Data and Computer

Communications

Tenth Edition
by William Stallings

Data and Computer Communications, Tenth

Edition by William Stallings, (c) Pearson
Education - Prentice Hall, 2013
CHAPTER 3

Data Transmission
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.
Note

A digital signal is a composite analog

signal with an infinite bandwidth.
Two digital signals: one with two signal levels and the other
with four signal levels
Example

Assume we need to download text documents at the rate of

100 pages per sec. 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 (ascii),
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
Example

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. There
are 1920 by 1080 pixels per screen, and the screen is
renewed 30 times per second. Twenty-four bits represents
one color pixel.

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

compression.
Digital Data

Character
strings
Text
Examples:

IRA

International Reference Alphabet

Voltage at
transmitting end

Voltage at
receiving end

Figure 3.10 Attenuation of Digital Signals

Advantages and Disadvantages
of Digital Signals
Generally cheaper
Less susceptible to
noise interference

Suffer more from

attenuation
 To produce a video signal a TV
camera is used
 USA standard is 483 lines per
Video frame, at a rate of 30 complete
Signals frames per second
 Actual standard is 525 lines but about
42 are lost during vertical retrace
 Horizontal scanning frequency is
525 lines x 30 scans = 15750 lines
per second
 Max frequency if line alternates
between black and white as
rapidly as possible
0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1
+5 volts

–5 volts

0.02 msec

User input at a PC is converted into a stream of binary

digits (1s and 0s). In this graph of a typical digital signal,
binary one is represented by –5 volts and binary zero is
represented by +5 volts. The signal for each bit has a duration
of 0.02 msec, giving a data rate of 50,000 bits per second (50 kbps).

Figure 3.12 Conversion of PC Input to Digital Signal

Analog Signals: Represent data with continuously
varying electromagnetic wave

Analog Data Analog Signal

(voice sound waves)

Telephone

Digital Data Analog Signal

(binary voltage pulses) (modulated on
Modem carrier frequency)

Digital Signals: Represent data with sequence

of voltage pulses

Analog Data Digital Signal

Codec

Digital Data Digital Signal

Digital
Transceiver

Figure 3.13 Analog and Digital Signaling of Analog and Digital Data
Move to Digital
 Digital technology
 VLSI technology has caused a continuing drop in the
cost and size of digital circuits
 Data integrity
 The use of repeaters has made it possible to
transmit data longer distances over lower quality
 Capacity utilization
 Satellite channels and optical fiber
 Security
 Encryption techniques can be readily applied to
digital data
Transmission Impairments
 Signal
received may differ from signal
transmitted causing:
 Analog - degradation of signal quality
 Digital - bit errors
Attenuation

 Signal strength falls off with distance over any transmission medium
Delay Distortion
 Occurs in transmission cables such as
twisted pair, coaxial cable, and optical fiber
 Does not occur when signals are transmitted
through the air by means of antennas
 Various frequency components arrive at
different times resulting in phase shifts
between the frequencies
Distortion
Noise

Unwanted Is the major

signals inserted limiting factor in
between communications
transmitter and system
receiver performance
Noise
Channel Capacity

Maximum rate at which data can be transmitted over a

given communications channel under given conditions

Data rate Bandwidth Noise

Error rate
in bits per in cycles per The average
second (bps) at second, or hertz level of noise
which data can Constrained by over the The rate at which
be transmitter and communications errors occur
communicated medium path
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
3. The quality of the channel (the level of noise)
Nyquist Bandwidth
In the case of a channel that is noise free:
 Given a bandwidth of B, the highest signal rate that can
be carried is 2B
 For binary signals, 2B bps needs bandwidth B Hz
 With multilevel signaling, the Nyquist formula becomes:
C = 2B log2M
 Data rate can be increased by increasing the number of
different signal elements
 This increases burden on receiver
 Noise and other impairments limit the practical value of M
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:

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.
Shannon Capacity Formula
 Considering the relation of data rate, noise and
error rate
 Shannon developed formula relating these to
signal to noise ratio (in decibels)

 SNRdb=10 log10 (signal/noise)

 Capacity C = B log2(1+SNR)
 Theoretical maximum capacity
 Get much lower rates in practice
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.
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?

Solution

First, we use the Shannon formula to find the upper limit.

Example

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.