Connexions module: m0074 1

Comparison of Analog and Digital

Communication ∗

Don Johnson
This work is produced by The Connexions Project and licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution License †

Abstract
Digital communication systems oer much more eciency, better performance, and much greater
exibility.
Analog communication systems, amplitude modulation (AM) radio being a typifying example, can in-
expensively communicate a bandlimited analog signal from one location to another (point-to-point commu-
nication) or from one point to many (broadcast). Although it is not shown here, the coherent receiver 1

provides the largest possible signal-to-noise ratio for the demodulated message. An analysis of this receiver
2

thus indicates that some residual error will always

be present in an analog system's output.
Although analog systems are less expensive in many cases than digital ones for the same application,
digital systems oer much more eciency, better performance, and much greater exibility.
• Eciency: The Source Coding Theorem allows quantication of just how complex a given message
source is and allows us to exploit that complexity by source coding (compression). In analog commu-
nication, the only parameters of interest are message bandwidth and amplitude. We cannot exploit
signal structure to achieve a more ecient communication system.
• Performance : Because of the Noisy Channel Coding Theorem, we have a specic criterion by which
to formulate error-correcting codes that can bring us as close to error-free transmission as we might
want. Even though we may send information by way of a noisy channel, digital schemes are capable
of error-free transmission while analog ones cannot overcome channel disturbances; see this problem 3

for a comparison.
• Flexibility: Digital communication systems can transmit real-valued discrete-time signals, which
could be analog ones obtained by analog-to-digital conversion, and
symbolic-valued ones (computer
data, for example). Any signal that can be transmitted by analog means can be sent by digital means,
with the only issue being the number of bits used in A/D conversion (how accurately do we need
to represent signal amplitude). Images can be sent by analog means (commercial television), but
better communication performance occurs when we use digital systems (HDTV). In addition to digital
communication's ability to transmit a wider variety of signals than analog systems, point-to-point
digital systems can be organized into global (and beyond as well) systems that provide ecient and
exible information transmission. Computer networks
, explored in the next section, are what we
∗ Version 2.11: Jun 3, 2007 11:01 pm GMT-5
† http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0
1 "Modulated Communication", Figure 1 <http://cnx.org/content/m0518/latest/#g1000>
2 "Signal-to-Noise Ratio of an Amplitude-Modulated Signal" <http://cnx.org/content/m0541/latest/>
3 "Information Communication Problems", Problem 15 <http://cnx.org/content/m10352/latest/#item6.9>

http://cnx.org/content/m0074/2.11/
Connexions module: m0074 2

call such systems today. Even analog-based networks, such as the telephone system, employ modern
computer networking ideas rather than the purely analog systems of the past.
Consequently, with the increased speed of digital computers, the development of increasingly ecient algo-
rithms, and the ability to interconnect computers to form a communications infrastructure, digital commu-
nication is now the best choice for many situations.

http://cnx.org/content/m0074/2.11/