CHAPTER 3

Data & SIGNAL

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 Learning Outcomes
◼ Able to describe the major functions of
the physical layer
◼ Able to differentiate the analog and
digital signal that being used during
data transmission
◼ Able to determine the network
performance during data tramission

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 Position of The Physical Layer

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 Data and Signal
◼ Main functions physical layer- transfer
data in the form of electromagnetic
signal across to the transmission
medium
◼ Before data be transmitted, it must be
transformed to electromagnetic signals
◼ Data can be in the form of analog and
digital signal
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 Analog and Digital Signal
◼ Analog - information is something that is
continuous.
◼ E.g human voice,
◼ Digital information is something that is
discrete
◼ E.g. data stored in the memory of computer
in the form of 0s and 1s

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 Analog vs Digital
Criteria ANALOG
Signal
Analog signal is a continuous
signal which represents physical
measurements.
Waves
Denoted by sine waves
Representation
Uses continuous range of
values to represent information
Example Human voice in air, analog
electronic devices.
DIGITAL
Digital signals are
discrete time signals
generated by digital
modulation.
Denoted by square
waves
Uses discrete or
discontinuous values to
represent information
Computers, CDs, DVDs,
and other digital
electronic devices.

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 Analog vs Digital
Criteria ANALOG
Data
Subjected to deterioration by
transmission
noise during transmission and
write/read cycle.
Response to
More likely to get affected
Noise
reducing accuracy
Bandwidth
Analog signal processing can
be done in real time and
consumes less bandwidth
Flexibility Analog hardware is not
flexible.
DIGITAL
Can be noise-immune
without deterioration
during transmission and
write/read cycle.
Less affected since noise
response are analog in
nature
Analog signal processing
can be done in real time
and consumes less
bandwidth
digital hardware is
flexible.

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 Analog and Digital Signals

Figure 3.1 Comparison of analog and digital signals

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 Periodic and Non-Periodic
◼ Both analog and digital signals can be in two forms:
1. Periodic
2. Non-periodic
◼ Periodic signals consists of continuous repetitive
pattern within a time frame called period
◼ The completion of one full pattern is called cycle
◼ The amount of time(in seconds) required to complete
one full cycle is called period
◼ Non periodic signals has no repetitive pattern
◼ Can be decomposed into infinite number of periodic
signals

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 Periodic and Non-Periodic
◼ Data communication commonly use
periodic analog signal because it
required less bandwidth
◼ It also can use non periodic digital
signal because they can present the
variation in data

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Periodic signal

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 A Nonperiodic Signal

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 Periodic Analog Signals
◼ Classified as simple or composite analog
signal
◼ Sine wave cannot be decomposed into
simpler signal whereas a composite can
be composed into multiple sine waves

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 Periodic Analog Signals
◼ Sine wave can be described by three
characteristics or parameters
1. Amplitude
2. Frequency
3. Phase

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 Sine wave signal

S(t) = A sin (2ft +  )

Figure 3.2 A sine wave

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 Simple Analog Signals
◼ Amplitude
◼ The value of signal at any point on the wave on a
time domain plot graph
◼ Measured by volts or ampere
◼ Peak amplitude signal is the absolute value of the
highest intensity proportional to the energy it carries.
It measure in volt.

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 Figure 3.3 Amplitude

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 Simple Analog Signals
◼ Period(P)
◼ The amount of time(in seconds) needs to complete
in cycle
◼ It formally expressed in seconds
◼ Frequency
◼ Frequency(f) – the number of cycles in a second
(expressed in Hertz)
P = 1/f , F=1/P

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 Frequency
◼ Frequency is the rate of change with respect to time.
Change in a short span of time means high
frequency. Change over a long span of time means
low frequency
◼ If a signal does not change at all, its frequency is
zero. If a signal changes instantaneously, its
frequency is infinite

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 Period and Frequency

Figure 3.4 Period and frequency

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 Table 3.1 Units of periods and frequencies

Unit Equivalent Unit Equivalent

Seconds (s) 1s hertz (Hz) 1 Hz

Milliseconds (ms) 10–3 s kilohertz (KHz) 103 Hz

Microseconds (µs) 10–6 s megahertz (MHz) 106 Hz

Nanoseconds (ns) 10–9 s gigahertz (GHz) 109 Hz

Picoseconds (ps) 10–12 s terahertz (THz) 1012 Hz

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 Example 1

Express a period of 100 ms in microseconds, and express the

corresponding frequency in kilohertz.
Solution
From Table 3.1 we find the equivalent of 1 ms. We make the
following substitutions:
100 ms = 100  10-3 s = 100  10-3  106 ms = 105 ms

Now we use the inverse relationship to find the frequency,

changing hertz to kilohertz
100 ms = 100  10-3 s = 10-1 s
f = 1/10-1 Hz = 10  10-3 KHz = 10-2 KHz
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 Analog Signals
◼ Phase
◼ Described the position of the waveform
relative to time zero
◼ 1 complete cycle = 360°
◼ 360° = 2p rad, 1° = 2p/360° rad
◼ Measured in degrees or radians (360°
in 2p rad)
◼ Four types of phase – 0°, 90°, 180°, 270°.

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 Phase Change

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 Example 2

A sine wave is offset one-sixth of a cycle with

respect to time zero. What is its phase in degrees
and radians?

Solution
We know that one complete cycle is 360 degrees.
Therefore, 1/6 cycle is
(1/6) 360° = 60°= 60° x 2p /360 rad = 1.046 rad
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 Analog Signal
◼ Time domain
◼ Show the changes in signal amplitude with
respect to time.
◼ Phase is not explicitly shown on a time-
domain plot
◼ Frequency domain
▪ It concern only the peak value and the frequency.
▪ Changes of amplitude during one period are not
shown

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 Analog Signal
◼ Time and Frequency domain
◼ To show relationship between amplitude and
frequency, we use frequency domain plot
◼ An analog signal is best represented in the
frequency domain.
◼ A complete sine wave is represented by one
spike.
◼ The position of the spike show the frequency
(the height shows of the peak amplitude).

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 Figure 3.7 Time and frequency domains

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 Composite Signals
◼ A single sine wave is not useful in data communications
because it no sense and not carry information.
◼ Therefore it will send a composite signal – a signal made
of many simple sine waves.
◼ Based on Fourier analysis
• Any Composite signal is a combination of simple sine wave with
different frequency, amplitude and phase
◼ It can be periodic or non periodic
• Periodic – it can decomposed in series of sine wave with
discrete frequencies
• Non periodic – it can decomposed into combination of infinite
number of simple sine wave with continuous frequencies
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 Decomposition of a composite periodic
signal in the time and frequency domains

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The time and frequency domains of a non
periodic signal

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 Analog Signals
◼ Complex Analog Signals
◼ Periodic signals that are not sine waves
◼ Can be decomposed into multiple sine waves using
Fourier Analysis.
◼ Bandwidth and Frequency Spectrum
◼ Frequency Spectrum – the collection of all sine waves
signals that make that signal
◼ Bandwidth – is the difference between the highest
frequencies and the lowest frequencies
◼ B = highest frequency – lowest frequency
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 Figure 3.13 Bandwidth

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 Example 3

If a periodic signal is decomposed into five sine waves

with frequencies of 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900 Hz,
what is the bandwidth? Draw the spectrum, assuming
all components have a maximum amplitude of 10 V.

Solution
B = fh - fl = 900 - 100 = 800 Hz
The spectrum has only five spikes, at 100, 300, 500,
700, and 900 (see Figure 13.4 )
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 Figure 3.14 Example 3

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 Example 4

A signal has a bandwidth of 20 Hz. The highest frequency is 60

Hz. What is the lowest frequency? Draw the spectrum if the
signal contains all integral frequencies of the same amplitude.

Solution
B = fh - fl
20 = 60 - fl
fl = 60 - 20 = 40 Hz

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 Figure 3.15 Example 4

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 Example 5
A signal has a spectrum with frequencies between 1000 and
2000 Hz (bandwidth of 1000 Hz). A medium can pass
frequencies from 3000 to 4000 Hz (a bandwidth of 1000 Hz).
Can this signal faithfully pass through this medium?

Solution
The answer is definitely no. Although the signal can have the
same bandwidth (1000 Hz), the range does not overlap. The
medium can only pass the frequencies between 3000 and 4000
Hz; the signal is totally lost.

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 Digital Signals
◼ Information will represent as 1s and 0s
◼ Signal has L levels. Each level need log2 L bits
◼ Bit interval and Bit Rate
◼ Most digital signals are non-periodic – period and frequency is

not appropriate
◼ Can be described by bit interval(instead of period) and bit

rate(instead of frequency).
◼ Bit interval(s) - the time required to send one single bit

◼ Bit rate(bps) – the number of bit intervals per second

◼ Bit length – the distances one bit occupy on the transmission

medium
◼ Digital signal can be decomposed into an infinite number of sine

waves
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 Digital Signal

Figure 3.16 A digital signal

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 Example 6

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

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 Digital Signal
◼ Bit Interval = 1/ Bit rate

Figure 3.17 Bit rate and bit interval

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 Example 3.18
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, the
bit rate is

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 Example 3.19

A digitized voice channel, is made by digitizing a 4-kHz

bandwidth analog voice signal. We need to sample the signal
at twice the highest frequency (two samples per hertz). We
assume that each sample requires 8 bits. What is the
required bit rate?

Solution
The bit rate can be calculated as

3.45
 Digital Signals
◼ Significant Bandwidth and Medium Bandwidth
◼ Frequency spectrum recreate at the receiver with
distortion is called significant spectrum and its
bandwidth is significant bandwidth
◼ Bit rate has a relation to significant bandwidth – bit
rate increases, significant bandwidth widens
◼ A transmission medium has a limited bandwidth
called medium bandwidth
◼ If medium bandwidth less than required significant
bandwidth, the signal is distorted

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 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.

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 Digital Signals
◼ The maximum bit rate a transmission
medium can transfer is called channel
capacity of the medium

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 Figure 3.18 Digital versus analog

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 Analog vs Digital
Analog Transmission
◼ Analog normally has narrower BW than

digital signal between f1 and f2

◼ BW in analog can always be shifted as long

as the width of the BW remain same.

◼ Ex, analog cellular telephony, a limited BW

divided between many telephone users

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 Digital Vs Analog
Digital Transmission
◼ Usually needs a bandwidth between 0 to
infinity(f).
◼ The BW between 0 to f for low pass signal
◼ The lower limit is fixed and the upper limit can be
relaxed if we lower our standard by accepting a
limited number of harmonics

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 Digital Signal as a Composite
Analog signal
◼ Digital signal is a composite analog signal with
infinite bandwidth
◼ In Fourier analysis can be used to decompose a
digital signal.
◼ If digital signal is periodic – frequency domain
represent with infinite bandwidth and discrete
frequency
◼ If digital signal is non periodic – decomposed digital
signal will has inifinite bandwidth BUT frequency are
continuous

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 Digital Signal as a Composite
Analog signal

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 Transmission of Digital Signal
◼ How to transmit the digital signal?
◼ It has 2 approaches:-
◼ Baseband Transmission
▪ send digital signal over channel without change
digital signal to analog signal
▪ low pass channel => a channel with a start
from zero
▪ preserves the shape of digital signal if possible
only if we have low-pass channel with infinite
or wide bandwidth

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 Transmission of Digital Signal
◼ Broadband transmission (using modulation)
▪ change digital signal to analog signal
for transmission
▪ bandpass channel – channel with a bandwidth
that does not start with zero

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 Figure 3.19 Low-pass and band-pass
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 Transmission Impairment
◼ The imperfection cause signal through the
media are not same at the beginning and end
of the medium.
◼ 3 types of impairment

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 Transmission Impairment
Attenuation
❑ means loss of energy
❑ When signal travels through medium, it loss of
its energy that is overcome the resistance of the
medium.
❑ Some energy converted to heat.

❑ To overcome this problem, amplifier used to

amplify the signal
❑ Decibel(DB) Measure the relative strength signal
of two signal at 2 different point
Decibel(DB) = 10 log2 (P2/P1)
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 Attenuation

Figure 3.21 Attenuation

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 Transmission Impairment
Decibel(dB)
◼ To measure the relative strength of two
signal or a signal at two different point.
◼ Signal negative mean signal is attenuated

◼ Signal positive signal is amplified

dB = 10 log10 (P2/P1)
P1 and P2 are the power of signal at point
1 and 2
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 Transmission Impairment
Distortion
◼ Means the signal change its form or

shape
◼ Occurs in a composite signal, made of

different frequencies
◼ Signal component at the receiver have
phases which is may not the same as
sender.
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 Figure 3.23 Distortion

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 Transmission Impairment
Noise
◼ Several types such as thermal noise, induced
noise, crosstalk and impulse noise may
corrupt the signal
◼ Thermal noise – random motion of electron
in a wire which create an extra signal
◼ Induced noise – come form source such as
motors and appliances
◼ Crosstalk – effect of one wire to another

◼ Impulse noise – a signal with high energy

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 Figure 3.24 Noise

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 Transmission Impairment
NOISE
◼ Signal-to-Noise (SNR) is used to
calculate the ratio of the signal power
to the noise power.
◼ Formula

SNR = Average signal power

Average noise power

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 Transmission Impairment
NOISE
◼ The higher SNR means the signal less corrupted by

noise
◼ The lower SNR means the signal is more corrupted
by noise
◼ Since SNR is the ratio of two powers, it is often
described as Decibel unit SNRdB.
SNRdB = 10 log10 SNR

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 Transmission Impairment
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:

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 Transmission Impairment
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless
channel are

We can never achieve this ratio in real life; it

is an ideal.

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Data Rate Limits
◼ Data rate depends on three factors:
1. The bandwidth available
2. The level of signal we use
3. The quality of the channel(level of noise)
◼ 2 theoretical formula were used to calculate
the data rate
a) Nyquist – noiseless channel
b) Shannon Capacity – noisy channel

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 Data Rate Limits
Noiseless channel:Nyquist Bit Rate
◼ Nyquist bit rate formula defines theoretical
maximum bit rate
BitRate = 2 x Bandwidth x log2L
Bandwidth = BW of the channel
L = number of signal level used to
represent data
BitRate = bit rate per second
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 Example 7

Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000

Hz transmitting a signal with two signal levels. The
maximum bit rate can be calculated as

Bit Rate = 2  3000  log2 2 = 6000 bps

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 Exercise 1

Consider a noiseless channel have bit rate 12Kbps..

Calculate the signal level for transmitting data with the
bandwidth of 3000Hz.

12,000 = 2 x 3000 x log2 L

log2 L = 12000/6000 =2
L = 22 = 4

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 Data Rate Limits
Noisy Channel:Shannon Capacity
To determine the highest data rate for noisy channel
◼ Highest data rate for noisy channel

Capacity = BW x log2 ( 1 + SNR )

BW = bandwidth of the channel
SNR = signal to noise ratio( statistical ratio of the
power of the signal to the power of noise)
Capacity = capacity in channel in bit per second

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 Example 10

We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a

regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has a
bandwidth of 3000 Hz (300 Hz to 3300 Hz). The
signal-to-noise ratio is usually 3162. For this channel
the capacity is calculated as
C = B log2 (1 + SNR
= 3000  11.62 = 34,860 bps

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 Exercise 2
We have a channel with a 1 MHz bandwidth. The SNR for this
channel is 63; what is the appropriate bit rate and signal level?

Solution
First, we use the Shannon formula to find our upper limit.
C = B log2 (1 + SNR) = 106 log2 (1 + 63) = 106 log2 (64) = 6 Mbps

Then we use the Nyquist formula to find the

number of signal levels.
4 Mbps = 2  1 MHz  log2 L ➔ L = 4

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 Performance
Bandwidth
◼ The measurement of network performance

◼ It can be measure in two values:-

1) Bandwidth in (Hz) – is to range of frequencies

in composite signal or range of frequencies
that a channel can pass
2) Bandwidth in (bps) – speed of bit can be
transmitted in a channel or link

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 Performance
Throughput
◼ The measurement of how data can pass

through an entity(such as a point or a

network)
◼ The number of bits that can pass the wall

in one second

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 Throughput

Figure 3.25 Throughput

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 Performance: Throughput
◼ A network with bandwidth of 10 Mbps can pass
only an average of 12,000 frames per minute with
each frame carrying an average of 10,000 bits.
What is the throughput of this network?
◼ Solution
◼ We can calculate the throughput as

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 Latency (delay)
◼ How long it takes for an entire message to completely arrive the
destination FROM the time first bit is sent out from the source

Latency = propagation time +propagation speed + queuing time

+ transmission time
◼ 4 component
1) Propagation Speed
◼ Measure the distance a signal or a bit can travel through a
medium in one second
2) Propagation Time
◼ The time required for a signal(or a bit) to travel) from one
point of the transmission medium to another
Propagation time = Distance/Propagation speed
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 Example
What is the propagation time if the distance between the
two points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed
to be 2.4 × 108 m/s in cable.

Solution
We can calculate the propagation time as

The example shows that a bit can go over the Atlantic

Ocean in only 50 ms if there is a direct cable between
the source and the destination.
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 Latency (delay)
1) Transmission time
◼ Time required for transmission of a message over the
bandwidth of the channel
Transmission time = Message size / bandwidth
2) Queuing Time
◼ The time needed for each intermediate or end device to
hold message before it can be processed. It is not fixed
factor such traffic of network, devices, size of messages.

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 Propagation time

Figure 3.26 Propagation time

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 Example
What are the propagation time and the transmission
time for a 2.5-kbyte message (an e-mail) if the
bandwidth of the network is 1 Gbps? Assume that the
distance between the sender and the receiver is 12,000
km and that light travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.

Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time
as shown on the next slide:

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 Solution

Note that in this case, because the message is very

long and the bandwidth is not very high, the
dominant factor is the transmission time, not the
propagation time. The propagation time can be
ignored.
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 Wavelength
◼ Characteristics of a signal traveling through
transmission medium
◼ It binds the period or frequency of simple
sine wave to the propagation speed of the
medium
◼ Wavelength is depend on the frequency and
the medium

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 Wavelength
◼ It can be used to describe the transmission of
light in optical fiber.
◼ It is the distance a simple signal can travel in
one period
◼ It can be calculated if one is given propagation
speed(speed of light-3x108ms) and the period
of the signal
wavelength = propagation speed x period
= propagation speed / frequency

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 Jitter
◼ Is a problem if different packets of data encounter
different delays and the application that used in the
receiver is time sensitive (eg:-audio, and video)\
◼ Eg:- 1st packet delay 20ms, 2nd packet delay 45ms,
3rd packet delay 40ms, then real time application that
uses packet will endure jitter

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 End of Chapter 3

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