Subject Subject Code Module 1

Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

DATA AND SIGNALS

Analog and Digital Data
 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. For example, an analog clock that has hour, minute,
and second hands gives information in a continuous form; the movements of the hands
are continuous. On the other hand, a digital clock that reports the hours and the minutes
will change suddenly from 8:05 to 8:06.
 Analog data, such as the sounds made by a human voice, take on continuous values.
When someone speaks, an analog wave is created in the air. This can be captured by a
microphone and converted to an analog signal or sampled and converted to a digital
signal.
 Digital data take on discrete values. For example, data are stored in computer memory in
the form of 0s and 1s. They can be converted to a digital signal or modulated into an
analog signal for transmission across a medium.

Analog and Digital Signals

 An analog signal has infinitely many levels of intensity over a period of time. As the
wave moves from value A to value B, it passes through and includes an infinite number
of values along its path.
 A digital signal, on the other hand, can have only a limited number of defined values.
Although each value can be any number, it is often as simple as 1 and 0. The simplest
way to show signals is by plotting them on a pair of perpendicular axes.
 The vertical axis represents the value or strength of a signal. The horizontal axis
represents time.
 Figure 1.21 illustrates an analog signal and a digital signal. The curve representing the
analog signal passes through an infinite number of points. The vertical lines of the digital
signal, however, demonstrate the sudden jump that the signal makes from value to value.

Figure 1.21 Comparison of analog and digital signals

Periodic and Nonperiodic

 Both analog and digital signals can take one of two forms: periodic or nonperiodic.
 A periodic signal completes a pattern within a measurable time frame, called a period,
and repeats that pattern over subsequent identical periods. The completion of one full
pattern is called a cycle.
 A nonperiodic signal changes without exhibiting a pattern or cycle that repeats over
time.

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

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 (figure 1.23).

Figure 1.23 Causes of impairment

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

1. Attenuation
 Attenuation means a loss of energy.
 When a signal, simple or composite, travels through a medium, it loses some of its energy
in overcoming the resistance of the medium.
 That is why a wire carrying electric signals gets warm, if not hot, after a while. Some of
the electrical energy in the signal is converted to heat.
 To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are used to amplify the signal.
 Figure 1.24 shows the effect of attenuation and amplification.

Figure 1.24 Attenuation

Decibel
 The decibel (dB) measures the relative strengths of two signals or one signal at two
different points.
 Note that the decibel is negative if a signal is attenuated and positive if a signal is
amplified.

 Variables P1 and P2 are the powers of a signal at points 1 and 2, respectively.

 Note that some engineering books define the decibel in terms of voltage instead of power.
 In this case, because power is proportional to the square of the voltage, the formula is dB
= 20 * log10 (V2/V1). In this text, we express dB in terms of power.

Example 5
Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium and its power is reduced to one-half.
Calculate the attenuation?
Solution:

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

Example 5
A signal travels through an amplifier, and its power is increased 10 times. This means that P2
=10P1. Calculate attenuation?
Solution:

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

Example 6
The loss in a cable is usually defined in decibels per kilometer (dB/km). If the signal at the beginning of a cable wi
Solution:
The loss in the cable in decibels is 5 * (-0.3) = -1.5 dB. We can calculate the power as

2. Distortion
 Distortion means that the signal changes its form or shape.
 Distortion can occur in a composite signal made of different frequencies.
 Each signal component has its own propagation speed through a medium and, therefore,
its own delay in arriving at the final destination.
 Differences in delay may create a difference in phase if the delay is not exactly the same
as the period duration.

Figure 1.25 Distortion

3. Noise
 Noise is another cause of impairment.
 Several types of noise, such as thermal noise, induced noise, crosstalk, and impulse noise,
may corrupt the signal.
 Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire, which creates an extra signal
not originally sent by the transmitter.
 Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances. These devices act as a
sending antenna, and the transmission medium acts as the receiving antenna.
 Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other. One wire acts as a sending antenna and
the other as the receiving antenna.

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

 Impulse noise is a spike (a signal with high energy in a very short time) that comes from
power lines, lightning, and so on.

Figure 1.26 Noise

Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)
 As we will see later, to find the theoretical bit rate limit, we need to know the ratio of the
signal power to the noise power.
 The signal-to-noise ratio is defined as

 Figure 1.27 shows the idea of SNR.

Figure 1.27 Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and a low SNR

 Because SNR is the ratio of two powers, it is often described in decibel units, SNRdB,
defined as

SNRdB = 10 log10 SNR

Example 7
The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the noise is 1 W; what are the values of

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to 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: one by Nyquist for a noiseless
channel, another by Shannon for a noisy channel.

1. Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate

 For a noiseless channel, the Nyquist bit rate formula defines the theoretical maximum bit
rate

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 Subject Subject Code Module 1
Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

BitRate = 2 * bandwidth 3 log2L

 Where bandwidth is the bandwidth of the channel, L is the number of signal levels used
to represent data, and BitRate is the bit rate in bits per second.

Example 11
2.Consider
Noisy Channel:
a noiselessShannon Capacity
channel with a bandwidth of 3000 Hz transmitting a signal with two
 levels.
signal We cannot
Whathave a noiseless
is maximum bitchannel;
rate? the channel is always noisy. Shannon capacity is
used, to determine the theoretical highest data rate for a noisy channel:
Solution:
BitRate = 2 * 3000 * log22 = 6000 bps
Capacity = bandwidth * log2(1 + SNR)
Example 12
Consider the same noiseless channel transmitting a signal with four signal levels (for each
 Where bandwidth is the bandwidth of the channel, SNR is the signal-to-noise ratio, and
level, we send 2 bits). What is maximum bit rate?
capacity is the capacity of the channel in bits per second.
Solution:
BitRate = 2 * 3000 * log24 = 12,000 bps

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Example 13.
What is the theoretical capacity of a channel in each of the following cases?
Bandwidth: 20 KHzSNRdB = 40
Bandwidth: 200 KHzSNRdB = 4
Bandwidth: 1 MHzSNRdB = 20
Solution:
(Practice Question)

PERFORMANCE
One important issue in networking is the performance of the network—how good is it? Following
metrics are used to know the performance of the network.
1. Bandwidth
 One characteristic that measures network performance is bandwidth. However, the term
can be used in two different contexts with two different measuring values: bandwidth in
hertz and bandwidth in bits per second.
 Higher the bandwidth betters the performance of the network.
2. Throughput
 The throughput is a measure of how fast we can actually send data through a network.
 A link may have a bandwidth of B bps, but we can only send T bps through this link with
T always less than B.
 For example, we may have a link with a bandwidth of 1 Mbps, but the devices connected
to the end of the link may handle only 200 kbps. This means that we cannot send more
than 200 kbps through this link.

Example 14
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

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3. 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.

Latency = propagation time + transmission time + queuing time + processing delay

Propagation Time
 Propagation time measures the time required for a bit to travel from the source to the
destination. The propagation time is calculated by dividing the distance by the
propagation speed.

Propagation time = Distance / (Propagation Speed)

Example 15
Transmission Time
What is the propagation time if the distance between the two points is 12,000 km? Assume
 In data communications we don’t send just 1 bit, we send a message.
the propagation speed to be 2.4 × 108 m/s in cable.
 The first bit may take a time equal to the propagation time to reach its destination; the last
Solution
We canbit also may
calculate thetake the same time
propagation amount
as of time.
 However,Propagation
there is a time between
time the first
= (12,000 bit leaving
* 10,000) / (2.4the
* 2sender
8
) = 50and
ms the last bit arriving at
the receiver.
 The first bit leaves earlier and arrives earlier; the last bit leaves later and arrives later.
 The transmission time of a message depends on the size of the message and the
bandwidth of the channel.

Transmission time = (Message size) / Bandwidth

Example 16
Queuing Time
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a 2.5-KB (kilobyte) message (an
 The third component in latency is the queuing time, the time needed for each
email) if the bandwidth of the network is 1 Gbps? Assume that the distance between the sender
intermediate or end device to hold the message before it can be processed.
and the receiver is 12,000 km and that light travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.
 The queuing time is not a fixed factor; it changes with the load imposed on the network.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time as
Propagation time = (12,000 * 1000) / (2.4 * 108) = 50 ms
Transmission time = (2500 * 8) / 109 = 0.020 ms

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4. Bandwidth-Delay Product
 Bandwidth and delay are two performance metrics of a link.

Figure 1.28 Filling the link with bits for case 1

 Let us assume that we have a link with a bandwidth of 1 bps.

 We also assume that the delay of the link is 5 s.
 We want to see what the bandwidth-delay product means in this case.
 Looking at the figure, we can say that this product 1 × 5 is the maximum number of bits
that can fill the link.
 There can be no more than 5 bits at any time on the link.

Example 17
Jitter
5.How many bits can fit on a link with a 2 ms delay if the bandwidth of the link is
a. 1 Mbps? b. 10 Mbps? c. 100 Mbps?
 Jitter is the variation in the packet arrival rate.
Solution:
 We can
a. Number roughly
of Bits say *that
= delay jitter s a problem
bandwidth = 2 * 10-3if*different
1 * 106 =packets
2 * 103of= data
2000encounter
bits different
b. and delays and the
c. (Practice application using the data at the receiver site is time-sensitive (audio and
questions)
video data, for example).
 If the delay for the first packet is 20 ms, for the second is 45 ms, and for the third is 40
ms, then the real-time application that uses the packets endures jitter.

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication

DIGITAL-TO-DIGITAL CONVERSION
 Digital data to digital signals conversion involves three techniques: line coding, block
coding, and scrambling.
 Line coding is always needed; block coding and scrambling may or may not be needed.

1. Line Coding
 Line coding is the process of converting digital data to digital signals.
 Line coding converts a sequence of bits to a digital signal. At the sender, digital data are
encoded into a digital signal; at the receiver, the digital data are recreated by decoding the
digital signal.
 Figure 1.29 shows the process.

Figure 1.29 Line coding and decoding

Line Coding Schemes

 We can roughly divide line coding schemes into five broad categories, as shown in Figure
1.30. There are several schemes in each category.

Figure 1.30 Line coding schemes

POLAR SCHMES
 In polar schemes, the voltages are on both sides of the time axis. For example, the
voltage level for 0 can be positive and the voltage level for 1 can be negative.

NRZ-L (NRZ-Level) and NRZ-I (NRZ-Invert)

 In polar NRZ encoding, we use two levels of voltage amplitude. We can have two

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Data Communication 15CS46 Introduction to Data Communication
versions of polar NRZ: NRZ-L and NRZ-I, as shown in Figure 1.32.
 In the first variation, NRZ-L (NRZ-Level), the level of the voltage determines the value
of the bit.
 In the second variation, NRZ-I (NRZ-Invert), the change or lack of change in the level of
the voltage determines the value of the bit. If there is no change, the bit is 0; if there is a
change, the bit is 1.

Figure 1.32 Polar NRZ-L and NRZ-I schemes

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Advantages
The advantages of Polar NRZ are −
 It is simple.
 A lesser bandwidth is required, B=N/2, where N is data rate.

Disadvantages
The disadvantages of Polar NRZ are −
 No error correction.
 No clock is present leads to no self synchronization.
 Suffers from DC components.

Polar RZ scheme
 The main problem with NRZ encoding occurs when the sender and receiver clocks are
not synchronized.
 The receiver does not know when one bit has ended and the next bit is starting. One
solution is the return-to-zero (RZ) scheme, which uses three values: positive, negative,
and zero.
 In RZ, the signal changes not between bits but during the bit.
 In Figure 1.33 we see that the signal goes to 0 in the middle of each bit. It remains there
until the beginning of the next bit.

Figure 1.33 Polar RZ scheme

Advantages
The advantages of Polar RZ are −
 It is simple.

Disadvantages
The disadvantages of Polar RZ are −
 High bandwidth is required, B=N, where N is data rate.
 No error correction.
 No clock is present leads to no self synchronization.
 Suffers from DC components.

Biphase: Manchester and Differential Manchester

 In Manchester encoding, the duration of the bit is divided into two halves. The voltage
remains at one level during the first half and moves to the other level in the second half.
The transition at the middle of the bit provides synchronization.

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 Differential Manchester, on the other hand, combines the ideas of RZ and NRZ-I.
There is always a transition at the middle of the bit, but the bit values are determined at
the beginning of the bit. If the next bit is 0, there is a transition; if the next bit is 1, there is
none.
 Figure 1.34 shows both Manchester and differential Manchester encoding.

Figure 1.34 Polar biphase: Manchester and differential Manchester schemes

Advantages
The advantages of Biphase are −
 It is simple.
 Self synchronization.
 No DC components.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of Polar RZ are −
 High bandwidth is required, B=N, where N is data rate.
 No error correction.

BIPOLAR SCHMES
 In bipolar encoding (sometimes called multilevel binary), there are three voltage levels:
positive, negative, and zero. The voltage level for one data element is at zero, while the
voltage level for the other element alternates between positive and negative.

AMI and Pseudoternary

 Figure 1.35 shows two variations of bipolar encoding: AMI and pseudoternary. A
common bipolar encoding scheme is called bipolar alternate mark inversion (AMI).

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 AMI means alternate 1 inversion. A neutral zero voltage represents binary 0. Binary 1s
are represented by alternating positive and negative voltages.
 A variation of AMI encoding is called pseudoternary in which the 1 bit is encoded as a
zero voltage and the 0 bit is encoded as alternating positive and negative voltages.

Figure 1.35 Bipolar schemes: AMI and pseudoternary

Advantages
Following are the advantages −
 It is simple.
 Occupies low bandwidth, B=N, where N is data rate.
 A single error detection capability is present in this.
Disadvantages
Following are the disadvantages −
 High bandwidth is required, B=N, where N is data rate.
 No clock is present leads to no self synchronization.
 Suffers from DC components.

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