Assignment No.

1
Title:
Transmission medium and its types.
Transmission medium:
Definition:
Transmission medium is a physical path between the transmitter and the receiver.
Transmission Medium is broadly classified into the following types:

Transmission
Media

Ungided
Guided media
media

Fibre Twisted Radio- Microwaves

Coaxial optics pair waves Infrarred

Unshielded Shielded

1) Guided Media

• Wired or Bounded transmission media.

• Physical medium through which the signals are transmitted.
• As the path traversed by the signals is guided by the size, shape and length of the
wire, this type of media is called guided media.

There are three major types of Guided Media:

1. Twisted pair cable

• Pair of cables twisted with each other.

• Cheap as compared to other transmission media.
• Installation is easy, and it is a lightweight cable.
• Frequency range: 0 to 3.5 kHz.
Types of Twisted pair:

1) Unshielded Twisted Pair: It is

widely used in telecommunication.

2) Shielded Twisted Pair: It is a cable

that contains the mesh surrounding
the wire that allows the higher
transmission rate.

2. Coaxial Cable

• Commonly used transmission media, E.g.,

TV wire.
• The name of the cable is coaxial, as it
contains two conductors parallel to each
other.
• Higher frequency as compared to twisted pair
cable.
• Types:

1) Baseband transmission: Process of transmitting a single signal at high speed.

2) Broadband transmission: Process of transmitting multiple signals
simultaneously.

3. Fibre Optic cable

• It uses electrical signals for communication.

• It holds the optical fibres coated in plastic that are used to send the data by pulses of
light.
• Provides faster data transmission than copper wires.
 2) Unguided Media
• Wireless or Unbounded transmission.
• It transmits the electromagnetic waves without using any physical medium.
• In this, air is the media through which the electromagnetic energy can flow easily.

Unguided transmission is broadly classified into three categories:

1. Radiowaves

• Electromagnetic waves that are transmitted in all the directions of free space.
Example is FM radio.
• Omnidirectional, i.e., the
signals are propagated in all the
directions.
• Frequency Range: 3 KHz to 1
kHz.
• Sending and receiving antenna
are not aligned. i.e., wave sent
by the sending antenna can be
received by any receiving
antenna.
• Further Categorized as: (i)
Terrestrial and (ii) Satellite.

2. Microwaves

• Line of sight transmission i.e. the sending

and receiving antennas need to be properly
aligned with each other.
• Frequency Range: 1GHz – 300GHz.
• Majorly used for mobile phone
communication and television distribution.

3. Infrared

• Wireless technology used for

communication over short ranges.
• Frequency range: 300 GHz to 400 THz.
• Applications: Data transfer between two
cell phones or between computer & cell
phone which resides in the same closed area,
TV remotes and wireless mouse.