Chapter 3

Data Transmission, Data Encoding

and Transmission Medium

1
Transmission Terminology
data transmission occurs between a transmitter &
receiver via some medium
Transmission media may be classified as guided or unguided
guided medium
 waves are guided along a physical path
 eg. twisted pair, coaxial cable, optical fiber

unguided / wireless medium

 Provide means for transmitting electromagnetic waves but do not guide
them.
 eg. propagation through air, water, vacuum

In both cases, communication is in the form of electromagnetic waves

2
Transmission Terminology
direct link
propagate directly from transmitter to receiver with no
intermediate devices (except for repeaters or
amplifiers which are used to increase signal strength)
A guided transmission medium is:
 point-to-point if
 It provides direct link between two devices and
 Only those two devices share the link/medium

multi-point if
 More than two devices share the link

3
Transmission Terminology
Transmission modes
simplex
one direction (one station is transmitter and the other is
receiver).
Example: television

half duplex : both stations may transmit, but only one at a

time.
either direction
Example: police radio

full duplex
both directions at the same time
Example: telephone
4
Frequency, Spectrum and Bandwidth
The signal is a function of time, but it can also be
expressed as a function of frequency.
Viewed as a function of time, an electromagnetic
signal can be either analog or digital
time domain concepts
analog signal
 signal intensity varies in a smooth way over time

digital signal
 signal intensity maintains a constant level for some period
then changes to another constant level
Periodic Signal (The simplest sort of signal)
 pattern repeated over time

aperiodic signal
 pattern not repeated over time

5
Analog & Digital Signals

The continuous
signal might
represent speech,

The discrete
signal might
represent binary
1s and 0s.
6
Periodic Signals
 The signal consists of
components of different
frequencies.

 frequency domain
view of a signal is more
important to an
understanding of data
transmission than a time
domain view.
Frequency = Cycles per
period of time

the signal consists of components of different frequencies 7

Analog Signals
Data are propagated from one point to another by means of
electromagnetic signals. Both analog and digital signals may be
transmitted on suitable transmission media

8
Digital Signals
• A sequence of voltage pulses that may be transmitted over a wire
medium
• Digital signals can be used to transmit both analog data and digital data.
• Analog data can be converted to digital using a codec (coder-decoder),

A digital signal can be transmitted A repeater receives the digital signal,

only within a limited distance recovers the pattern of 1s and 0s, and
before attenuation, noise, and other retransmits a new signal. Thus the
impairments attenuation is overcome.
9
Advantages & Disadvantages of Digital Signals
Cheaper
n :
Less susceptible to noise/intereference tio in
u a n
But greater attenuation than Analog en tio
tt uc
Digital signals are now the preferred A d gth
Re ren
choice st

Because of the attenuation, or reduction, of signal strength at higher

frequencies, the pulses become rounded and smaller.
10
Analog or Digital?
Which is the preferred method of transmission?
The answer being supplied by the
telecommunications industry and its customers is
digital.
 Both long-haul telecommunications facilities and
intra-building services have moved to digital
transmission and, where possible, digital signaling n cur
h co u ld i
techniques,
Tradefor
off : a range of reasons.
y rep ea t ers(whic
ng man
i ss i o n : Usi
s m t i on
Digital tran o i se an d l e ss a t t en u a
l es s n
costs) with st ) wi t h
u ces co
vs f e w re p e a ters(red
i ss i o n : U sing
s m
Analog tran g rea t er n o ise
a t t en u a t i o n an d
less
11
Transmission Medium: Overview
guided - wire/optical fibre
eg: twisted pair, coaxial cable, and optical fiber
unguided – wireless
employ an antenna for transmitting through air, vacuum, or water.
The characteristics and quality of a data transmission are
determined both by the characteristics of the medium and the
characteristics of the signal.
in guided media - the medium itself is more important in
determining the limitations of transmission.
in unguided media - bandwidth produced by the
antenna is more important than medium in
determining transmission characteristics.
In considering the design of data transmission systems, key
concerns are data rate and distance: the greater the data rate and
distance, the better. 12
 Electromagnetic Spectrum

Frequencies at which various guided media and unguided transmission

techniques operate 13
Transmission Characteristics of Guided Media
Frequency Typical Typical Repeater
Range Attenuatio Delay Spacing
n
Twisted pair 0 to 3.5 kHz 0.2 dB/km 50 µs/km 2 km
(with @ 1 kHz
loading)
Twisted 0 to 1 MHz 0.7 dB/km 5 µs/km 2 km
pairs (multi- @ 1 kHz
pair cables)
Coaxial 0 to 500 7 dB/km @ 4 µs/km 1 to 9 km
cable MHz 10 MHz
Optical fiber 186 to 370 0.2 to 0.5 5 µs/km 40 km
THz dB/km

14
Twisted Pair
The most common guided transmission medium for both analog and
digital signals
Reduce Electromagnetic Interference

The twisting in d/t length

tends to decrease the
crosstalk interference
between adjacent pairs in a
cable

15
Twisted Pair - Transmission Characteristics
 used to transmit both analog and digital transmission.
 Analog transmission
 needs amplifiers every 5km to 6km
 Digital transmission
 can use either analog or digital signals
 needs a repeater every 2-3km
Compared to other commonly used guided transmission media (coaxial cable, optical
fiber), twisted pair is
 limited in distance
 limited in bandwidth (1MHz): for point to point analog signaling
 limited in data rate: for long-distance digital point-to-point signaling, data
rates of up to a few Mbps
 susceptible to interference and noise
• repeater is used as a regenerator of the
signal which also eliminates the noise
from the signal.
• amplifier just enhances the amplitude of
the signal waveform and does not care
about the noise that is being amplified 16
Unshielded vs Shielded TP
Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)
ordinary telephone wire
cheapest
easiest to install
suffers from external EM interference
Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)
metal braid or sheathing that reduces interference
more expensive
harder to handle (thick, heavy)

17
 7.5~10 cm 0.6~0.85cm
Category 3 Category 5 Category 5E Category 6 Category 7
Class C Class D Class E Class F
Bandwidth 16 MHz 100 MHz 100 MHz 200 MHz 600 MHz
Cable Type UTP UTP/FTP UTP/FTP UTP/FTP SSTP
Link Cost 0.7 1 1.2 1.5 2.2
(Cat 5 =1)

UTP = Unshielded twisted pair

FTP = Foil twisted pair
SSTP = Shielded screen twisted pair 18
Near End Crosstalk
 coupling of signal from one pair to another
 occurs when transmit signal entering the link
couples back to receiving pair
 ie. near transmitted signal is picked up by near
receiving pair

19
 Attenuation (dB per 100 m) Near-end Crosstalk (dB)
Frequency Category 3 Category 5 Category 3 Category 5
(MHz) UTP UTP 150-ohm STP UTP UTP 150-ohm STP
1 2.6 2.0 1.1 41 62 58
4 5.6 4.1 2.2 32 53 58
16 13.1 8.2 4.4 23 44 50.4
25 — 10.4 6.2 — 41 47.5
100 — 22.0 12.3 — 32 38.5
300 — — 21.4 — — 31.3

20
Coaxial Cable

• Television distribution
• Long-distance telephone transmission -
traditionally used for inter-exchange links, now
being replaced by optical
fiber/microwave/satellite
• Short-run computer system links
• Local area networks
21
Coaxial Cable - Transmission Characteristics
 superior frequency characteristics to TP
 performance limited by attenuation & noise
 analog signals
amplifiers every few km for long distance
transmission
Closer spacing if higher frequency is used
The usable spectrum for analog signaling extends to about 500
MHz
digital signals
repeater every 1km
closer spacing for higher data rates

22
Optical Fiber The core is the innermost section and consists
of one or more very thin strands, or fibers,
made of glass or plastic
Jacket(composed
of plastic) protects
against moisture,
abrasion, crushing,
and others

cladding, a glass
or plastic coating
that has optical
properties
different from
those of the core
23
Optical Fiber - Benefits
 greater capacity
data rates of hundreds of Gbps
 smaller size & weight
 lower attenuation
 electromagnetic isolation- Optical fiber systems are not
affected by external electromagnetic fields
Thus the system is not vulnerable to interference,
impulse noise, or crosstalk.
 greater repeater spacing: Fewer repeaters mean lower
cost and fewer sources of error
Tens of km at least

24
Optical Fiber - Transmission Characteristics
 uses total internal reflection to transmit light
effectively acts as wave guide for 1014 to 1015 Hz
 can use several different light sources
Light Emitting Diode (LED)
 cheaper, operates over a greater temperature range, has
a longer operational life
Injection Laser Diode (ILD)
 more efficient, has greater data rate

 There is a relationship among the wavelength employed, the

type of transmission, and the achievable data rate.

25
Optical Fiber Transmission Modes

Multimode fiber: Thick cable (62.5/125 microns) causes more

ray collisions, so you have to transmit slower. Typically use
LED for light source, shorter distance transmissions
Single mode fiber: Thin cable (8.3/125 microns) – very little
reflection, fast transmission, typically uses a laser, longer 26
 Wavelength (in Frequency Band Fiber Type Application
vacuum) range Range (THz) Label
(nm)
820 to 900 366 to 333 Multimode LAN
1280 to 1350 234 to 222 S Single mode Va rious
1528 to 1561 196 to 192 C Single mode WDM
1561 to 1620 192 to 185 L Single mode WDM

• Four transmission windows are appropriate based on

• the attenuation characteristics of the medium and
• properties of light sources and receivers
• For the four windows, the respective bandwidths are 33 THz, 12 THz,
4 THz, and 7 THz
• The four transmission windows are in the infrared portion of the
frequency spectrum.
27
Attenuation in Guided Media
Wireless Transmission Frequencies
Unguided transmission techniques commonly used for information
communications include broadcast radio, terrestrial microwave, and
satellite
Three general ranges of frequencies are:
30MHz to 1GHz
 We refer to this range as the radio range
 Broadcast radio, suitable for omni-directional applns
2GHz to 40GHz
 referred to as microwave frequencies
 highly directional beams are possible.
 Microwave is:
 Suitable for point to point transmission
 Also used for satellite communications

3 x 1011 to 2 x 1014
 referred to as infrared frequencies
 Infrared is useful to local point-to-point and multipoint applications 29
Antennas
 electrical conductor used to radiate or collect
electromagnetic energy
 transmission antenna
radio frequency electrical energy from transmitter
is converted into electromagnetic energy by
antenna and radiated into surrounding environment
 reception antenna
electromagnetic energy impinging on antenna is
converted to radio frequency electrical energy and
fed to receiver
 same antenna is often used for both purposes(i.e. in
two way communication)

30
Broadcast Radio
 radio is 3kHz to 300GHz
 use broadcast radio, 30MHz - 1GHz, for:
FM radio
UHF and VHF television
 is omnidirectional
 still need line of sight
 suffers from multipath interference
reflections from land, water, other objects

31
Terrestrial Microwave
used for long haul telecommunications
and short point-to-point links
requires fewer repeaters but line of sight
use a parabolic dish to focus a narrow beam
onto a receiver antenna
1-40GHz frequencies
higher frequencies give higher data rates
main source of loss is attenuation
distance, rainfall
also interference

32
Satellite Microwave
satellite is relay station
receives on one frequency, amplifies or
repeats signal and transmits on another
frequency
eg. uplink 5.925-6.425 GHz & downlink 3.7-4.2 GHz
typically requires geo-stationary orbit
height of 35,784km
spaced at least 3-4° apart
typical uses
television
long distance telephone
private business networks
global positioning
33
Data Transmission
The successful transmission of data depends principally on
two factors:
 The quality of the signal being transmitted.
 The characteristics of the transmission medium

34
What is Data Encoding?
 In computers, encoding is the process of putting a sequence

of characters (letters, numbers, punctuation, and certain symbols)

into a specialized format for efficient transmission or storage.
Decoding is the opposite process -- the conversion of an encoded
format back into the original sequence of characters. Encoding
and decoding are used in data communications, networking, and
storage. The term is especially applicable to radio (wireless)
communications systems.

35
Signal Encoding Techniques

36
What is the difference between Encoding and
Modulation?
• Modulation is about changing a signal, whereas encoding
is about representing a signal.
• Encoding is about converting digital or analog data to
digital signal, whereas modulation is about converting
digital or analog data to an analog signal.
• Encoding is used to ensure efficient transmission and
storage, whereas modulation is used to send the signals a
long way.
• Encoding is mainly used in computers and other
multimedia applications, whereas modulation is used in
communication mediums such as telephone lines and
optical fibers.
• Encoding is about assigning different binary codes
according to a particular algorithm, but modulation is
about changing the properties of one signal value
37
according to certain properties (Amplitude, Frequency,
Digital Data
As generated by computers (1’s and 0’s) and then
converted into digital voltage pulses for transmission.
Has two dc components

The greater the bandwidth of the signal, the more faithfully it approximates
a digital pulse stream. 38
Encoding- Digital Data to Digital Signals
Digital signal
is a sequence of discrete, discontinuous voltage pulses
each pulse is a signal element
binary data encoded into signal elements

39
Modulation- Digital Data to Analog Signals
The motivation for modulation should be clear: When only
analog transmission facilities are available, modulation is
required to convert the digital data to analog form.
main use is public telephone system
The telephone network was designed to receive, switch, and
transmit analog signals in the voice-frequency range of about 300
to 3400 Hz
use modem (modulator-demodulator)
Modulation techniques
Amplitude shift keying (ASK)
Frequency shift keying (FSK)
Phase shift keying (PSK)

40
Modulation Techniques

41
Analog Data, Digital Signal
 Digitization is conversion of analog data(such as voice and video) into
digital data to use digital transmission facilities.
 Once analog data have been converted into digital data, a number of things can
happen.
The three most common are:
The digital data can be:
1. transmitted using NRZ-L- directly
2. transmitted using code other than NRZ-L-extra step is
required.
3. converted to analog signal
 analog to digital conversion done using a codec.
The two principal techniques used in codecs:
pulse code modulation
delta modulation
 Non-return-to-zero-level (NRZ-L) line code is a binary code in
which 1’s are represented as low level and 0’s are represented as
42
high level condition with no other neutral or rest condition
Digitizing Analog Data

Figure: illustrates the 3rd alternative, which shows voice data that are
digitized and then converted to an analog ASK signal.

43
Analog Data, Analog Signals
Analog data can be modulated by a carrier frequency to
produce an analog signal
why modulate analog signals?
higher frequency can give more effective transmission
permits frequency division multiplexing
types of modulation
Amplitude Modulation
Frequency Modulation
Phase Modulation

44
Analog
Modulation
Techniques
Amplitude
Modulation
Frequency
Modulation
Phase Modulation

45
Transmission Impairments
With any communications system, the signal that is received may differ
from the signal that is transmitted due to various transmission impairments ,
causing:
 Analog signals - degradation of signal quality
 Digital signals - bit errors-binary 1 is transformed into a binary 0
or vice versa
Most significant impairments are
 Attenuation and attenuation distortion
 Delay distortion
 Noise

46
Attenuation
 Where signal strength falls off with distance
 Depends on medium
 For guided media, this 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.
Attenuation introduces three considerations for the
transmission engineer
1st. Received signal strength must be strong enough to be detected
2nd. The signal must maintain a level sufficiently higher than noise
to be received without error
3rd
. Attenuation varies with frequency causing distortion
 Increase strength using amplifiers (first and second problems)

Note: This also an increasing function of frequency.

47
Techniques to equalizing attenuation
To overcome attenuation problem equalizing attenuation across a
band of frequencies is used.
 Using loading coils: changes the properties of the electrical
signal on the line
 commonly done for voice-grade telephone lines
 Using amplifiers: Amplifies higher frequencies more than
lower ones
These techniques result in smoothing the attenuation effect on
the transmitted signal

48
Delay Distortion
 Only occurs in guided media
 Means that the signal changes its form or shape
 Distortion occurs in composite signals
 Each frequency component has its own propagation speed
traveling through a medium.
 The different components therefore arrive with different
delays at the receiver.
 That means that the signals have different phases at the
receiver than they did at the source.
 Particularly critical for digital data
Noise
 What is Noise?
Additional signals inserted between transmitter and
receiver.
 There are different types of noise
Thermal - random noise of electrons in the wire creates an
extra signal
Induced - from motors and appliances, devices act are
transmitter antenna and medium as receiving antenna.
Crosstalk – A signal from one line is picked up by another
- electrical coupling between nearby twisted pairs
Impulse - Spikes that result from power lines, lightning,
etc.

50
Examples: Attenuation
Measurement of Attenuation
To show the loss or gain of energy the unit “decibel” is
used.

dB = 10log10P2/P1
P1 - input signal
P2 - output signal

51
Example-1
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.
Example-2
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
Example-3
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 Figure below a
signal travels from point 1 to point 4. In this case, the decibel
value can be calculated as
Example-4
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

Example-5
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 × (−0.3) = −1.5dB. We can
calculate the power as
Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
 To measure the quality of a system the SNR is often used. It indicates
the strength of the signal wrt the noise power in the system.
 It is the ratio between two powers.
 It is usually given in dB and referred to as SNRdB.

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

Solution
The values of SNR and SNRdB can be calculated as follows:
Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and a low SNR
57