CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION
SYSTEMS
 1.1 History of Communication
Year Event
Morse demonstrates the Baltimore, MD, and Washington,
1844
DC, telegraph line
1876 Alexander Graham Bell develops and patents the
telephone
1894 Oliver Lodge demonstrates WC over a distance of 150
yards
1900 Guglielmo M. transmits the first transatlantic wireless
signal
1905 Reginald Fessenden transmits speech and music by radio
1920 Pittsburgh, PA, begins the first scheduled radio
broadcasts
1936 BBC begins the first television broadcasts
1953 NTSC color television is introduced in the United States
1957 The first Earth satellite, Sputnik I, is launched by USSR
1968
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1989 Pocket cellular telephone is introduced by Motorola

 1.2 Communication Process
*Comn. is the transmission of information from
one point to another
*Appl. of comn enable us to communicate with
people all over the globe
*mobile phones,
*radios,
*televisions, and
*Computers
*Comn provides information to ships on seas,
aircraft in flight, environmental conditions,
rockets and satellites in space

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 Elements of Comn. Systems

Source of
Informatio
Informatio
n Sink
n

Transmitte
Channel Receiver
r
Communication
System

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 1.3 Communication Networks
*consists of an interconnection of a no. of nodes
made up of intelligent processors like
microcomputers
*purpose of these nodes is to route data through
the network
*Each node has one or more stations attached to
it

*The netk is designed to serve as a shared

resource for moving data exchanged b/n
stations in an efficient manner and also to
provide a framework to support new
applications and services
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 1.3 Cont’d…
*Traditional telephone netk is an example of a
comn netk in which circuit switching is used to
provide a dedicated comn path

Boundary
of subnet

Stations

Nodes

*In packet switching, on the other hand, the

sharing is done on a demand basis - store and
forward

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 1.4 Communication Channels
*The transmission of information across a comn
netk is accomplished in the physical layer by
means of a comn channel

*Depending on the mode of transmission used,

we have two comn channels;
*channels based on guided propagation and
* telephone channels, coaxial cables and optical
fibers
*those based on free propagation
* wireless broadcast channels, mobile radio
channels, and satellite channels

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 Telephone Channels
*uses circuit switching to establish an end-to-end
comn link on a temporary basis
*ensure that the transmission b/n a speaker and
a listener is an acceptable substitute for face-
to-face conversation
*the message source is the sound produced by
the speaker’s voice, and the ultimate
destination is the listener’s ear
* The telephone channel, however, supports only the
transmission of electrical signals
*appropriate transducers are used at the
transmitting and receiving ends of the system

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 Coaxial Cable
*consists of an inner conductor and an outer
conductor, separated by a dielectric insulating
material
*inner conductor is made of a copper wire
encased inside the dielectric material
*the outer conductor, it is made of copper,
tinned copper, or copper-coated steel
* Compared to a twisted-pair cable, a coaxial cable offers a
greater degree of immunity to EMI
*b/c of their much higher BW, coaxial cables can
support the transmission of digital data at much
higher bit rates than twisted pairs

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 Optical Fiber
*a dielectric wave guide that transports light
signals from one place to another
*Optical fibers offer the following unique
characteristics:
* Enormous potential bandwidth
* Low transmission losses
* Immunity to EMI
* Small size and weight
* Ruggedness and flexibility

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 Wireless broadcast channels

*support transmission of radio and television

signals

*The information bearing signals, representing

speech, music or pictures, is mounted onto a
carrier frequency that identifies the transmitting
station

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 A mobile radio channel
*extends the capability of the public telecomns
netk by introducing mobility into the netk
*MR meant to encompass terrestrial situations
where a radio tx or rx is capable of being moved
*radio propagation takes place mainly by way of
scattering from the surfaces of the surrounding

*The end result is that energy reaches the

receiving antenna via more than one path
*Consequently, the received signal strength
varies with location in a very complicated
fashion, and a MRC may be viewed as a linear-
time variant channel
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 A satellite channel
*adds another invaluable dimension to the public
telecom netk by providing broad-area coverage
in both a continental and an intercontinental
sense
*access to remote areas not covered by
conventional cable or fiber comn is also a
distinct feature of satellites
*Comn satellites in geostationary orbit offer:
* Broad-area coverage
* Reliable transmission links
* Wide transmission bandwidth
*Comn satellites play a key role in that the whole
world being viewed as a global village
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 Summary
*a communication channel is central to the
operation of a communication system
*Its properties determine both the information
carrying capacity of the system and the quality
of the service offered by the system

*We may classify communication channels in

different ways:
* A channel may be linear or nonlinear; a wireless
channel is linear, whereas a satellite channel is
usually (but not always) nonlinear

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 Summary
*A channel may be time invariant or time
varying; an optical fiber is time invariant,
whereas a mobile radio channel is typically time
variant

*A channel may be BW limited or power limited;

a telephone channel is bandwidth limited,
whereas an optical fiber link and a satellite
channel are both power limited

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 Shannon’s Information Capacity
Theorem
*design a system that transports a message
signal from a source to a user both efficiently
and reliably, subject to certain design
constraints:
* allowable transmit power,
* available channel bandwidth and
* affordable cost of building the system
*In the case of digital comn system, reliability is
commonly expressed in terms of bit error rate
(BER)

*is it possible to design a comn system that

operates with zero BER even though the
channel is noisy?
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 Cont’d…
*The answer is embodied in one of Shannon’s
celebrated theorems, which is called the
information capacity theorem
*Let B denote the channel bandwidth, and SNR
denotes the received signal-to-noise ratio

………….(1)

*The information capacity is defined as the

maximum rate at which information can be
transmitted across a channel without error;
measured in (b/s)

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 Cont’d…
*The information capacity theorem provides a
bound on what rate of data transmission is
theoretically attainable. On this basis we may
use the ratio

as a measure of the efficiency of the digital

comn system under study
*The closer is to unity, the more efficient the
system is

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 Cont’d…

*Equation (1) provides:

*a basis for the trade-off b/n channel
bandwidth B and received SNR
*an idealized framework for comparing the
noise performance of one modulation scheme
against another

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 Additive White Gaussian Noise
(AWGN)
*is a basic noise model used in information
theory to mimic the effect of many random
processes that occur in nature

*The modifiers denote a specific char.:

*Additive b/c it is added to any noise
*White refers to the idea that it has uniform
power across the freq. band
*Gaussian b/c it has a normal distribution in
the time domain

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 Cont’d…

*Wideband noise comes from many natural

noises, such as the thermal vibrations of atoms
in conductors (referred to as thermal noise or
Johnson–Nyquist noise), shot noise, black-body
radiation from the earth and other warm
objects, and from celestial sources such as the
Sun

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 Cont’d…

*AWGN channel is a good model for many

satellite and deep space communication links

*It is not a good model for most terrestrial links

because of multipath, terrain blocking,
interference,

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 Link Budget

*is an accounting of all of the power gains and

losses that a communication signal experiences
in a tele-communication system; from a
transmitter, through a medium to the receiver
*a design aid, calculated during the design of a
comn. system to determine the received power

*A simple link budget equation looks like this:

Received Power (dB) = Transmitted Power
(dB)
+ Gains (dB) − Losses
(dB)
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 The 7 Layers of OSI Model
OSI Layer Function Example PDU
Name
Application Services that are used by
end user applications
SMTP Data
Presentatio Formats data so that it can JPG, GIF, HTTPS,
n be viewed by the user. SSL, TLS Data

Session Establishes/ends
connections between two NetBIOS, PPTP Data
hosts
Transport Responsible for the
transport protocol and error TCP, UDP Segment
handling
Network Reads the IP address from Routers,
the packet Layer 3 Packet
Switches
Data Link Reads the MAC address
from the data packet Switches Frame
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Physical Send data on to the Hubs, NICS,

Bits
 Spectrum Regulation
*ITU defines freq. allocation as being of "a given
freq. band for the purpose of its use by one or
more terrestrial or space radio communication
services or the radio astronomy service under
specified conditions" Typical radiated
Source Frequency (MHz)
power (kW)
Longwave BCB (EU) 0.150–0.285 320
AM BCB (EU & J) 0.525–1.605 500
AM BCB (US) 0.530–1.710 50
TV low VHF 54–88 100
FM BCB (US & EU) 88–108 105
Aircraft 108–136 1
TV high VHF 174–216 316
TV UHF 470–806 5000
Cellular AMPS 806–947 0.003
Cellular PCS 1700–2000 0.003
ISM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 2400–2500 0.0000025
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 QUESTIONS?

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