Data Rate Limit and

Performance

PEC Rothna, PhD

Institute of Technology of Cambodia

1
Overview
 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)
 Topics discussed
 Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
 Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
 Using Both Limits

2
Overview

Note

Increasing the levels of a signal

increases the probability of an error
occurring, in other words it reduces the
reliability of the system. Why??

3
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.

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Nyquist Theorem
 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)
 The bandwidth of the system by assuming that there are 2
symbols/per cycle.
 Nyquist theorem states that for a noiseless channel:
C = 2×B log22n
 C= capacity in bps
 B = bandwidth in Hz

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Example 1
 Does the Nyquist theorem bit rate agree with the intuitive
bit rate described in baseband transmission?
 Solution:
 They match when we have only two levels.
 We said, in baseband transmission, the bit rate is 2 times the
bandwidth.
 However, the Nyquist formula is more general than what we
derived intuitively;
 It can be applied to baseband transmission and modulation.
Also, it can be applied when we have two or more levels of
signals.

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Example 2
1. 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

2. 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

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Example 3
 We need to send 265 kbps over a noiseless channel with a
bandwidth of 20 kHz.
 How many signal levels do we need?

 Solution
 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.

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Shannon’s Theorem
 Shannon’s theorem gives the capacity of a system in the presence of
noise.

C = B log2(1 + SNR)
 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.

 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.

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Shannon’s Theorem: Example
 We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a
regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has a
bandwidth of 3000. 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.

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Shannon’s Theorem: Example
 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

 For practical purposes, when the SNR is very high, we can assume that
SNR + 1 is almost the same as SNR. In these cases, the theoretical
channel capacity can be simplified to

 For example, we can calculate the theoretical capacity of the previous

example as

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Shannon’s Theorem: 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?

 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.

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Shannon’s Theorem

Note

The Shannon capacity gives us the

upper limit; the Nyquist formula tells us
how many signal levels we need.

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Performance

14
Performance
 One important issue in networking is the performance of
the network—how good is it?

 Bandwidth - capacity of the system

 Throughput – number of of bits that can be pushed through
 Latency (Delay) - delay incurred by a bit from start to finish
 Bandwidth-Delay Product

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Bandwidth in Networking
 Definition of Bandwidth
 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. Often referred to as Capacity.
 Example
1. 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.
2. 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

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Bandwidth in Networking
 Example of Throughput
 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?

The throughput is almost one-fifth of the bandwidth in this case.

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Propagation & Transmission Delay
 Propagation speed - speed at which a bit travels though the
medium from source to destination.
 Transmission speed - the speed at which all the bits in a
message arrive at the destination.

 Propagation Delay = Distance/Propagation speed

 Transmission Delay = Message size/bandwidth bps

 Latency = Propagation delay + Transmission delay +

Queueing time + Processing time

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Propagation & Transmission Delay
 Example
 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
 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
 What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a 2.5-kbyte 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

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.

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Propagation & Transmission Delay
 Example
 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.

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.

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