Data Communication & Networks
Data Communication & Networks
Data Communication & Networks
Networks
Data and Signals
ANALOG AND DIGITAL
To be transmitted, data must be transformed to
electromagnetic signals.
Data can be analog or digital. Analog data are
continuous and take continuous values. Digital
data have discrete states and take discrete values.
Signals can also be analog or digital. Analog
signals can have an infinite number of values in a
range; digital signals can have only a limited
number of values.
ANALOG AND DIGITAL
Both analog and digital signal can be periodic or
non periodic.
A periodic signal completes a pattern within a
Figure Two signals with the same phase and frequency, but different amplitudes
•Frequency and period are the inverse of each other.
• Frequency is the rate of change with respect to time. Change in a
short span of time means high frequency. Change over a long span of
time means low frequency.
PERIODIC ANALOG SIGNALS
Figure Two signals with the same amplitude and phase, but different frequencies
Example
Solution
First we change 100 ms to seconds, and then we calculate the frequency from the
period (1 Hz = 10−3 kHz).
Frequency and phase
• If a signal does not change at all, its frequency is zero.
• If a signal changes instantaneously, its frequency is infinite.
• Phase describes the position of the waveform relative to time 0.
Figure Three sine waves with the same amplitude and frequency, but different phases
Wavelength and propagation speed
• Wavelength: the distance a simple signal can travel in one
period.
• Propagation speed: the rate at which a signal or bit travels;
measured by distance/second.
• Propagation time: the time required for a signal to travel
from one point to another.
•Wavelength = propagation speed x period = propagation
speed /frequency
Wavelength and propagation speed
•The propagation speed of electromagnetic signals
depends on the medium and on the frequency of the
signal.
•For example, in a vacuum, light is propagated with a
speed of 3 x 108 m/s.
•That speed is lower in air and even lower in cable.
•The wavelength is normally measured in micrometers
(microns) instead of meters.
•In a coaxial or fiber-optic cable, however, the wavelength
is shorter because the propagation speed in the cable is
decreased.
Time domain and frequency domain
The spectrum has only five spikes, at 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900 Hz .
Figure The bandwidth for Example
Example
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.
Figure The bandwidth for Example
DIGITAL SIGNALS
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 Two digital signals: one with two signal levels and the other
with four signal levels
Example
A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are needed per level? We calculate
the number of bits from the formula:
The bit rate is the number of bits sent in 1 s, expressed in bits per second (bps).
Figure shows the bit rate for two signals.
Example
Assume we need to download text documents at the rate of 100 pages per minute.
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
Example
A digitized voice channel 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
The bit rate can be calculated as:
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.
• Bit length = propagation speed * bit duration
A low-pass channel with infinite band-width is ideal, but we cannot have such a channel in real life.
converted to heat.
To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are
Example:
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
Distortion
Distortion means that the signal changes its form or
shape.
A digital signal is a composite analog
different frequencies.
Each signal component has its own propagation speed
same.
Noise
Noise is another cause of impairment.
Several types of noise may corrupt the signal:
power
We need to consider the average signal power
Solution
The values of SNR and SNRdB can be calculated as
follows:
Example
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel are
Noiseless channel:
The Nyquist bit rate formula defines the theoretical
maximum bit rate:
BitRate = 2 * bandwidth * log 2 L
Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity :
In reality, we cannot have a noiseless channel; the channel is
always noisy.
Shannon capacity is used to determine the theoretical highest
data rate for a noisy channel:
Capacity = bandwidth * log 2 (1 + SNR)
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
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:
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
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.
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.
Performance
One important issue in networking is the performance
of the network—how good is it?
The performance is measured by:
◦ 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