Data (bit-) rate and signalling rate:

The 'data-rate' or 'bit-rate' is the number of bits (binary digits) per second.
The 'signalling-rate' is the number of 'symbols' per second. Units for the signalling rate are 'bauds'. A
symbol is a voltage pulse whose shape and amplitude is chosen from a set of two or more
possibilities. With binary signalling, there are two possible symbols, say a rectangular pulse of
amplitude +V and a rectangular pulse of amplitude V. In this case the signalling rate can be equal to
the data rate if no redundancy is included for error checking.
Often 'ternary' signalling is used with pulses of amplitude +V, 0, and V. Now the signalling rate can
be less than the bit-rate. We could send three-bits using two ternary (+V, 0, -V) symbols because
there are 8 possible 3-bit binary numbers and nine different ways of combining two ternary pulses.
Hence the bit-rate could be 1.5 times the signalling (baud) rate.
With 'quaternary' signalling, there are four possible symbols and therefore the bit-rate can be twice
the symbol rate.
The symbol period will always be T seconds, therefore the signalling-rate will be 1/T baud.
Asynchronous transmission (low data rates):
A digital transmitter must apply suitably shaped symbols to the channel at times specified by a
timing reference or 'clock'. The clock is a circuit which generates a 'timing waveform' which is
usually a regular sequence of rectangular timing pulses. The timing waveform is normally not
transmitted. A timing waveform must also be available at the receiver to indicate the time-points at
which the channel may be examined to extract a symbol. The receiver's timing waveform must have
the same frequency as that used at the transmitter. Also, it must be synchronised with the symbols
being received, even though delay will have been introduced by the channel. It is usual for the
receiver to extract the exact symbol frequency and symbol synchronisation from the signal received
from the channel, even though in many cases this signal will be distorted in various ways. If lengthy
transmissions are intended, the receiver clock must be very accurately matched to the clock
frequency of the transmitter since any small discrepancy will accumulate over time to produce large
timing errors. However for short block-length transmissions as used for transmitting 8-bit binary
numbers between computers and peripherals over short distances, for example, the transmitter and
receiver clocks need only be approximately matched and they may resynchronise at the beginning of
each short block. This is often referred to as 'asynchronous' transmission and is the basis of the well
known RS232 standard.. Data is sent in short words, say 8 bits long, with synchronising start and
stop bits. The receiver clock resynchronises itself at each start-bit. Consider the transmission of 8-bit
ASCII characters according to the RS232 protocol. When idle, the line remains high at voltage V
1
.
Asynchronous operation usually has a start-bit to signify the start of a transmission. This bit is
always 0. The eight bits of data are then transmitted using non-return to zero (NRZ) pulses and
finally a number of 1 stop-bits (in this case two) are transmitted to ensure that the next character is
not sent immediately.

Synchronous transmission:
Synchronous techniques are used for the efficient transmission of continuous data for long periods of
time, often at data rates close to the maximum possible over a channel of specified bandwidth. A
synchronising code (say 10101010) is sent at start of transmission, and thereafter, the receiver clock
must be kept synchronised in frequency and symbol-timing from the transmission itself. To achieve
the required bandwidth efficiency, pulses must be appropriately shaped, usually by a filter whose
impulse response is the required shape. More about this later. To detect the presence or absence of a
pulse, the receiver samples the received waveform at the correct symbol timing point.


Estimation of 'bit-error probability' using the 'complementary error function Q(z)':
The channel and the receiver may be assumed to add white Gaussian noise of zero mean and fixed
variance
2
to the transmitted signal. The receiver of a binary coded signal, receiving +V volt
rectangular pulses for '1' and zero volts for '0' may set a threshold at +V/2 and decide whether this is
exceeded at sampling points taken in the centre of each rectangular pulse. If the amplitude of the
noise exceeds +V/2 at a sampling point, an error may occur.