Chapter 3

Data and Signals

3.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 Note

To be transmitted, data must be

transformed to electromagnetic signals.

3.2
 3-1 ANALOG AND DIGITAL

Data can be analog or digital. The term analog data refers

to information that is continuous; digital data refers to
information that has discrete states. Analog data take on
continuous values. Digital data take on discrete values.

Topics discussed in this section:

Analog and Digital Data
Analog and Digital Signals
Periodic and Nonperiodic Signals

3.3
 Note

Data can be analog or digital.

Analog data are continuous and take
continuous values.
Digital data have discrete states and
take discrete values.

3.4
 Note

Signals can be analog or digital.

Analog signals can have an infinite
number of values in a range; digital
signals can have only a limited
number of values.

3.5
 Figure 3.1 Comparison of analog and digital signals

3.6
 Note

In data communications, we commonly

use periodic analog signals and
nonperiodic digital signals.

3.7
 3-2 PERIODIC ANALOG SIGNALS

Periodic analog signals can be classified as simple or

composite. A simple periodic analog signal, a sine wave,
cannot be decomposed into simpler signals. A composite
periodic analog signal is composed of multiple sine
waves.

Topics discussed in this section:

Sine Wave
Wavelength
Time and Frequency Domain
Composite Signals
Bandwidth

3.8
 Figure 3.2 A sine wave

3.9
 Figure 3.3 Two signals with the same phase and frequency,
but different amplitudes

3.10
 Note

Frequency and period are the inverse of

each other.

3.11
 Figure 3.4 Two signals with the same amplitude and phase,
but different frequencies

3.12
 Example 3.3

The power we use at home has a frequency of 60 Hz.

The period of this sine wave can be determined as
follows:

3.13
 Example 3.5

The period of a signal is 100 ms. What is its frequency in

kilohertz?

Solution
First we change 100 ms to seconds, and then we
calculate the frequency from the period (1 Hz = 10−3
kHz).

3.14
 Note

Frequency is the rate of change with

respect to time.

Change in a short span of time

means high frequency.

Change over a long span of

time means low frequency.

3.15
 Note

If a signal does not change at all, its

frequency is zero.
If a signal changes instantaneously, its
frequency is infinite.

3.16
 Note

Phase describes the position of the

waveform relative to time 0.

3.17
 Figure 3.5 Three sine waves with the same amplitude and frequency,
but different phases

3.18
 Figure 3.6 Wavelength and period

3.19
 Time domain and frequency
domain

3.20
 Figure 3.7 The time-domain and frequency-domain plots of a sine wave

3.21
 Example 3.7

The frequency domain is more compact and

useful when we are dealing with more than one
sine wave. For example, Figure 3.8 shows three
sine waves, each with different amplitude and
frequency. All can be represented by three
spikes in the frequency domain.

3.22
 Figure 3.8 The time domain and frequency domain of three sine waves

3.23
 Note

A single-frequency sine wave is not

useful in data communications;
we need to send a composite signal, a
signal made of many simple sine waves.

3.24
 Figure 3.9 A composite periodic signal

3.25
 Figure 3.12 The bandwidth of periodic and nonperiodic composite signals

3.26
 Example 3.10

If a periodic signal is decomposed into five sine waves

with frequencies of 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900 Hz, what
is its bandwidth? Draw the spectrum, assuming all
components have a maximum amplitude of 10 V.
Solution
Let fh be the highest frequency, fl the lowest frequency,
and B the bandwidth. Then

The spectrum has only five spikes, at 100, 300, 500, 700,
and 900 Hz (see Figure 3.13).
3.27
 Figure 3.13 The bandwidth for Example 3.10

3.28
 3-3 DIGITAL SIGNALS
In addition to being represented by an analog signal,
information can also be represented by a digital signal.
For example, a 1 can be encoded as a positive voltage
and a 0 as zero voltage. A digital signal can have more
than two levels. In this case, we can send more than 1 bit
for each level.

Topics discussed in this section:

Bit Rate
Bit Length
Digital Signal as a Composite Analog Signal
Application Layer
3.29
 Figure 3.16 Two digital signals: one with two signal levels and the other
with four signal levels

3.30
 Example 3.16

A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are

needed per level? We calculate the number of bits from
the formula

Each signal level is represented by 3 bits.

3.31
 Example 3.17

A digital signal has nine levels. How many bits are

needed per level? We calculate the number of bits by
using the formula. Each signal level is represented by
3.17 bits. However, this answer is not realistic. The
number of bits sent per level needs to be an integer as
well as a power of 2. For this example, 4 bits can
represent one level.

3.32
 Example 3.18

Assume we need to download text documents at the rate

of 100 pages per second. What is the required bit rate of
the channel?
Solution
A page is an average of 24 lines with 80 characters in
each line. If we assume that one character requires 8
bits, the bit rate is

3.33
 Example 3.19

A digitized voice channel, as we will see in Chapter 4, is

made by digitizing a 4-kHz bandwidth analog voice
signal. We need to sample the signal at twice the highest
frequency (two samples per hertz). We assume that each
sample requires 8 bits. What is the required bit rate?
Solution
The bit rate can be calculated as

3.34
 3-4 TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT

Signals travel through transmission media, which are not

perfect. The imperfection causes signal impairment. This
means that the signal at the beginning of the medium is
not the same as the signal at the end of the medium.
What is sent is not what is received. Three causes of
impairment are attenuation, distortion, and noise.

Topics discussed in this section:

Attenuation
Distortion
Noise

3.35
 Figure 3.25 Causes of impairment

3.36
 Figure 3.26 Attenuation

3.37
 Example 3.26

Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium

and its power is reduced to one-half. This means that P2
is (1/2)P1. In this case, the attenuation (loss of power)
can be calculated as

A loss of 3 dB (–3 dB) is equivalent to losing one-half the

power.
3.38
 Example 3.28

One reason that engineers use the decibel to measure the

changes in the strength of a signal is that decibel
numbers can be added (or subtracted) when we are
measuring several points (cascading) instead of just two.
In Figure 3.27 a signal travels from point 1 to point 4. In
this case, the decibel value can be calculated as

3.39
 Example 3.27

A signal travels through an amplifier, and its power is

increased 10 times. This means that P2 = 10P1 . In this
case, the amplification (gain of power) can be calculated
as

3.40
 Figure 3.27 Decibels for Example 3.28

3.41
 Figure 3.28 Distortion

3.42
 Figure 3.29 Noise

3.43
 Example 3.31

The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the

noise is 1 μW; what are the values of SNR and SNRdB ?

Solution
The values of SNR and SNRdB can be calculated as
follows:

3.44
 Example 3.32

The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel

are

We can never achieve this ratio in real life; it is an ideal.

3.45
 Figure 3.30 Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and a low SNR

3.46
 3-5 DATA RATE LIMITS

A very important consideration in data communications

is how fast we can send data, in bits per second, over a
channel. Data rate depends on three factors:
1. The bandwidth available
2. The level of the signals we use
3. The quality of the channel (the level of noise)

Topics discussed in this section:

Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
Using Both Limits

3.47
 Note

Increasing the levels of a signal may

reduce the reliability of the system.

3.48
 Example 3.34

Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000

Hz transmitting a signal with two signal levels. The
maximum bit rate can be calculated as

3.49
 Example 3.35

Consider the same noiseless channel transmitting a

signal with four signal levels (for each level, we send 2
bits). The maximum bit rate can be calculated as

3.50
 Example 3.36

We need to send 265 kbps over a noiseless channel with

a bandwidth of 20 kHz. How many signal levels do we
need?
Solution
We can use the Nyquist formula as shown:

Since this result is not a power of 2, we need to either

increase the number of levels or reduce the bit rate. If we
have 128 levels, the bit rate is 280 kbps. If we have 64
levels, the bit rate is 240 kbps.
3.51
 Example 3.37

Consider an extremely noisy channel in which the value

of the signal-to-noise ratio is almost zero. In other
words, the noise is so strong that the signal is faint. For
this channel the capacity C is calculated as

This means that the capacity of this channel is zero

regardless of the bandwidth. In other words, we cannot
receive any data through this channel.

3.52
 Example 3.38

We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a

regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has a
bandwidth of 3000. The signal-to-noise ratio is usually
3162. For this channel the capacity is calculated as

This means that the highest bit rate for a telephone line
is 34.860 kbps. If we want to send data faster than this,
we can either increase the bandwidth of the line or
improve the signal-to-noise ratio.
3.53
 Example 3.39

The signal-to-noise ratio is often given in decibels.

Assume that SNRdB = 36 and the channel bandwidth is 2
MHz. The theoretical channel capacity can be calculated
as

3.54
 Example 3.40

For practical purposes, when the SNR is very high, we

can assume that SNR + 1 is almost the same as SNR. In
these cases, the theoretical channel capacity can be
simplified to

For example, we can calculate the theoretical capacity of

the previous example as

3.55
 Example 3.41

We have a channel with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The SNR

for this channel is 63. What are the appropriate bit rate
and signal level?

Solution
First, we use the Shannon formula to find the upper
limit.

3.56
 Example 3.41 (continued)

The Shannon formula gives us 6 Mbps, the upper limit.

For better performance we choose something lower, 4
Mbps, for example. Then we use the Nyquist formula to
find the number of signal levels.

3.57
 Note

The Shannon capacity gives us the

upper limit; the Nyquist formula tells us
how many signal levels we need.

3.58
 3-6 PERFORMANCE

One important issue in networking is the performance of

the network—how good is it? We discuss quality of
service, an overall measurement of network performance,
in greater detail in Chapter 24. In this section, we
introduce terms that we need for future chapters.

Topics discussed in this section:

Bandwidth
Throughput
Latency (Delay)

3.59
 Note
In networking, we use the term
bandwidth in two contexts.
❏ The first, bandwidth in hertz, refers to
the range of frequencies in a
composite signal or the range of
frequencies that a channel can pass.
❏ The second, bandwidth in bits per
second, refers to the speed of bit
transmission in a channel or link.

3.60
 Example 3.42

The bandwidth of a subscriber line is 4 kHz for voice or

data. The bandwidth of this line for data transmission
can be up to 56,000 bps using a sophisticated modem to
change the digital signal to analog.

3.61
 Example 3.44

A network with bandwidth of 10 Mbps can pass only an

average of 12,000 frames per minute with each frame
carrying an average of 10,000 bits. What is the
throughput of this network?

Solution
We can calculate the throughput as

The throughput is almost one-fifth of the bandwidth in

this case.
3.62
 Example 3.46

What are the propagation time and the transmission time

for a 2.5-kbyte message (an e-mail) if the bandwidth of
the network is 1 Gbps? Assume that the distance between
the sender and the receiver is 12,000 km and that light
travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.

Total delay = Transmission delay + Queueing delay +

Processing delay + Propagation delay
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time
as shown on the next slide:

3.63
 Example 3.46 (continued)

Note that in this case, because the message is short and

the bandwidth is high, the dominant factor is the
propagation time, not the transmission time. The
transmission time can be ignored.

3.64