signals 5. Data Rate Limits
v. Bandwidth a. Noiseless Channel
b. Noisy Channel
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6. Performance
a. Bandwidth
b. Throughput
c. Latency
d. Bandwidth-Delay
Product
e. Jitter
1. INTRODUCTION
• Transmission media work by
conducting energy along a physical
path.
• Therefore, data MUST be transformed
to electromagnetic signals to be
transmitted.

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1. INTRODUCTION (cont.)

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2. ANALOG & DIGITAL
• Data & signals can be represented by
ANALOG or DIGITAL in form.
• Information that is continuous
• Have infinite number of values in a range

Analog • Ex. Human voice

• Information that has discrete states @ values

• Have a limited number of values
• Ex. On @ Off, data stored in computer memory
Digital in the form of 0s and 1s.

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 3. PERIODIC &
APERIODIC

• Completes a pattern • Also known as

Periodic

Aperiodic
within a measurable NONPERIODIC
time frame (Period) (prefix ‘a’ means
& repeats that ‘non’ in GREEK)
pattern over • Changes without
subsequent identical exhibiting a pattern
periods. @ cycle that repeats
• Completion 1 full over time.
pattern is called a
CYCLE
 3. PERIODIC & APERIODIC
(cont.)
• In Data Communication:
 Periodic
- Analog signal (need less bandwidth)
 Nonperiodic
- Digital signal (represent variation in data)

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a) Periodic Analog Signals
• Can be classified as simple @
composite signals.
– Simple : Sine wave (cannot be
decomposed in simpler signals)
– Composite: composed of multiple sine
waves.

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a) Periodic Analog Signals
• Sine wave
• The most fundamental form of periodic
analog signal.
• Simple oscillating curve
• Change over the course of a cycle is
smooth and consistent
• Continuous & rolling flow

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a) Periodic Analog Signals
Sine wave are represented by three
parameters:
Peak Amplitude Frequency Phase
• Absolute value of • number of periods • Position of the
its highest intensity in 1s. waveform relative
• Period- amount of to time 0.
time (in seconds) a • Measured in
signal needs to degree @ radians.
complete 1 cycle.

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More about Frequency
• Period is the inverse of frequency
• Frequency is the rate of change with
respect to time
– Change in a short span of time: high
frequency
– Change in a long span of time: low
frequency

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More about Frequency
• Frequency zero = signal does not
change at all (voltage level constant
for entire time it is active)
• Frequency infinite = signal changes
instantaneously (period = 0)

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 More about Frequency
Unit Equivalent Unit Equivalent

Seconds (s) 1s hertz (Hz) 1 Hz

Milliseconds (ms) 10–3 s kilohertz (KHz) 103 Hz

Microseconds (ms) 10–6 s megahertz (MHz) 106 Hz

Nanoseconds (ns) 10–9 s gigahertz (GHz) 109 Hz

Picoseconds (ps) 10–12 s terahertz (THz) 1012 Hz

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 More about Phase
• The amplitude is • The amplitude is
increasing decreasing
• Not shifted • Shifted to the
left by ¼ cycle

0º 90º

180º 270º
• The amplitude is • The amplitude is
decreasing increasing
• Shifted to the • Shifted to the
left by ½ cycle left by ¾ cycle

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More about Phase

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 Wavelength
• Binds the period or the frequency of a
simple sine wave to the propagation
speed of the medium.
λ
Time & Frequency Domain
• To show relationship between
amplitude and frequency, we use
frequency domain plot
• An analog signal is best represented in
the frequency domain.
• A complete sine wave in the time
domain can be represented by one
single spike in the frequency domain
Time & Frequency Domain

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 Composite Signal
• Complex Analog Signals
– Periodic signals that are not sine waves
– Can be decomposed into multiple sine waves using Fourier
Analysis.

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Bandwidth
• Bandwidth and Frequency Spectrum
– Frequency Spectrum – the collection of all sine
waves signals that make that signal
– Bandwidth – the width of the frequency
spectrum
– Mathematically , B = highest frequency – lowest
frequency

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Bandwidth

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 Digital Signals
– Most digital signals are non-periodic – period and
frequency is not appropriate
– Can be described by bit interval (instead of period) and bit
rate (instead of frequency).
– Bit interval(s) - the time required to send one single bit

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Bit Rate
• Number of bits sent in 1 second
– the number of bit intervals per second
• Expressed in bits per second (bps)
• Also known as data rate, transfer rate

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Bit Rate (cont.)
• Significant Bandwidth and Medium
Bandwidth
– Frequency spectrum recreate at the receiver
with distortion is called significant spectrum
and its bandwidth is significant bandwidth
– Bit rate has a relation to significant bandwidth –
bit rate increases, significant bandwidth widens
– A transmission medium has a limited
bandwidth called medium bandwidth

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Bit Rate (cont.)
- If medium bandwidth less than required significant
bandwidth, the signal is distorted
- The maximum bit rate a transmission medium can
transfer is called channel capacity of the medium

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Bit Length
• Distance one bit occupies on the
transmission medium

Bit length = propagation speed x bit duration

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Transmission of Digital
Signals
• Sending over the channel w/o
changing digital to analog signal »
TRANSMISSION

Baseband without modulation

• Require low-pass channel » Channel
bandwidth starts from zero

• Changing digital signal to analog

signal (need modulation)
Broadband • Require bandpass channel » Channel
bandwidth DOES NOT start from zero

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TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT
Attenuation

• Loss of energy
• overcoming the resistance of the medium
• To compensate loss, amplifiers are used to amplify the signal
• Unit Decibel (dB)

Distortion

• Signal changes form @ shape

• Occur in composite signal made of different frequencies
• Has its own propagation speed – have own delay

Noise

• Unwanted signal
• May corrupt original signal

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TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT
Thermal • Random motion of electrons in a wire which creates
an extra signal not originally sent by the transmitter

Induced
• Comes from sources such as motors and appliances
• Devices – sending antenna; medium – receiving
antenna
NOISE

Crosstalk
• Effect of one wire on the other
• One wire – sending antenna; the other wire –
receiving antenna

Impulse • A spike that comes from power lines, lightning etc

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DATA RATE LIMITS
• Data rate depends on
1. The bandwidth available
2. The level of signal we use
3. The quality of the channel(level of
noise)

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 Noiseless Channel
• Also known as Nyquist Bit Rate
• Nyquist bit rate formula defines theoretical
maximum bit rate:

Bit Rate (bps) = 2 x B x log2L

B = bandwidth of the channel
L = number of signal level used to
represent data
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Noisy Channel
• Also known as Shannon Capacity
• 1944 – introduced by Claude
Shannon
• Highest data rate for noisy channel:
Capacity = B x log2 (1 + SNR)
B = bandwidth of the channel
SNR = signal to noise ratio

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PERFORMANCE
• Bandwidth
– Bandwidth in Hertz
• For analog signals
• Range of frequencies in a composite signal
@ the range of frequencies that a channel
can pass.
– Bandwidth in Bits per second
• For digital signals
• Speed of transmission in a channel @ link
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PERFORMANCE (cont.)
• Throughput
– Measure of how fast can actually send
data through a network
– Throughput is always less than
bandwidth

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PERFORMANCE (cont.)
• Latency @ Delay
– How long it takes for entire message to
completely arrive at the destination from
the time the first bit is sent out from the
source.
– Made from 4 components
• Propagation time
• Transmission time
• Queuing time
• Processing delay SIGNPOST
PERFORMANCE (cont.)
• Bandwidth-Delay Product
– Number of bits that can fill the link

• Jitter
– Different packets of data encounter
different delays and the application
using the data at the receiver site is
time-sensitive
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 REFERENCE

ITT300’s Textbook:

Behrouz. A Forouzan. (2007). Data

communications and networking. Fourth
Edition. McGraw-Hill. New York.