LECTURE-3

Data and Signals- DigitalSignal

3.1
DIGITAL SIGNALS
In addition to being represented by an analog signal,
information can also be represented by a digital
signal.

For example, 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.
Topics discussed in this section:
• Bit Rate
• Bit Length
• Digital Signal as a Composite Analog Signal
• Application Layer
3.2
Two digital signals: one with two signal levels and
the other with four signal levels

3.3
Reviews of information about
exponential and logarithmic
functions.
Example
A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are
needed per level? We calculate the number of bits
from the formula:

Each signal level is represented by 3 bits.

Bit Rate: number of bits sent in 1 second.

bps: bit per second

3.5
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? (assuming each page is an
average of 24 lines with 80 characters in each line,
and one character requires 8 bits)

Solution

3.6
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 period). We assume that each sample
requires 8 bits to represent. What is the required bit
rate?

Solution
The bit rate can be calculated as

3.7
 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. 24 bits represents one
color pixel.

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

compression. 3.8
The Time and Frequency Domains of
Periodic and Nonperiodic Digital Signals

3.9
Baseband Transmission

Baseband Transmission: sending digital signal

without changing digital to an analog signal.

Baseband communication requires a low-pass

channel

Example: Baseband Ethernet such as 10Base5,

100BaseT.
3.10
Bandwidths of Two Low-pass Channels

3.11
Baseband Transmission using a Dedicated Medium

Baseband transmission of a digital signal that preserves

the shape of the digital signal is possible only if we
have a low-pass channel with an infinite or very wide
bandwidth.
3.12
Example
An example of a dedicated channel where the entire
bandwidth of the medium is used as one single
channel is a LAN. Almost every wired LAN today
uses a dedicated channel for two stations
communicating with each other, the other stations in
LAN need to refrain from sending data.

Example: Ethernet, Optical fiber

3.13
In baseband transmission, the required
bandwidth is proportional to the bit
rate; if we need to send bits faster, we
need more bandwidth.
Bandwidth Requirements For
Different Bitrate

3.15
Example
What is the required bandwidth of a low-pass channel
if we need to send 1 Mbps by using baseband
transmission?

Solution
The answer depends on the accuracy desired.
a. The minimum bandwidth, is B = bit rate /2, or 500
kHz.

b. A better solution is to use the first and the third

harmonics with B = 3 × 500 kHz = 1.5 MHz.

c. Still a better solution is to use the first, third, and

fifth harmonics with B = 5 × 500 kHz = 2.5 MHz.
3.16
Example
We have a low-pass channel with bandwidth 100
kHz. What is the maximum bit rate of this channel?

Solution
The maximum bit rate can be achieved if we use the
first harmonic. The bit rate is 2 times the available
bandwidth, or 200 kbps.

3.17
If the available channel is a bandpass
channel, we cannot send the digital
signal directly to the channel (why?);
we need to convert the digital signal to
an analog signal before transmission.
Modulation of a Digital Signal For
Transmission On a Bandpass Channel

Example: AM radio
3.19
Example
An example of broadband transmission using
modulation is the sending of computer data through
a telephone subscriber line, the line connecting a
resident to the central telephone office.

These lines are designed to carry voice with a limited

bandwidth. The channel is considered a bandpass
channel (voice is 0-4kHz, why not baseband
channel?). The converter, in this case, is called a
modem (modulator-demodulator)

3.20
Example
A second example is the digital cellular telephone.
For better reception, digital cellular phones convert
the analog voice signal to a digital signal.

But in transmission, digital data is modulated for

going through the bandpass wireless channel.

3.21
TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT
Signals travel through transmission media, which
are not perfect. The imperfection causes signal
impairment. This means that the signal at the
beginning of the medium is not the same as the
signal at the end of the medium. What is sent is not
what is received. Three causes of impairment are
attenuation, distortion, and noise.

Topics discussed in this section:

• Attenuation
• Distortion
• Noise

3.22
Causes of Impairment

3.23
Attenuation: Loss of Energy

3.24
Attenuation: Decibel
 Measures the relative
strength of two
P2
signals. dB  10 log 10
P1

 Or one signal at two

different points P2: Power at receiver
(attenuation) P1: Power at sender

 P1,P2: power of
signal at points 1 and
2, respectively.
Attenuation: Decibel
 Some books define dB in term of voltage of
signal.

 This is because power is proportional to

square of voltage.

3.26
 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. (what does a gain of 3dB means?)

3.27
 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

Concept: 3dB means power decrease by half (increase by

double). 10dB means 10 times increase/decrease

3.28
Decibels for 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 above figure, a
signal travels from point 1 to point 4. In this case, the decibel
value can be calculated as
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. Represent the power in
milliwatts of a signal with -30dBm.

Solution
We can calculate the power in the signal as

3.30
Distortion

This is because each frequency signal has its own

propagation speed through a medium.

3.31
Noise
Noise is any type of disruption that interferes with
the transmission or interpretation of information from
the sender to the receiver.

3.32
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)
• Signal-to-noise ratio (abbreviated SNR or S/N) is
a measure used in science and engineering that
compares the level of a desired signal to the level
of background noise.

• It is defined as the ratio of signal power to the

noise power, often expressed in decibels.
Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)

avsp
SNR 
avnp

 avsp = average signal power

 avnp = average noise power

 Decibel unit:
SNRdB  10 log 10 SNR
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:

3.35
Example
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless
channel are

We can never achieve this ratio in real life; it is an

ideal.

3.36
Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and
a low SNR

3.37
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 available bandwidth
2. The level of the signals
3. The quality of the channel (the level of noise)

Topics discussed in this section:

• Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
• Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
• Using Both Limits
3.38
Nyquist theorem
 For a noiseless channel:
◦ Theoretic Max BitRate = 2Blog2 L
 B: bandwidth (Hz)
 L: number of levels
Increasing the levels of a signal may
reduce the reliability of the system.
Because the receiver needs better
hardware and reception signal to
recover the data.
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

3.41
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

3.42
Noisy Channel: Shannon
Capacity
 Max bitRate C = B log2 (1+SNR)
◦ B : bandwidth (Hz)
◦ SNR: signal-to-noise ratio
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.
3.44
Example
We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a
regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has
a bandwidth of 3000Hz. 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.
3.45
The Shannon capacity gives us the upper
limit; the Nyquist formula tells us how
many signal levels we need.
PERFORMANCE
One important issue in networking is the
performance of the network—how good is it?

Topics discussed in this section

• Bandwidth
• Throughput
• Latency (Delay)

3.47
In networking, we use the term bandwidth
in two contexts.

❏ 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.
Example
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.

What is the max bit rate if the signal level is 2

(binary signal) under noiseless condition?

3.49
Throughput
Throughput: how fast bps of data we can actually
send.

• Throughput is always smaller than link bandwidth

Why?
• Data impairment causes data error
• Data congestion causes delay

3.50
Example
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?

Solution
We can calculate the throughput as

The throughput is almost one-fifth of the bandwidth

in this case.
3.51
Latency (delay)
 Defines how long it takes for an entire
message to completely arrive at the
destination from the time the first bit is
sent out from the source.

 Latency = propagation time+ transmission

time+ queuing time+ processing delay
Propagation Time
 Measures the time required for a bit to travel
from the source to the destination.

dis tan ce
Pr opagationTime 
propagationspeed
Transmission Time
• First bit received  last bit received

MessageSize
TransmisisonTime 
Bandwidth
Queuing Time
 It is the time needed for each intermediate
or end device to hold the message before
it can processed.

 Top performance metric for networking

routers
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.

Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission
times as shown on the next slide.

3.56
Example (continued)

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 in most cases.

3.57
End Lecture