IN 1501

Data Communication

Lesson 04 : Transmission Impairments &

Channel Capacity
Content

• Data Transmission
– Concepts and Terminology
• Transmission Terminology
• Frequency, Spectrum, and Bandwidth
• Time and Frequency Domain
– Analog And Digital Data Transmission
– Transmission Impairment(Attenuation, noise, distortion)
– Channel Capacity

2
3
Transmission Impairments

• Signals travel through transmission media, which are not perfect.

• The imperfection causes signal impairment.

• With any communications system, the signal that is received may differ
from the signal that is transmitted due to various transmission
impairments.

• For analog signals, these impairments can degrade the signal quality.

• For digital signals, bit errors may be introduced, such that a binary 1 is
transformed into a binary 0 or vice versa.

4
Transmission Impairments

• The most significant impairments are;

• Attenuation and attenuation distortion
• Delay distortion
• Noise

Figure 4.1 Impairment Causes

5
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.

6
Attenuation

• The strength of a signal falls off with distance over any transmission
medium.

• For guided media, this reduction in strength, or attenuation, is generally

exponential and thus is typically expressed as a constant number of
decibels per unit distance.

• For unguided media, attenuation is a more complex function of distance

and the makeup of the atmosphere.

7
Attenuation

• Attenuation introduces three considerations for the transmission engineer.

• First, a received signal must have sufficient strength so that the electronic
circuitry in the receiver can detect the signal.

• Second, the signal must maintain a level sufficiently higher than noise to
be received without error.

• Third, attenuation varies with frequency.

8
Attenuation

• The first and second problems are dealt with by attention to signal
strength and the use of amplifiers or repeaters.

• For a point-to-point link, the signal strength of the transmitter must be

strong enough to be received intelligibly, but not so strong as to overload
the circuitry of the transmitter or receiver, which would cause distortion.

• Beyond a certain distance, the attenuation becomes unacceptably great,

and repeaters or amplifiers are used to boost the signal at regular
intervals.

• These problems are more complex for multipoint lines where the distance
from transmitter to receiver is variable.

9
Attenuation

• The third problem is particularly noticeable for analog signals.

• Because the attenuation varies as a function of frequency, the received

signal is distorted, reducing intelligibility.

• To overcome this problem, techniques are available for equalizing

attenuation across a band of frequencies.

• This is commonly done for voice-grade telephone lines by using loading

coils that change the electrical properties of the line; the result is to
smooth out attenuation effects.
• Another approach is to use amplifiers that amplify high frequencies more
than lower frequencies.

10
Attenuation

• The Figure shows the effect of attenuation and amplification.

Figure 4.2 Attenuation (the first impairment)

11
Attenuation

• Attenuation is measured in decibels(dB). It measures the relative strengths

of two signals or one signal at two different point.

Attenuation(dB) = 10 log 10 (P2/P1)

NdB = 10 x log10 (P2 / P1)

◦ P2 = ending power level in watts (power at receiving end)
◦ P1 = beginning power level in watts (power at sending end)

12
Decibels

• To show that a signal has lost or gained strength, engineers use the unit of
the decibel.

• The decibel (dB) measures the relative strengths of two signals or one
signal at two different points.

• Signal strength is measured in decibels (dB)

• dB is a relative measure of loss (or gain)

• Note that the decibel is negative if a signal is attenuated and positive if a

signal is amplified.

13
Example

Figure 4.3 Attenuation and Curves for a Voice Channel 14

Attenuation Example

• An example is provided in Figure 4.3, which shows attenuation as a

function of frequency for a typical leased line.

• In the figure, attenuation is measured relative to the attenuation at 1000

Hz.
• Positive values on the y-axis represent attenuation greater than that at
1000 Hz.

• A 1000-Hz tone of a given power level is applied to the input, and the
power, P1000is measured at the output.

• For any other frequency f, the procedure is repeated and the relative
attenuation in decibels is;

15
Attenuation Example

• The solid line in Figure 4.3 shows attenuation without equalization.

• As can be seen, frequency components at the upper end of the voice band
are attenuated much more than those at lower frequencies.

• It should be clear that this will result in a distortion of the received speech
signal.

• The dashed line shows the effect of equalization.

• The flattened response curve improves the quality of voice signals.

• It also allows higher data rates to be used for digital data that are passed
through a modem.

• Attenuation distortion can present less of a problem with digital signals.

16
Example

• Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium and its power is

reduced to one-half. This means that P2 is (1/2)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.

17
Example

• 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 the Figure a signal travels from point 1 to point 4.
• In this case, the decibel value can be calculated as;

18
Example

• 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 log10 Pm ,
where Pm is the power in milliwatts. Calculate the power of a signal with
dBm = −30.

Solution

• We can calculate the power in the signal as;

19
Example

• 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
2mW, what is the power of the signal at 5 km?

Solution
• The loss in the cable in decibels is 5 km × (−0.3) dB/km= −1.5 dB.
• We can calculate the power as;

20
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.

• In other words, signal components at the receiver have phases different

from what they had at the sender.
• The shape of the composite signal is therefore not the same.

21
Distortion

Figure 4.4 Effect of distortion on a composite signal

22
Distortion

• Delay distortion occurs because the velocity of propagation of a signal

through a guided medium varies with frequency.

• For a band limited signal, the velocity tends to be highest near the center
frequency and fall off toward the two edges of the band.
• Thus various frequency components of a signal will arrive at the receiver
at different times, resulting in phase shifts between the different
frequencies.

• This effect is referred to as delay distortion because the received signal is

distorted due to varying delays experienced at its constituent frequencies.

23
Distortion

• Delay distortion is particularly critical for digital data.

• Consider that a sequence of bits is being transmitted, using either analog

or digital signals.

• Because of delay distortion, some of the signal components of one bit

position will spill over into other bit positions, causing inter-symbol
interference, which is a major limitation to maximum bit rate over a
transmission channel.

• Equalizing techniques can also be used for delay distortion. Again using a
leased telephone line as an example, Figure 4.5 shows the effect of
equalization on delay as a function of frequency.

24
Example

Figure 4.5 Delay Distortion Curves for a Voice Channel

25
Noise

• For any data transmission event, the received signal will consist of the
transmitted signal, modified by the various distortions imposed by the
transmission system, plus additional unwanted signals that are inserted
somewhere between transmission and reception.

• The latter, undesired signals are referred to as noise.

• Noise is the major limiting factor in communications system performance.

• Noise may be divided into four categories:

• Thermal noise
• Intermodulation noise
• Crosstalk
• Impulse noise

26
Noise

• 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.

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

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Effect of Noise on a Signal

Figure 4.6 Effect of noise on a signal

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Thermal noise

• Thermal noise is due to thermal agitation of electrons.

• It is present in all electronic devices and transmission media and is a

function of temperature.

• Thermal noise is uniformly distributed across the bandwidths typically

used in communications systems and hence is often referred to as white
noise.

• Thermal noise cannot be eliminated and therefore places an upper bound

on communications system performance.

• Because of the weakness of the signal received by satellite earth stations,

thermal noise is particularly significant for satellite communication.

29
Thermal noise

• The amount of thermal noise to be found in a bandwidth of 1 Hz in any

device or conductor is;

• Where

30
Example

• Room temperature is usually specified as T = 17°C, or 290 K. At this

temperature, the thermal noise power density is;

• where dBW is the decibel-watt, defined in Appendix 3A.

31
Thermal noise

• The noise is assumed to be independent of frequency.

• Thus the thermal noise in watts present in a bandwidth of B Hertz can be
expressed as;

32
Example

• Given a receiver with an effective noise temperature of 294 K and a 10-

MHz bandwidth, the thermal noise level at the receiver’s output is;

33
Intermodulation Noise

• When signals at different frequencies share the same transmission

medium, the result may be intermodulation noise.

• The effect of intermodulation noise is to produce signals at a frequency

that is the sum or difference of the two original frequencies or multiples
of those frequencies.

• For example, the mixing of signals at frequencies f1 and f2 might produce

energy at the frequency f1 + f2.

• This derived signal could interfere with an intended signal at the

frequency f1 + f2.

34
Intermodulation Noise

• Intermodulation noise is produced by nonlinearities in the transmitter,

receiver, and/or intervening transmission medium.

• Ideally, these components behave as linear systems; that is, the output is
equal to the input times a constant.
• However, in any real system, the output is a more complex function of the
input.

• Excessive nonlinearity can be caused by component malfunction or

overload from excessive signal strength.

• It is under these circumstances that the sum and difference frequency

terms occur.
Intermodulation noise is produced whenever a phase modulated signal is passed through a
linear transmission medium whose amplitude and phase characteristics are nonlinear
functions of frequency.

35
Crosstalk

• Crosstalk has been experienced by anyone who, while using the

telephone, has been able to hear another conversation; it is an unwanted
coupling between signal paths.

• It can occur by electrical coupling between nearby twisted pairs or, rarely,
coax cable lines carrying multiple signals.

• Crosstalk can also occur when microwave antennas pick up unwanted

signals; although highly directional antennas are used, microwave energy
does spread during propagation.

• Typically, crosstalk is of the same order of magnitude as, or less than,

thermal noise.

36
Impulse Noise

• All of the types of noise discussed so far have reasonably predictable and
relatively constant magnitudes.

• Thus it is possible to engineer a transmission system to cope with them.

• Impulse noise, however, is non continuous, consisting of irregular pulses

or noise spikes of short duration and of relatively high amplitude.

• It is generated from a variety of causes, including external electromagnetic

disturbances, such as lightning, and faults and flaws in the
communications system.

37
Impulse Noise

• Impulse noise is generally only a minor annoyance for analog data.

• For example, voice transmission may be corrupted by short clicks and

crackles with no loss of intelligibility.

• However, impulse noise is the primary source of error in digital data

communication.

• For example, a sharp spike of energy of 0.01 s duration would not destroy
any voice data but would wash out about 560 bits of digital data being
transmitted at 56 kbps.

38
Effect of Noise on a Digital Signal

• Figure 4.7 is an example of the effect of noise on a digital signal.

• Here the noise consists of a relatively modest level of thermal noise plus
occasional spikes of impulse noise.

• The digital data can be recovered from the signal by sampling the received
waveform once per bit time.

• As can be seen, the noise is occasionally sufficient to change a 1 to a 0 or a

0 to a 1.

39
Figure 4.7 Effect of Noise on a Digital Signal
40
Channel Capacity

41
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.

42
Channel Capacity

• We have seen that there are a variety of impairments that distort or

corrupt a signal.

• For digital data, the question that then arises is to what extent these
impairments limit the data rate that can be achieved.
• The maximum rate at which data can be transmitted over a given
communication path, or channel, under given conditions, is referred to as
the channel capacity.

43
Channel Capacity

• There are four concepts here that we are trying to relate to one another.

• Data rate: The rate, in bits per second (bps), at which data can be
communicated

• Bandwidth: The bandwidth of the transmitted signal as constrained by the

transmitter and the nature of the transmission medium, expressed in
cycles per second, or Hertz

• Noise: The average level of noise over the communications path

• Error rate: The rate at which errors occur, where an error is the reception
of a 1 when a 0 was transmitted or the reception of a 0 when a 1 was
transmitted

44
Channel Capacity

• Furthermore, all transmission channels of any practical interest are of

limited bandwidth.

• The limitations arise from the physical properties of the transmission

medium or from deliberate limitations at the transmitter on the
bandwidth to prevent interference from other sources.

• For digital data, this means that we would like to get as high a data rate as
possible at a particular limit of error rate for a given bandwidth.

• The main constraint on achieving this efficiency is noise.

45
Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bandwidth

• To begin, let us consider the case of a channel that is noise free.

• In this environment, the limitation on data rate is simply the bandwidth of

the signal.

• A formulation of this limitation, due to Nyquist, states that if the rate of

signal transmission is 2B, then a signal with frequencies no greater than B
is sufficient to carry the signal rate.

• The converse is also true: Given a bandwidth of B, the highest signal rate
that can be carried is 2B.

• This limitation is due to the effect of inter-symbol interference, such as is

produced by delay distortion.

• The result is useful in the development of digital-to-analog encoding

schemes.
46
Nyquist Bandwidth

• Here we consider about the signal rate.

• If the signals to be transmitted are binary (two voltage levels), then the
data rate that can be supported by B Hz is 2B bps.

• However, as we shall see in signal encoding techniques, signals with more

than two levels can be used; that is, each signal element can represent
more than one bit.

• For example, if four possible voltage levels are used as signals, then each
signal element can represent two bits.

47
Nyquist Bandwidth

• With multilevel signaling, the Nyquist formulation becomes;

Bit Rate = 2 * bandwidth * log2 M

• where M is the number of signal levels used to represent data, and Bit
Rate is the bit rate in bits per second.

48
Nyquist Bandwidth

• So, for a given bandwidth, the data rate can be increased by increasing the
number of different signal elements.

• However, this places an increased burden on the receiver: Instead of

distinguishing one of two possible signal elements during each signal time,
it must distinguish one of M possible signal elements.

• Noise and other impairments on the transmission line will limit the
practical value of M (the number of signal or voltage levels used to
represent data).

49
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;

50
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

51
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:

• 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.

52
Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity

• Nyquist’s formula indicates that, all other things being equal, doubling the
bandwidth doubles the data rate.

• Now consider the relationship among data rate, noise, and error rate.

• The presence of noise can corrupt one or more bits.

• If the data rate is increased, then the bits become “shorter” so that more
bits are affected by a given pattern of noise.

• Figure 4.7 illustrates this relationship.

• If the data rate is increased, then more bits will occur during the interval
of a noise spike, and hence more errors will occur.

53
Shannon Capacity

• All of these concepts can be tied together neatly in a formula developed

by the mathematician Claude Shannon.

• As we have just illustrated, the higher the data rate, the more damage that
unwanted noise can do.
• For a given level of noise, we would expect that a greater signal strength
would improve the ability to receive data correctly in the presence of
noise.

• The key parameter involved in this reasoning is the signal-to-noise ratio

(SNR, or S/N), which is the ratio of the power in a signal to the power
contained in the noise that is present at a particular point in the
transmission.

54
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;

SNR=average signal power / average noise power

• We need to consider the average signal power and the average noise
power because these may change with time.

55
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

• The Figure shows the idea of SNR.

• SNR is actually the ratio of what is wanted (signal) to what is not wanted
(noise).

• A high SNR means the signal is less corrupted by noise; a low SNR means
the signal is more corrupted by noise.

• Because SNR is the ratio of two powers, it is often described in decibel

units, SNRdB, defined as;

56
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

Figure 4.8 Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

57
Example

• The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the noise is 1 μW; what
are the values of SNR and SNRdB ?

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

58
Shannon Capacity Formula

• Typically, this ratio is measured at a receiver, because it is at this point that

an attempt is made to process the signal and recover the data.

• For convenience, this ratio is often reported in decibels:

• This expresses the amount, in decibels, that the intended signal exceeds
the noise level.

• A high SNR will mean a high-quality signal and a low number of required
intermediate repeaters.

59
Shannon Capacity Formula

• The signal-to-noise ratio is important in the transmission of digital data

because it sets the upper bound on the achievable data rate.

• Shannon’s result is that the maximum channel capacity, in bits per second,
obeys the equation;

• where C is the capacity of the channel in bits per second and B is the
bandwidth of the channel in Hertz.

• The Shannon formula represents the theoretical maximum that can be

achieved.
60
Shannon Capacity Formula

• In practice, however, only much lower rates are achieved.

• One reason for this is that the formula assumes white noise (thermal
noise).

• Impulse noise is not accounted for, nor are attenuation distortion or delay
distortion.

• Even in an ideal white noise environment, present technology still cannot

achieve Shannon capacity due to encoding issues, such as coding length
and complexity.

61
Shannon Capacity Formula

• The capacity indicated in the preceding equation is referred to as the error-

free capacity.

• Shannon proved that if the actual information rate on a channel is less

than the error-free capacity, then it is theoretically possible to use a
suitable signal code to achieve error-free transmission through the
channel.
• Shannon’s theorem unfortunately does not suggest a means for finding
such codes, but it does provide a yardstick by which the performance of
practical communication schemes may be measured.

62
Shannon Capacity Formula

• Several other observations concerning the preceding equation may be

instructive.

• For a given level of noise, it would appear that the data rate could be
increased by increasing either signal strength or bandwidth.
• However, as the signal strength increases, so do the effects of
nonlinearities in the system, leading to an increase in intermodulation
noise.

• Note also that, because noise is assumed to be white, the wider the
bandwidth, the more noise is admitted to the system.

• Thus, as B increases, SNR decreases.

63
Example

• Let us consider an example that relates the Nyquist and Shannon

formulations.
• Suppose that the spectrum of a channel is between 3 MHz and 4 MHz and
SNRdB = 24 dB.
• Then

64
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.

65
Example

• 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.

66
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.

• 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?

67
Using Both Limits

• 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;

68
Summary

The Shannon capacity gives us the upper limit; the Nyquist formula tells us
how many signal levels we need.

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END

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