Data Communications and

Networks
Chapter 1: Bit rate and Modulation

Pham Quang Thai pqthai.hcmut@gmail.com

Baud rate and bit rate

2-level signal: each symbol (voltage value)
represents 1 or 0
M-ary signal: each symbol (voltage value)
represents several 1 or 0
Bit rate is the number of bits per second
Baud rate is the number of signal elements
(symbol) per second
Baud rate bit rate

r = log 2 L
N
S=
r
r: number of bits per symbol
L: number of levels (number of required symbols)
N: bit rate
S: baud rate (symbol per second)

Examples
1. A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are needed
per level?
2. A digital signal has nine levels. How many bits are needed
per level?

Examples
3. A text documents is needed to sent at the rate of 100 pages
per minute. Each page has an average of 24 lines with 80
characters in each line. Assuming that one character requires
8 bits, what is the required bit rate of 2-level signal?
4. Voice signals bandwidth is 4 kHz. To send Internet voice call,
the signal is sampled at twice the highest frequency.
Assuming that each sample requires 8 bits, what is the
required bit rate of 2-level signal?
5. The HDTV signal is 1920 x 1080 pixels per screen. 24 bits
represents one color pixel. The screen is renewed 30 times
per second. What is the bit rate of 2-level signal?

Examples
6. An analog signal carries 4 bits per symbol. If 1000 symbols
are sent per second, find the bit rate.
7. An analog signal has a bit rate of 8000 bps and a baud rate of
1000 baud per second. How many bits are carried by each
symbol? How many symbol do we need?

Modulation: needed when the medium is

bandpass or only a bandpass channel is
available

ASKs bandwidth: B=(1+d)S

FSKs bandwidth: B=(1+d)S+2Df

PSKs bandwidth: B=(1+d)S

QPSK: M-ary version of PSK, 1 symbol

represents 2 bits

Constellation diagram: needed for

complex M-ary modulations
Each symbol is a complex number and shown
as 1 dot in the constellation diagram

Example of constellation diagram

M-PSKs bandwidth: B=(1+d)S

(noted that S=N/r)

Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM):

M-ary modulation combines ASK and PSK
M-QAMs bandwidth: B=(1+d)S
(noted that S=N/r)

Examples
8. We have an available bandwidth of 100 kHz which spans
from 200 to 300 kHz. What are the carrier frequency and
the bit rate if we modulated our data by using ASK with d
= 1?
9. We have an available bandwidth of 100 kHz which spans
from 200 to 300 kHz. What should be the carrier
frequency and the bit rate if we modulated our data by
using FSK with d = 1?
10. Find the bandwidth for a QPSK signal transmitting at 12
Mbps. The value of d = 0.
11. Find the bandwidth for a 16-PSK signal transmitting at 12
Mbps. The value of d = 0. Compare the result with the
QPSK case.