DATA COMMUNICATION

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)

Two theoretical formulas were developed to calculate the data rate:

• Nyquist for a noiseless channel

• Shannon for a noisy channel
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
 Maximum rate at which data can be transmitted over a given
communications channel under given conditions

Bandwidth
Error rate
The bandwidth
of the
Data rate The rate at
transmitted Noise which errors
signal as
occur, where The greater The main
constrained by
The rate, in an error is the the bandwidth constraint on
the The average
bits per reception of a of a facility, achieving
transmitter level of noise
second (bps) 1 when a 0 the greater the efficiency is
and the nature over the
at which data was cost noise
of the communication
can be transmitted or
transmission s path
communicated the reception
medium,
of a 0 when a 1
expressed in
was
cycles per
transmitted
second, or
hertz
 Increasing the levels of a signal increases the
probability of an error occurring, in other words it
reduces the reliability of the system. Why??
CAPACITY OF A SYSTEM
 The bit rate of a system increases with an increase in
the number of signal levels we use to denote a
symbol.

 A symbol can consist of a single bit or “n” bits.

 The number of signal levels = 2n.

 As the number of levels goes up, the spacing between

level decreases -> increasing the probability of an
error occurring in the presence of transmission
impairments.
 Relationship between transmission speed, bandwidth
and number of levels

Nyquist theorem

 Vtx = bit rate

 BW = Bandwidth
 L = number of signal levels used to represent data
 EXAMPLE
 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

EXAMPLE
 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

 NYQUIST THEOREM - (NOISELESS
CHANNEL)
 Nyquist gives the upper bound for the bit rate of a
transmission system by calculating the bit rate directly from the
number of bits in a symbol (or signal levels) and the bandwidth
of the system.

 Nyquist theorem states that for a noiseless channel:

C = 2 B log22n
C= capacity in bps
B = bandwidth in Hz
2n = L = Signal Levels
EXAMPLE
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.
SHANNON CAPACITY
 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)
 SNR 10 log10 (signal/noise)
=
db

 Capacity C = B log (1+SNR)

2
 Theoretical maximum capacity
 Get much lower rates in practice
SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO
(SNR)
 Noise – Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

• Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) is used to find the theoretical bit rate limit
of a signal
EXAMPLE
 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

IMPORTANT:

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.
 SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO
• SNR is the statistical ratio of power of the signal to the power of the
noise

• In decibels it can be expressed as follows:

1. To measure the quality of a system the SNR is often used.

2. It indicates the strength of the signal wrt the noise power in the system.
3. It is the ratio between two powers.
4. It is usually given in dB and referred to as SNRdB
EXAMPLE
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:
EXAMPLE (2)
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel are

Solution:

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

C = B log2(1 + SNR)
EXAMPLE
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.
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.

3.15
Noise – Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)

Which one is more

corrupted?
SUMMARY
 looked at data transmission issues
 frequency, spectrum & bandwidth
 analog vs digital signals
 transmission impairments
PERFORMANCE PARAMETER
One important issue in networking is the performance of the network—
how good is it?

Bandwidth

Throughput

Latency (Delay)
 BANDWIDTH

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.
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.

If the telephone company improves the quality of the line and

increases the bandwidth to 8 kHz, we can send 112,000 bps by
using the same technology.

bandwidth measures the amount of data transferred

per second whereas the frequency measure the number
of oscillation of the data signal per second.
THROUGHPUT
The throughput is the measurement of how fast data can
pass through a network in one second.

Throughput is calculated as follows:

EXAMPLE
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 almostone-

fifth of the bandwidth
in this case.
LATENCY (DELAY)
The latency or delay defines how long it takes for an entire
message to completely arrive at the destination from the time
the first bit is sent out from the source. We can say that latency
is made of four components: propagation time, transmission
time, queuing time and processing delay.
PROPAGATION TIME AND
TRANSMISSION TIME
Propagation time measures the time required for a signal (or a
bit) to travel from one point of the transmission medium to
another.
Propagation time is calculated as follows:

Transmission time measures the time required for a signal

to be transmitted from the sending device to the medium.
Transmission time is calculated as follows:
EXAMPLE (1)
What is the propagation time if the distance between the
two points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed to
be 2.4×10^8 m/s in cable.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation time as

The example shows that a bit can go over the Atlantic Ocean in
only 50 ms if there is a direct cable between the source and the
destination.
EXAMPLE (2)
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a
2.5kbyte 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 2.4×10^8 m/s
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time as follows:

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.
EXAMPLE (3)
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a 5-
Mbyte message (an image) if the bandwidth of the network is 1
Mbps? Assume that the distance between the sender and the
receiver is 12,000 km and that light travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time as follows:

Note that in this case, because the message is very long and the bandwidth
is not very high, the dominant factor is the transmission time, not the
propagation time. The propagation time can be ignored.