Digital/Analog Signals

• The signals we consider are usually electromagnetic

waves.
• They propagate at the speed of light
(300,000Km/sec) in the vacuum
• or slightly slower (200,000Km/sec) in materials.
• Signals are analog i.e. they are represented as a
continuous line usually with a variety of levels.
• Digital signals are analog signals that can be
approximated as having two levels,
• i.e. they are square waves.
 Digital Signals
• In addition to being represented by an
analog signal, information can also be
represented by a digital signal.
• For example, a 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.
• If a signal has L levels, each level needs
log2L bits.
3.2
 Digital Signals
Example
• A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits
are needed per level?
Solution
• We calculate the number of bits from the
formula

• Each signal level is represented by 3 bits.

 Example
A digital signal has nine levels. How many bits are needed per
level?

Solution

We calculate the number of bits by using the formula. Each signal

level is represented by 3.17 bits. However, this answer is not
realistic. The number of bits sent per level needs to be an integer
as well as a power of 2. For this example, 4 bits can represent one
level.

3.4
 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. Twenty-four bits represents one color pixel.

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

3.5
 Bitrate OR Data Transfer rate
• For digital signals, period and frequency are not appropriate
characteristics.
• Another term bit rate (instead of frequency)-is used to describe digital
signals.
• The number of bits sent in 1 second, expressed in bits per second
(bps).
• The speed with which data can be transmitted from one device to
another.
• Data rates are often measured in megabits (million bits) or megabytes
(million bytes) per second. These are usually abbreviated as Mbps and
MBps,respectively.
• Bit Rate = Number of bits/second
• Data Rate: The number of bits transmitted per unit of time through
the physical medium (also called throughput). Some examples of data
rates:

3.6
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?
Solution
• A page is an average of 24 lines with 80 characters in
each line.
• If we assume that one character requires 8 bits,
• Then the bit rate is
• 100 x 24 x 80 x 8 =1,636,000 bps =1.636 Mbps

3.7
 Baud rate
• Baud rate means the number of times a signal in a communications
channel changes state.
• For example, a 2400 baud rate means that the channel can change
states up to 2400 times per second. When I say 'change state' I mean
that it can change from 0 to 1 up to 2400 times per second.
• similar to the bit rate
• Whether you can transmit 2400 zeros or ones in one second (bit rate),
or change the state of a digital signal up to 2400 times per second
(baud rate), it the same thing.
• There are cases though where a channel can send 4 bits per baud,
meaning that for every 4 bits, we have one change, and in this case,
the baud rate is 1/4th of the bit rate.

3.8
Figure 5-38

Bit Rate and Baud Rate

Figure 5-38-continued

Bit Rate and Baud Rate

Bit Interval & Bit Rate
• Bit Interval: The time required to send one
signal bit.
– Also called bit duration
• Bit Rate: The number of bits that are
conveyed or processed per unit of time.
(Example: 100MB/sec)
• The bit interval is the inverse of the bit rate
Bit-Length
• We discussed the concept of the wavelength
for an analog signal:
– the distance one cycle occupies on the
transmission medium.
• We can define something similar for a digital
signal: the bit length
– The bit length is the distance one bit occupies on
the transmission medium
• Bit length =propagation speed x bit duration
 Bit-Length
• Bit-Length: The length of a one-bit signal. It can be easily
understood with an example.
– We are in communication channel where the data-rate is 10Mbps.
– That means that one bit is transmitted in 1/107 second.
– Since signals propagate in a medium at about 200,000km/s, ie
2*108 m/s
– bit length = 10-7 * 2 * 108 meters = 20 meters.
• In general,
Bit-Length = SpeedOfLight/DataRate

• The larger the bit-length of a channel, the slower it is that

channel.
Example
A digital signal has a bit rate of 2000 bps. What is the
duration of each bit (bit interval)

Solution
The bit interval is the inverse of the bit rate.
Bit interval = 1/ 2000 s = 0.000500 s
= 0.000500 x 106 ms = 500 ms
 Digital Signals
• Use binary (0s and 1s) to encode information
• Less affected by interference (noise)
• Fewer errors
• Describe digital signals by
– Bit interval
• time required to send one bit
– Bit rate
• number of bit intervals per sec (bps)
• Analog bandwidth
– range of frequencies a medium can pass (hertz)
• Digital bandwidth
– maximum bit rate that a medium can pass (bps)

15
Transmission Approaches of Digital Signals

• We can transmit a digital signal by using one

of two different approaches:

1. Baseband transmission
2. Broadband transmission (using modulation).
Baseband Transmission
• Baseband transmission means sending a
digital signal over a channel without changing
the digital signal to an analog signal.
Baseband Transmission
• Baseband is bi-directional transmission
• Short distance signal travelling
• Entire bandwidth of the cable is consumed by a single signal in a
baseband transmission.
• takes place on a communication medium, usually a local area
network, using only one communication channel.
• The signal is digital and directly inserted in the channel as pulses.
• Ethernet is using baseband for LANs.
• If the data is needed to be send to a server, network interface card
is making request to use the wire.
• While the wire is busy, NIC retries its request.
• When the wire is available, the data is being sent.
• The process takes milliseconds and is not noticeable by user.
 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.
In a bus topology LAN with multipoint connections, only
two stations can communicate with each other at each
moment in time (timesharing); the other stations need to
refrain from sending data. In a star topology LAN, the
entire channel between each station and the hub is used
for communication between these two entities.
Broadband Transmission
• instead uses analog signals and multiple communication channels share
the communication medium,
• usually modulating various carriers.
• For example the cable that you may have at home for both television and
your computer uses broadband technology - television and computer use
different channels in the medium.
• Similarly if your telephone line supports DSL it uses broadband technology
with a channel for normal phone service and channels for the computer
communication.
• A codec (coder/decoder) is a device that transforms analog signals
to/from binary signals (for example, phone, where the analog signal
representation of voice is transformed for transmission on the high speed
digital network into a digital signal).
• For instance the conversion from analog to binary signal can be done using
PCM (Pulse Code Modulation).
Propagation Delay:
• The time it takes a signal to propagate from
the sender to the receiver. It is the distance
divided by the propagation speed (light).
• Propagation Delay=Distance / Propagation speed
Transmission Delay
• the time it takes to transmit a message. It is
the size of the message in bits divided by the
data rate (measured in bps) of the channel
over which the transmission takes place.
Queuing Delay
At a node a message is received and, if the
node is an intermediate node (router), it is
scheduled for transmission (Store-and-
Forward). The packet may have to wait if
there are packets ahead of him. This is the
queueing delay. Note that if there are 3 same
size packets ahead in the queue, the delay will
be 3 * transmission delay.
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.
 Attenuation
 Distortion
 Noise
Figure Causes of impairment
 Attenuation

• Means loss of energy -> weaker signal

• When a signal travels through a medium it
loses energy overcoming the resistance of
the medium
• Amplifiers are used to compensate for this
loss of energy by amplifying the signal.

3.26
 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

3.27
Figure 3.26 Attenuation

3.28
 Example 3.26

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.

3.29
 Example 3.27

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

3.30
 Example 3.28

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 3.27 a signal travels from point 1
to point 4. In this case, the decibel value can be calculated as

3.31
Figure 3.27 Decibels for Example 3.28

3.32
 Distortion
• 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.

3.33
Figure Distortion
 Noise
• 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 - same as above but between two
wires.
– Impulse - Spikes that result from power lines,
Figure 3.29 Noise

3.36
 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.

3.37
 Example 3.31

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:

3.38
 Crosstalk

3.39