Chapter3

Introduction
To
Physical
Layer
Copyright The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.

Chapter 3: Outline
3.1DATA AND SIGNALS
3.2PERIODIC ANALOG SIGNALS
3.3DIGITAL SIGNALS
3.4TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT
3.5DATA RATE LIMITS
3.6PERFORMANCE

31DATAANDSIGNALS
PHY layer deals with
conversion of data in the
form of EM signals over
Txmn Medium

3.3

Figure 3.1: Communication at the

3.1.1 Analog and Digital Data

Data can be analog or digital.
Analog data : information that is continuous;
An analog clock that has hour, minute, and second hands
gives information in a continuous form; the movements of
the hands are continuous.
Digital data refers to information that has discrete states.
A digital clock that reports the hours and the minutes will
change suddenly from 8:05 to 8:06.

3.4

3.1.2 Analog and Digital Signals

Like the data they represent, signals can be either analog or
digital.
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.
3.5

Figure 3.2: Comparison of analog and digital signals

3.6

3.1.3 Periodic and 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.

3.7

32PERIODICANALOGSIGNALS
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.
3.8

3.2.1 Sine Wave

The sine wave is the most fundamental form of a
periodic analog signal. When we visualize it as a
simple oscillating curve, its change over the course
of a cycle is smooth and consistent, a continuous,
rolling flow. Figure 3.3 shows a sine wave.
Each cycle consists of a single arc above the time
axis followed by a single arc below it.

3.9

Peak Amplitude, Period, Frequency

Peak Amplitude: absolute value of the highest intensity

Period: amount of time a signal needs to complete 1 cycle
Frequency: number of periods in 1s.

3.10

Figure 3.3: A sine wave

Value

Time

3.11

Figure 3.4: Two signals with two different amplitudes

Peak
amplitude

Peak
amplitude

3.12

Example 3.1
The power in our houses can be represented by a sine wave
with a peak amplitude of 155 to 170 V. However, it is
common knowledge that the voltage of the power in U.S.
homes is 110 to 120 V. This discrepancy is due to the fact
that these are root mean square (rms) values. The signal is
squared and then the average amplitude is calculated. The
peak value is equal to 21/2 rms value.

3.13

Figure 3.5: Two signals with the same phase and

amplitudes, but
different frequency

3.14

Table 3.1: Units of period and frequency

3.15

Example 3.3
The power we use at home has a frequency of 60 Hz (50 Hz
in Europe). The period of this sine wave can be determined
as follows:

This means that the period of the power for our lights at
home is 0.0116 s, or 16.6 ms. Our eyes are not sensitive
enough to distinguish these rapid changes in amplitude.

3.16

Example 3.4
Express a period of 100 ms in microseconds.

Solution
Step1: (Table 3.1) Find the equivalents of:
1 ms (1 ms is 103 s)
1 s (1 s is 106 s).
Step 2: We make the following substitutions:

3.17

Example 3.5
The period of a signal is 100 ms. What is its frequency in
kilohertz?.
Solution
First change 100 ms to seconds, and then we calculate the
frequency from the period (1 Hz = 103 kHz).

3.18

3.2.2 Phase
Phase or phase shift: position of the waveform relative to
time 0.
If we think of the wave as something that can be shifted
backward or forward along the time axis, phase describes the
amount of that shift. It indicates the status of the first cycle.

3.19

Figure 3.6: Three sine waves with different phases

3.20

Example 3.6
A sine wave is offset 1/6 cycle with respect to time 0. What
is its phase in degrees and radians?
Solution
We know that 1 complete cycle is 360. Therefore, 1/6 cycle
is

3.21

3.2.3 Wavelength

3.22

3.2.4 Time and Frequency Domains

A sine wave is comprehensively defined by its
amplitude, frequency, and phase. We have been
showing a sine wave by using what is called a time
domain plot. The time-domain plot shows changes
in signal amplitude with respect to time (it is an
amplitude-versus-time plot).

3.23

Figure 3.8: The time-domain and frequency-domain plots of

a sine wave

3.24

Example 3.7
The frequency domain is more compact and useful when we
are dealing with more than one sine wave. For example,
Figure 3.9 shows three sine waves, each with different
amplitude and frequency. All can be represented by three
spikes in the frequency domain.

3.25

Figure 3.9: The time domain and frequency domain of

three sine waves

3.26

3.2.5 Composite Signals

In early 1900s, Fourier showed that any composite
signal is a combination of simple sine waves with
different frequencies, amplitudes, and phases.
Composite signal may be periodic or aperiodic.
Periodic: Decomposition gives a series of signals
(simple sine waves) with discrete frequencies
(integer values)
Aperiodic: Decomposition gives a series of signals
(simple sine waves) with continuous frequencies.

3.27

Figure 3.10: A composite periodic signal

3.28

Figure 3.11: Decomposition of a composite periodic

signal
Amplitude

Time

Amplitude

3f

9f

b. Frequency-domain decomposition of the composite signal

3.29

Frequency

Figure 3.12: Time and frequency domain of a nonperiodic signal

3.30

3.2.6 Bandwidth
The range of frequencies contained in a
composite signal is its bandwidth.
Bandwidth is normally a difference between two
numbers. For example, if a composite signal
contains frequencies between 1000 and 5000, its
bandwidth is 5000 1000, or 4000.

3.31

Figure 3.13: The bandwidth of periodic and nonperiodic

composite
signals

3.32

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

3.33

Figure 3.14: The bandwidth for example 3.10

3.34

Example 3.11
A periodic signal has a bandwidth of 20 Hz. The highest
frequency is 60 Hz. What is the lowest frequency? Draw the
spectrum if the signal contains all frequencies of the same
amplitude.
Solution
Let fh be the highest frequency, fl the lowest frequency, and
B the bandwidth. Then

The spectrum contains all integer frequencies. We show this

by a series of spikes (see Figure 3.15).

3.35

Figure 3.15: The bandwidth for example 3.11

3.36

Example 3.12
A nonperiodic composite signal has a bandwidth of 200
kHz, with a middle frequency of 140 kHz and peak
amplitude of 20 V. The two extreme frequencies have an
amplitude of 0. Draw the frequency domain of the signal.

Solution
The lowest frequency must be at 40 kHz and the highest at
240 kHz. Figure 3.16 shows the frequency domain and the
bandwidth.

3.37

Figure 3.16: The bandwidth for example 3.12

3.38

Example 3.13, 3.14

An example of a nonperiodic composite signal is the signal
propagated by an AM radio station. In the United States,
each AM radio station is assigned a 10-kHz bandwidth. The
total bandwidth dedicated to AM radio ranges from 530 to
1700 kHz.
Another example of a nonperiodic composite signal is the
signal propagated by an FM radio station. In the United
States, each FM radio station is assigned a 200-kHz
bandwidth. The total bandwidth dedicated to FM radio
ranges from 88 to 108 MHz. We will show the rationale
behind this 200-kHz bandwidth in Chapter 5.
3.39

Example 3.15
Another example of a nonperiodic composite signal is the
signal received by an old-fashioned analog black-and-white
TV. A TV screen is made up of pixels (picture elements)
with each pixel being either white or black. The screen is
scanned 30 times per second. If we assume a resolution of
525 700 (525 vertical lines and 700 horizontal lines),
which is a ratio of 3:4, we have 367,500 pixels per screen. If
we scan the screen 30 times per second, this is 367,500 30
= 11,025,000 pixels per second. The worst-case scenario is
alternating black and white pixels. In this case, we need to
represent one color by the minimum amplitude and the other
color by the maximum amplitude. We can send 2 pixels per
cycle.
3.40

Example 3.15 (continued)

Therefore, we need 11,025,000 / 2 = 5,512,500 cycles per
second, or Hz. The bandwidth needed is 5.5124 MHz.
This worst-case scenario has such a low probability of
occurrence that the assumption is that we need only 70
percent of this bandwidth, which is 3.85 MHz.
Since audio and synchronization signals are also needed, a
4-MHz bandwidth has been set aside for each black and
white TV channel.
An analog color TV channel has a 6-MHz bandwidth.

3.41

33DIGITALSIGNALS
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.
Figure 3.17 shows two signals, one with
two levels and the other with four.
3.42

Example 3.16
A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are needed
per level? We calculate the number of bits from the
following formula. Each signal level is represented by 3 bits.

3.43

Figure 3.17: Two digital signals: one with two signal levels
and the
other with four signal levels

3.44

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.

3.45

3.3.1 Bit Rate

Most digital signals are nonperiodic, and thus
period and frequency are not appropriate
characteristics. Another termbit rate (instead of
frequency)is used to describe digital signals.
The bit rate is the number of bits sent in 1s,
expressed in bits per second (bps).
Figure 3.17 shows the bit rate for two signals.

3.46

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

3.47

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.
Bit rate is calculated as

3.48

Example 3.20
What is the bit rate for high-definition TV (HDTV)?
Solution
HDTV uses digital signals to broadcast high quality video
signals. The HDTV screen is normally a ratio of 16 : 9 (in
contrast to 4 : 3 for regular TV), which means the screen is
wider. There are 1920 by 1080 pixels per screen, and the
screen is renewed 30 times per second. Twenty-four bits
represents one color pixel. We can calculate the bit rate as

The TV stations reduce this rate to 20 to 40 Mbps through

compression.
3.49

3.3.2 Bit Length

We discussed the concept of the wavelength for an analog
signal: the distance one cycle occupies on the transmission
medium. We can define something similar for a digital
signal: the bit length.
The bit length is the distance one bit occupies on the
transmission medium.

3.50

3.3.3 Digital As Composite Analog

Based on Fourier analysis (See Appendix E), a digital signal
is a composite analog signal. The bandwidth is infinite, as
you may have guessed.
Intuitively a digital signal, in the time domain, comprises of
connected vertical and horizontal line segments.
A vertical line in the time domain means a frequency of infinity:
a horizontal line in the time domain means a frequency of zero.
Going from a frequency of zero to a frequency of infinity
implies all frequencies in between are part of the domain.

3.51

3.3.4 Transmission of Digital Signals

Digital signal is a composite analog signal with frequencies b/w

zero and infinity
How can one send a digital signal from point A to point B?
Baseband Transmission or Broadband transmission
Baseband Transmission: sending a digital signal over a channel
without changing the digital signal to analog.

Broadband (modulation) Transmission: changing the digital signal

to an analog signal for transmission.

3.52

Baseband transmission requires a lowpass channel - a channel with

bandwidth that starts from zero.
A case if there is a dedicated medium with a bandwidth
constituting only one channel.

Modulation allows us to use bandpass channel-a channel with a

bandwidth that does not start from zero.
Shared medium with multiple channels.

Figure 3.20: Bandwidth of two low-pass channels

3.53

CASE-1: Low Pass channel with wide bandwidth

Figure 3.21: Baseband transmission using a dedicated
medium

3.54

Example 3.21
An example of a dedicated channel where the entire
bandwidth of the medium is used as one single channel is a
LAN. Almost every wired LAN today uses a dedicated
channel for two stations communicating with each other.
In a bus topology LAN with multipoint connections, only
two stations can communicate with each other at each
moment in time (timesharing); the other stations need to
refrain from sending data.
In a star topology LAN, the entire channel between each
station and the hub is used for communication between these
two entities.

3.55

CASE-2: Low pass channel with limited bandwidth

We approximate the digital signal with an analog signal.
Assume a digital signal of bit rate N. For worst case
(alternating 1s and 0s), we need an analog signal of
frequency N/2. Maximum frequency.

1: +ve peak value, 0: -ve peak value, => 2bits in each cycle

However just this one frequency cannot make all patterns.

Rough approximation: is referred to as using the first
harmonic (N/2) frequency. The required bandwidth is
Bandwidth = N/2-0 = N/2

3.56

Figure 3.22: Rough approximation of a digital signal

Example: Digital signal with 3-bit pattern using analog
signals.

3.57

Figure 3.23: Simulating a digital signal with first three

harmonics
(part I)
Better approximation: to make the shape of the analog
signal look more like that of a digital signal. We need
to add more harmonics of the frequencies (increase
the bandwidth), i.e 3N/2, 5N/2, 7N/2

3.58

Figure 3.23: Simulating a digital signal with first three

harmonics
(part II)

3.59

Table 3.2: Bandwidth requirements

3.60

Example 3.22
What is the required bandwidth of a low-pass channel if we
need to send 1 Mbps by using baseband transmission?
Solution
The answer depends on the accuracy desired.
a. The minimum bandwidth, a rough approximation, is B=
bit rate /2, or 500 kHz. We need a low-pass channel with
frequencies between 0 and 500 kHz.
b. A better result can be achieved by using the first and the
third harmonics with the required bandwidth B = 3 500
kHz = 1.5 MHz.
c. A still better result can be achieved by using the first,
third, and fifth harmonics with B = 5 500 kHz = 2.5
MHz.
3.61

Example 3.23
We have a low-pass channel with bandwidth 100 kHz. What
is the maximum bit rate of this channel?.

Solution
The maximum bit rate can be achieved if we use the first
harmonic. The bit rate is 2 times the available bandwidth, or
200 kbps.

3.62

2. Broadband Transmission (using

modulation)

Broadband (modulation) Transmission: changing

the digital signal to an analog signal for
transmission.

Modulation allows us to use bandpass channel-a

channel with a bandwidth that does not start from
zero.
Shared medium with multiple channels.

Figure 3.24: Bandwidth of a band-pass channel

3.63

Figure 3.25: Modulation of a digital signal for

transmission on
band-pass channel

3.64

Example 3.24
An example of broadband transmission using modulation is the
sending of computer data through a telephone subscriber line.
These lines are designed to carry voice (analog signal) with a limited
bandwidth.
Although this channel can be used as a low-pass channel, it is
normally considered a bandpass channel.

One reason is that the bandwidth is so narrow (4 kHz) that if we treat the
channel as low-pass and use it for baseband transmission, the maximum
bit rate can be only 8 kbps.

The solution is to consider the channel a bandpass channel, convert

the digital signal from the computer to an analog signal, and send the
analog signal.

3.65

Example 3.25
A second example is the digital cellular telephone. For better
reception, digital cellular phones digitize analog voice.
Although the bandwidth allocated to a company providing
digital cellular phone service is very wide, we still cannot
send the digitized signal without conversion.
The reason is that we have only a band-pass channel
available between caller and callee.
For example, if the available bandwidth is W and we allow
1000 couples to talk simultaneously, this means the
available channel is W/1000, just part of the entire
bandwidth. We need to convert the digitized voice to a
composite analog signal before transmission.
3.66

34TRANSMISSIONIMPAIRMENT

3.67

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

3.4.1 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.
Some of the electrical energy in the signal is
converted to heat. That is why a wire carrying
electric signals gets warm, if not hot, after a while.
To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are used to
amplify the signal.
Figure 3.27 shows the effect of attenuation and
amplification..
3.68

Figure 3.27: Attenuation and amplification

3.69

Example 3.26

Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium and

its power is reduced to one half. This means that P2 = 0.5
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.
3.70

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

3.71

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 3.28 a signal travels from point 1 to point 4. The
signal is attenuated by the time it reaches point 2. Between
points 2 and 3, the signal is amplified. Again, between
points 3 and 4, the signal is attenuated. We can find the
resultant decibel value for the signal just by adding the
decibel measurements between each set of points. In this
case, the decibel value can be calculated as
3.72

Figure 3.28: Decibels for Example 3.28

3.73

Example 3.29
Sometimes the decibel is used to measure signal power in
milliwatts. In this case, it is referred to as dBm and is
calculated as dBm = 10 log10Pm, where Pm is the power in
milliwatts. Calculate the power of a signal if its dBm = 30.

Solution
We can calculate the power in the signal as

3.74

Example 3.30
The loss in a cable is usually defined in decibels per
kilometer (dB/km). If the signal at the beginning of a cable
with 0.3 dB/km has a power of 2 mW, what is the power of
the signal at 5 km?
Solution
The loss in the cable in decibels is 5 (0.3) = 1.5 dB. We
can calculate the power as

3.75

3.4.2 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 (see the next section)
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.

3.76

Figure 3.29: Distortion

3.77

3.4.3 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.
Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other.
Impulse noise is a spike that comes from power lines
or lightning.
3.78

Figure 3.30: Noise

3.79

Figure 3.31: Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and a low

SNR

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a measure that

compares the level of a desired signal to the level of
background noise.

3.80

Example 3.31
The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the noise
is 1 W; what are the values of SNR and SNRdB?

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

3.81

Example 3.32
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel are

Solution
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel are

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

3.82

35DATARATELIMITS
A very important consideration in data
communications is how fast we can
send data, in bits per second, over a
channel.
Two theoretical formulas
were developed to calculate the data
rate:
Nyquist for a noiseless channel,
Shannon for a noisy channel.
3.83

3.5.1 Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Rate

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

3.84

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

3.85

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

3.86

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.

3.87

3.5.2 Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity

In reality, we cannot have a noiseless channel; the
channel is always noisy. In 1944, Claude Shannon
introduced a formula, called the Shannon capacity,
to determine the theoretical highest data rate for a
noisy channel:

3.88

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.

3.89

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 Hz (300 to 3300 Hz) assigned for data
communications. 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.
3.90

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

3.91

3.5.3 Using Both Limits

In practice, we need to use both methods to find the
limits and signal levels. Let us show this with an
example.

3.92

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.

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

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

3.93

36PERFORMANCE
Up to now, we have discussed the tools of
transmitting data (signals) over a network
and how the data behave. One important
issue in networking is the performance of
the networkhow good is it? In this
section, we introduce terms that we need
for future chapters.

3.94

3.6.1 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..
BW in Hertz: Range of frequencies in a composite signal or
range of frequencies that a channel can pass.
BW in BPS: speed of bit transmission in a channel or link.

3.95

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.
If the telephone company improves the quality of the line
and increases the bandwidth to 8 kHz, we can send 112,000
bps.

3.96

3.6.2 Throughput
The throughput is a measure of how fast we can
actually send data through a network. Although, at
first glance, bandwidth in bits per second and
throughput seem the same, they are different. 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.

Actual
measuremen
t
3.97

Potential
measuremen
t of a link

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.
3.98

3.6.3 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.

3.99

Example 3.45
What is the propagation time if the distance between the two
points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed to be
2.4 108 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.
3.100

Example 3.46
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for
a 2.5-KB (kilobyte) message 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.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time as

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.
3.101

Example 3.47
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for
a 5-MB (megabyte) 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 times as

3.102

3.6.4 Bandwidth-Delay Product

Bandwidth and delay are two performance metrics of a
link but the product of the two, the bandwidth-delay
product (BD) is also a very important measure in data
communication.
BD, amount of data measured in bits (or bytes), is
equivalent to the maximum amount of data on the
network at any given time, i.e. data that has been
transmitted but not yet acknowledged.
Sometimes it is calculated as the data link's capacity
multiplied by its round trip time.
Let us elaborate on this issue, using two hypothetical
cases as examples.

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Figure 3.32: Filling the links with bits for Case 1

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Figure 3.33: Filling the pipe with bits for Case 2

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Example 3.48
We can think about the link between two points as a pipe.
The cross section of the pipe represents the bandwidth, and
the length of the pipe represents the delay. We can say the
volume of the pipe defines the bandwidth-delay product, as
shown in Figure 3.34.

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3.6.5 Jitter
Another performance issue that is related to delay
is jitter.
Roughly, jitter is a problem if different packets of
data encounter different delays and the application
using the data at the receiver site is time-sensitive
(audio and 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.
We discuss jitter in greater detail in Chapter 28.
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Thanks

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