9/13/2022

Data Communications
03 – Data Transmission

Transmission Terminology
• data transmission occurs between a
transmitter & receiver via some medium
• guided medium
– eg. twisted pair, coaxial cable, optical fiber
• unguided / wireless medium
– eg. air, water, vacuum

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Transmission Terminology
• direct link
– no intermediate devices
• point-to-point
– direct link
– only 2 devices share link
• multi-point
– more than two devices share the link

Transmission Terminology
• simplex
– one direction
• eg. television
• half duplex
– either direction, but only one way at a time
• eg. police radio
• full duplex
– both directions at the same time
• eg. telephone

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Frequency, Spectrum and Bandwidth

• time domain concepts
– analog signal
• various in a smooth way over time
– digital signal
• maintains a constant level then changes to another
constant level
– periodic signal
• pattern repeated over time
– aperiodic signal
• pattern not repeated over time

Analogue & Digital Signals

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Periodic
Signals

Sine Wave
• peak amplitude (A)
– maximum strength of signal
– 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

s(t) = A sin(2ft +)

Wavelength ()
• is distance occupied by one cycle
• between two points of corresponding phase in
two consecutive cycles
• assuming signal velocity v have  = vT
• or equivalently f = v
 especially when v=c
 c = 3*108 ms-1 (speed of light in free space)

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Frequency Domain Concepts

• signal are made up of many frequencies
• components are sine waves
• Fourier analysis can shown that any signal is
made up of component sine waves
• can plot frequency domain functions

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Addition of
Frequency
Components
(T=1/f)

• c is sum of f & 3f

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Frequency
Domain
Representations

• freq domain func of Fig

3.4c
• freq domain func of
single square pulse

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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 energy
• DC Component
– component of zero frequency

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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
• square have infinite components and hence
bandwidth
• but most energy in first few components
• limited bandwidth increases distortion
• have a direct relationship between data rate &
bandwidth

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Analog and Digital Data

Transmission

• data
– entities that convey meaning
• signals & signalling
– electric or electromagnetic representations of
data, physically propagates along medium
• transmission
– communication of data by propagation and
processing of signals
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Acoustic Spectrum (Analog)

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Audio Signals
• freq range 20Hz-20kHz (speech 100Hz-7kHz)
• easily converted into electromagnetic signals
• varying volume converted to varying voltage
• can limit frequency range for voice channel to 300-
3400Hz

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Video Signals
• USA - 483 lines per frame, at frames per sec
– have 525 lines but 42 lost during vertical retrace
• 525 lines x 30 scans = 15750 lines per sec
– 63.5s per line
– 11s for retrace, so 52.5 s per video line
• max frequency if line alternates black and white
• horizontal resolution is about 450 lines giving 225
cycles of wave in 52.5 s
• max frequency of 4.2MHz

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Digital Data
• as generated by computers etc.
• has two dc components
• bandwidth depends on data rate

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Analog Signals

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Digital Signals

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Advantages & Disadvantages

of Digital Signals
• cheaper
• less susceptible to noise
• but greater attenuation
• digital now preferred choice

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Transmission Impairments
• signal received may differ from signal
transmitted causing:
– analog - degradation of signal quality
– digital - bit errors
• most significant impairments are
– attenuation and attenuation distortion
– delay distortion
– noise

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Attenuation
• where signal strength falls off with distance
• depends on medium
• received signal strength must be:
– strong enough to be detected
– sufficiently higher than noise to receive without error
• so increase strength using amplifiers/repeaters
• is also an increasing function of frequency
• so equalize attenuation across band of frequencies
used
– eg. using loading coils or amplifiers

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Delay Distortion
• only occurs in guided media
• propagation velocity varies with frequency
• hence various frequency components arrive at
different times
• particularly critical for digital data
• since parts of one bit spill over into others
• causing intersymbol interference

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Noise
• 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
• crosstalk
– a signal from one line is picked up by another
• impulse
– irregular pulses or spikes
• eg. external electromagnetic interference
– short duration
– high amplitude
– a minor annoyance for analog signals
– but a major source of error in digital data
• a noise spike could corrupt many bits
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Channel Capacity
• max possible data rate on comms channel
• is a function of
– data rate - in bits per second
– bandwidth - in cycles per second or Hertz
– noise - on comms link
– error rate - of corrupted bits
• limitations due to physical properties
• want most efficient use of capacity
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Nyquist Bandwidth
• consider noise free channels
• if rate of signal transmission is 2B then can carry
signal with frequencies no greater than B
– ie. given bandwidth B, highest signal rate is 2B
• for binary signals, 2B bps needs bandwidth B Hz
• can increase rate by using M signal levels
• Nyquist Formula is: C = 2B log2M
• so increase rate by increasing signals
– at cost of receiver complexity
– limited by noise & other impairments
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Shannon Capacity Formula

• consider relation of data rate, noise & error rate
– faster data rate shortens each bit so bursts of noise affects
more bits
– given noise level, higher rates means higher errors
• Shannon developed formula relating these to signal
to noise ratio (in decibels)
• SNRdb=10 log10 (signal/noise)
• Capacity C=B log2(1+SNR)
– theoretical maximum capacity
– get lower in practise
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Summary
• looked at data transmission issues
• frequency, spectrum & bandwidth
• analog vs digital signals
• transmission impairments

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