1 Chapter 2

Data Transmission
2.1 Parallel and Serial Transmission
2.2 Line Configuration, Synchronous/Asynchronous Communication
2.3 Bit Rate/ Baud rate, Transmission Channel, RS-232C and RS- 449
Interface Standards

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2 Data Transmission
 Data transmission refers to the movement of data in form of bits
between two or more digital devices.
 This transfer of data takes place via some form of transmission
media (e.g. coaxial cable, fiber optics etc.)

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3 Types of Data Transmission

Data Transmission

Serial Parallel

Synchronous Asynchronous

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4 Parallel Transmission
 In parallel transmission, all the bits of data are transmitted simultaneously
on separate communication lines.
 In order to transmit n bits, n wires or lines are used. Thus each bit has its
own line.
 All n bits of one group are transmitted with each clock pulse from one device
to another i.e. multiple bits are sent with each clock pulse.
 Parallel transmission is used for short distance communication.
 As shown in the fig, eight separate wires are used to transmit 8 bit data from
sender to receiver.
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Advantage of parallel transmission

It is speedy way of transmitting data as multiple bits are transmitted simultaneously with a single clock
pulse.
 
Disadvantage of parallel transmission
It is costly method of data transmission as it requires n lines to transmit n bits at the same time.
6 Serial Transmission
 Definition: When transferring data between two physically separate devices, especially if
the separation is more than a few kilometers, for reasons of cost, it is more economical to
use a single pair of lines. Data is transmitted as a single bit at a time using a fixed time
interval for each bit. This mode of transmission is known as bit-serial transmission.
 In serial transmission, the various bits of data are transmitted serially one after the
other.
 It requires only one communication line rather than n lines to transmit data from sender
to receiver.
 Thus all the bits of data are transmitted on single line in serial fashion.
 In serial transmission, only single bit is sent with each clock pulse.
7
 As shown in fig., suppose an 8-bit data 11001010 is to be sent from source to
destination. Then least significant bit (LSB) i.e. 0 will be transmitted first followed by
other bits. The most significant bit (MSB) i.e. 1 will be transmitted in the end via
single communication line.
 The internal circuitry of computer transmits data in parallel fashion. So in order to
change this parallel data into serial data, conversion devices are used.
 These conversion devices convert the parallel data into serial data at the sender side
so that it can be transmitted over single line.
 On receiver side, serial data received is again converted to parallel form so that the
interval circuitry of computer can accept it

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Advantage of Serial transmission

 Use of single communication line reduces the transmission line cost by the
factor of n as compared to parallel transmission.

Disadvantages of Serial transmission

 Use of conversion devices at source and destination end may lead to increase in
overall transmission cost.
 This method is slower as compared to parallel transmission as bits are
transmitted serially one after the other.

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10 Types of Serial Transmission
 There are two types of serial transmission-synchronous and asynchronous
both these transmissions use 'Bit synchronization’

 Bit Synchronization is a function that is required to determine when the

beginning and end of the data transmission occurs.

 Bit synchronization helps the receiving computer to know when data begin
and end during a transmission. Therefore bit synchronization provides
timing control.

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11 Asynchronous Transmission
 It sends only one character at a time . Character is either a letter of alphabet/number/control
character. I.e. it sends one byte at a time.
 Bit synchronization between two devices is made possible using start bit and stop bit.
 Start bit indicates the beginning of data i.e. alerts the receiver to arrival of new group bits. A
start bit usually 0 is added to the beginning of each byte.
 Stop bit indicates the end of data i.e. to let the receiver know that byte is finished, one or more
additional bits are appended to the end of the byte. These bits, usually 1s are called stop bits.

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 Addition of start and stop increase the number of data bits. Hence
more bandwidth is consumed in asynchronous transmission.

 There is idle time between the transmissions of different data bytes.

This idle time is also known as Gap

 The gap or idle time can be of varying intervals. This mechanism is

called Asynchronous, because at byte level sender and receiver need not
to be synchronized. But within each byte, receiver must be
synchronized with the incoming bit stream.

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Advantages of Asynchronous transmission

 This method of data transmission is cheaper in cost as compared to synchronous e.g. If

lines are short, asynchronous transmission is better, because line cost would be low and
idle time will not be expensive.
 In this approach each individual character is complete in itself, therefore if character is
corrupted during transmission, its successor and predecessor character will not be
affected.
 It is possible to transmit signals from sources having different bit rates.
 The transmission can start as soon as data byte to be transmitted becomes available.
 Moreover, this mode of data transmission in easy to implement.

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Disadvantages of asynchronous transmission

 This method is less efficient and slower than synchronous transmission due to the
overhead of extra bits and insertion of gaps into bit stream.
 Successful transmission inevitably depends on the recognition of the start bits. These
bits can be missed or corrupted.
Application
 Best Suited for Internet traffic in which information is transmitted for short bursts.
 Asynchronous transmission is well suited for keyboard type-terminals and paper tape
devices.

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16 Synchronous Transmission
 Synchronous transmission does not use start and stop bits.
 In this method bit stream is combined into longer frames that may contain
multiple bytes.
 There is no gap between the various bytes in the data stream.
 In the absence of start & stop bits, bit synchronization is established between
sender & receiver by 'timing' the transmission of each bit.
 Since the various bytes are placed on the link without any gap, it is the
responsibility of receiver to separate the bit stream into bytes so as to reconstruct
the original information.
 In order to receive the data error free, the receiver and sender operates at the
same clock frequency.

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18
Advantage of Synchronous transmission
 This method is faster as compared to asynchronous as there are no extra bits (start bit &
stop bit) and also there is no gap between the individual data bytes.
 
Disadvantages of Synchronous transmission
 It is costly as compared to asynchronous method. It requires local buffer storage at the
two ends of line to assemble blocks and it also requires accurately synchronized clocks at
both ends. This lead to increase in the cost.
 The sender and receiver have to operate at the same clock frequency. This requires
proper synchronization which makes the system complicated.

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19 Application of Synchronous transmission

 Synchronous transmission is used for high speed communication

between computers.

 Assignment- Difference between Synchronous and Asynchronous

transmission?

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20 Line Configuration
 The way two or more communication devices attached to a link.
 Line configuration is also referred to as connection.
 A Link is the physical communication pathway that transfers data from
one device to another. 
 There are two possible line configurations.
       1. Point-to-Point.
       2. Multipoint.

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21 Point to point

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22 Multipoint Configuration

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23

 Also known as multidrop line configuration

 One or more than two specific devices share a single link capacity of the
channel is shared.
 There are two possibilities in a multipoint line config
 Spatial Sharing: If several devices can share the link simultaneously
 Temporal (Time) Sharing: If users must take turns using the link , then
its called Temporally shared or Time Shared Line Configuration

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24

 Signal Rate: The signal rate is the numbers of signal elements sent in 1 second. The
unit is baud.
The data rate is sometimes called the bit rate: the signal rate is
sometimes called the pulse rate, the modulation rate, or the baud rate.

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25 Transmission Channel
 Transmission channels are generally referred to as the communication channels and
these act as the links, which help in the transmission of the data from one device in a
particular network to the other. 
 A transmission channel has the ability to make use of the various types of the media like
the following –
1. Physical connection lines –
a. Twisted pair of the copper wires.
b. Coaxial cables.
c. Optical fiber.
2. Micro – wave lines –
a. ‘Line of sight’ earth micro wave (from tower to the tower)
b. Radio/wire – less transmission waves (AM/FM)
c. Satellite
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26 Features Of The Communication Channels
 Transmission Speed: Also called as the Baud Rate and it refers to the total amount of
the information which can be transmitted through any type of the telecommunication
channel. Transmission speed can be measured in terms of the Bits per Second.
 Band – width: The capacity of the communications channel as measured by the
difference between the highest and the lowest frequencies that can be transmitted by
that channel is referred to as the band – width.
 Transmission Modes: The various modes affecting the transmission may involve the
Asynchronous Transmission and the Synchronous Transmission. In asynchronous
transmission, transmission of only one character takes place at a time and this type of
the process is generally used for the low speed transmission but in case of the
synchronous transmission, a group of the characters is transmitted simultaneously and
is often used for the high speed transmission of the block of the characters.

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 Transmission Direction: The transmission of the data can take place in the different
directions with the help of the simplex, the half duplex or the full duplex transmission.
 Communication Processors: Transmission of the data and then the reception in a
telecommunication network can be done with the help of the certain processors, some
examples of the processors can be summarized as the follows –
a. Front End Processors
b. Concentrator
c. Controller
d. Multiplexer
e. Telecommunication Software

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28 Transmission Modes
 The term Transmission Mode defines the direction of the flow of information between
two communication devices i.e. it tells the direction of signal flow between the two
devices.

Transmission Modes

Simplex Half Duplex Full Duplex

Types of Transmission Mode

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29 Simplex
 Communication can take place in one direction connected to such a circuit are either
a send only or receive only device.
  TV broadcasting is an example. Simplex transmission generally involves dedicated
circuits. Simplex circuits are analogous to escalators, doorbells, fire alarms and
security systems:

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30 Half Duplex
 A half duplex system can transmit data in both directions, but only in one direction at
a time that mean half duplex modes support two-way traffic but in only one direction
at a time.
 For example walkie-talkie

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31 Full Duplex
 A full duplex system can transmit data simultaneously in both directions on
transmission path.
 Full-duplex method is used to transmit the data over a serial communication link.
 Two wires needed to send data over a serial communication link layer.
  Full-duplex transmission, the channel capacity is shared by both communicating
devices at all times.

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32 RS-232C Interface Standards
 One of the advantages of a serial system is that it lends itself to transmission
over telephone lines.
 The serial digital data can be converted by modem, placed onto a standard
voice-grade telephone line, and converted back to serial digital data at the
receiving end of the line by another modem.
 Officially, RS232 is defined as the “ Interface between data terminal
equipment and data communication equipment using serial binary data
exchange.”
 This definition defines data terminal equipment as the equipment is the
modem.
 A modem cable has pin to pin connections and designed to connect DTE device
to a DCE device. 07/14/2021
33

 The RS-232C standard is an asynchronous serial communication method.

 Serial means that the information is sent 1-bit at a time.
 Asynchronous means that no clock signal is sent with the data. Each side
uses its own clock and a start and stop bit. Synchronous communication
means that a clock signal is sent in addition to a data signal.
 The RS-232C standard works at the physical layer of the communication
standard. This is the lowest level and the one that physically connects the
devices.
 The communication is done through the serial port of the PC. This is a male
connector with 25 (old) or 9 (new) pins, in both cases only 9 pins, at the
most, are used.
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35 The pins abbreviations
are (numbers in
parentheses are the
25D pin numbers.
1. CD (8)
2. RD (Rx) (3)
3. TD (Tx) (2)
4. DTR (20)
5. SG (Ground) (7)
6. DSR (6)
7. RTS (4)
8. CTS (5)
9. RI (22) 07/14/2021
36
 Data Terminal Ready (DTR):
 After the terminal power is turned on and terminal runs any self checks, it asserts data terminal
ready (DTR’) signal to tell the modem that it is ready.
 Data Set Ready (DSR): 
 When the MODEM is powered up and ready to transmit or receive data, it will assert data set
ready (DSR’) to the terminal. Under manual control or terminal control, modem then dials up
the computer. If the computer is available, it will send back a specified tone.
 Request to send (RTS):
 When a terminal has a character ready to send, it will assert a request-to-send (RTS’) signal to
the modem.
 Data Carrier Detect (DCD):
 The modem will then assert its data-carrier-detect (DCD’) signal to the terminal to indicate that
it has established connection with the computer.

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37  Clear to send (CTS):
 When the modem is fully ready to receive data, it asserts the clear-to-send (CTS’) signal back to the
terminal.
 Ring indicator (RI):
 It indicates that a ring has occurred at modem. Deactivating DTR or DSR breaks the connection but
RI works independently of DTR i.e. a modem may activate RI signal even if DTR is not active.
 Transmitted Data (TxD):
 The terminal then sends serial data characters to the modem.
 Received Data (RxD):
 Modem will receive data from terminal through this line. 
 Data Signal Rate Detect (DSRD):
 It is used for switching different baud rate.

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 9D to 25D Conversion
38

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39 RS 449 Interface
 Is able to send data at high Speed without stray noise causing interference is to use a
differential form of signaling.
 As the RS449 receivers use a differential input, and they are not referenced to
ground, any noise that is picked up does not affect the input.
 This means that higher levels of noise can be tolerated without any degradation to
the performance to the data communications system.
 For the RS449 interface, ten additional circuits functions have been provided when
compared to RS232.
 In addition to this the RS449 interface requires the use of 37 way D-type connectors
and 9 way D-type connectors, the latter being necessary when use is made of the
secondary channel interchange circuits.

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