Edith Cowan University

School of Engineering

Data Communication and Computer

Networks

Lecture 4: Data Communications

Prepared and Presented By

Haitham Khaled

March 22, 2018

Edith Cowan University
School of Engineering

Aim of The Lecture

On completion of this lecture students should be able to:

1) Describe different transmission terminologies.

2) Differentiate between the different transmission medias
3) Differentiate between the different transmission impairments.
4) Understand the concept error detection and correction.
5) Understand the concept of data link control .
Edith Cowan University
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Week 4 : Data Communications

 What are the common transmission terminologies?

 What are the transmission medias and its types?

 What are the transmission impairments?

 How can we detect error and correct it?

Edith Cowan University
School of Engineering

Week 4 : Data Communications

Transmission

 Data transmission occurs between transmitter and receiver over some transmission medium
 Communication is in the form of electromagnetic waves, electric or light

Types of transmission media:

 Guided media: Twisted pair, coaxial cable, optical fiber

 Unguided media (wireless): Propagation through air, vacuum, and seawater
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Transmission Terminologies

 Direct link

 No intermediate devices other than amplifiers or repeaters

used to increase signal strength

 Point-to-point

 Direct link between two devices

 Are the only 2 devices sharing medium
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Transmission Terminology

 Simplex
 Signals are transmitted in only one direction
 One station is transmitter and the other is receiver

 Half duplex
 Both stations transmit, but only one at a time

 Full duplex
 Both stations may transmit simultaneously
 The medium is carrying signals in both directions
at the same time
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Transmission Terminology

 Spectrum

 Range of frequencies contained in signal

 Absolute bandwidth

 Width of spectrum

 Effective bandwidth (or just bandwidth)

 Narrow band of frequencies containing most energy

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Week 4 : Data Communications

Data Rate and Bandwidth

 Any transmission system has a limited band of

frequencies

 This limits the data rate that can be carried on the

transmission medium

 Square waves have infinite components and hence an

infinite bandwidth

 Most energy in first few components

 Limiting bandwidth creates distortions

Edith Cowan University
School of Engineering

Week 4 : Data Communications

Transmission Impairments

 What is a transmission impairment?

 A transmission impairment is a property of a transmission

medium which causes the signal to be degraded, reduced
in amplitude, distorted or contaminated.
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Transmission Impairments

 Signal received may differ from signal transmitted

causing:

 Analog - degradation of signal quality

 Digital - bit errors

 Most significant impairments

 Attenuation and attenuation distortion

 Delay distortion
 Noise
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Week 4 : Data Communications

ATTENUATION

What is attenuation?
 Attenuation is a general term that refers to any
reduction in the strength of a signal.

 Attenuation occurs with any type of signal, whether

digital or analog. Sometimes called loss.

 Attenuation is a natural consequence of signal

transmission over long distances

 Varies with frequency

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Week 4 : Data Communications

Delay Distortion

What does delay distortion mean?

 Delay distortion is a guided transmission media (twisted pair,

coaxial cable, and optical fiber) phenomenon where network data
signals are transmitted via a medium at a certain frequency and
speed. Delay distortion occurs when signal velocity and frequency
vary. This means that all signals do not arrive at the same time,
resulting in distortion of the signal

 Various frequency components arrive at different times resulting in

phase shifts between the frequencies. Particularly critical for digital
data since parts of one bit spill over into others causing inter-
symbol interference
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Noise

What is noise ?

 Unwanted signals inserted between transmitter and receiver

 Is the major limiting factor in communications system performance

Noise may be divided into four categories:

1. Thermal noise
2. Intermodulation noise
3. Cross-talk
4. Impulse noise
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Thermal noise

 This electrical or RF noise is generated as a result of thermal agitation of the

charge carriers which are typically electrons within an electrical conductor. This
thermal noise actually occurs regardless of the applied voltage because the
charge carriers vibrate as a result of the temperature

 Uniformly distributed across bandwidths

 Referred to as white noise

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Week 4 : Data Communications

Intermodulation noise

 Produced by nonlinearities in the transmitter, receiver, and/or

intervening transmission medium

 Effect is to produce signals at a frequency that is the sum or

difference of the two original frequencies

 Can be caused by component malfunction or overload from

excessive signal strength.
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Crosstalk:

 Is any phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on

one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates
an undesired effect in another circuit or channel

 Crosstalk is usually caused by undesired capacitive,

inductive, or conductive coupling from one circuit or
channel to another

 A signal from one line is picked up by another

 Can occur by electrical coupling between nearby

twisted pairs or when microwave antennas pick up
unwanted signals
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Impulse Noise:

 Is a category of (acoustic) noise which includes unwanted, almost

instantaneous (thus impulse-like) sharp sounds (like clicks and
pops). Noises of the kind are usually caused by electromagnetic
interference

 Non-continuous, consisting of irregular pulses or spikes

 Short duration and high amplitude

 Minor annoyance for analogue signals but a major source of error

in digital data
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Channel Capacity

What is channel capacity?

 Maximum rate at which data can be transmitted over a

given communications channel under given conditions

 Is the tight upper bound on the rate at which information

can be reliably sent over a communications channel.

 The channel capacity of a given channel is the highest

information rate (in units of information per unit time)
that can be achieved with arbitrarily small error
probability.
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Nyquist Bandwidth

 For binary signals, the data rate that can be supported by B Hz is 2B bps

 With multilevel signalling, the Nyquist formula becomes:

C = 2B log2M

 Data rate can be increased by increasing the number of different signal elements

 This increases burden on receiver

 Noise and other impairments limit the practical value of M

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Week 4 : Data Communications

Shannon Capacity Formula

 Considering the relation of data rate, noise and error rate

 Faster data rate shortens each bit so bursts of noise corrupts more bits

 Given noise level, higher rates mean higher errors

 Shannon developed formula relating these to signal to noise ratio (in decibels)

Capacity C = B log2(1+ SNRdb)

 Theoretical maximum capacity, and get much lower rates in practice

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Week 4 : Data Communications

What does it mean by error?

 An error occurs when a bit is altered between transmission and reception

Types of Errors

 Single bit errors

 Burst errors
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Single bit errors

 Isolated error that alters one bit but does not affect
nearby bits

 Can occur in the presence of white noise

 Easy to be detected
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Burst errors

 Contiguous sequence of B bits in which the first and last

bits and any number of intermediate bits are received in
error

 Can be caused by impulse noise or by fading in a mobile

wireless environment

 Effects of burst errors are greater at higher data rates

Edith Cowan University
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Error Detection

 Error detection is a technique that enable reliable delivery of digital data

over unreliable communication channel

 Regardless of the design, you will have errors

 The probability that a frame arrives with no bit errors decreases when the
probability of a single bit error increases

 The probability that a frame arrives with no bit errors decreases with
increasing frame length
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Week 4 : Data Communications

How can we detect an error?

 Using one of the available error detection technique during the data transmission

 Following are some examples for error detection techniques

 Parity Check
 The Internet Checksum
 Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
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Week 4 : Data Communications

Edith Cowan University
School of Engineering

Week 4 : Data Communications