Lecture 11

Channel Capacity

The goal of any digital communication system is to transfer the data as fast as possible (high

rate) with reliability that is transmission with no bit errors. The maximum rate at which data can

be transmitted over a given communication channel, under given conditions, is referred to as the

channel capacity. There are four concepts related to one another and the channel capacity.

• Data rate, in bits per second (bps), at which data can be communicated

• Channel bandwidth, as constrained by the transmitter and the nature of the transmission
medium, expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz.

• Noise, average level of noise over the communications path.

• Error rate, at which errors occur, where an error is the reception of a ``1” when a ``0” was
transmitted or the reception of a ``0” when a ``1” was transmitted.

Recall that there are two resources the communication engineer takes into consideration in the

design of communication systems.

1. The bandwidth of the channel.

2. The power in the transmitted signal.

All transmission channels of practical interest are of limited bandwidth, which arise from the

physical properties of the transmission medium. Therefore, it is very important to use channel

bandwidth efficiently, this means that we would like to get as high data rate as possible with

limited error rate for a given bandwidth. Data rate governs the speed of data transmission. A
very important consideration in digital communication is how fast we can send data, in bits per

second, over a channel. Data rate depends upon 3 factors:

 The bandwidth available

 Number of levels in digital signal

 The noise in the channel (quality of the channel)

Two theoretical formulas were developed to calculate the maximum data rate: one for a

noiseless channel (ideal channel), the other for a noisy channel. For the case of noise free

channel where the limitation on data rate is simply the bandwidth of the signal. In this case for a

given bandwidth BW, the highest signal rate for binary transmission that can be carried is 2B.

This limitation is because of a phenomenon known as Intersymbol interference. However, we

can increase the capacity by increasing the number of levels or the number of bits representing

different signal elements. In this case, the capacity formula is given by the following equation.

𝐶 = 2 × 𝐵𝑊 × log 2 𝑀

This is known as Nyquist bit rate formula, in the above equation 𝐵𝑊 is the channel bandwidth,

M is the number of signal levels used to represent the data where 𝑀 = 2𝑛 and 𝑛 is the number

of bits per level. Since the bandwidth is a fixed quantity, it cannot be changed. Hence, the data

rate is directly proportional to the number of signal levels. That is, increasing signal levels

results in more bits being transmitted, hence increasing the capacity. However, increasing

signal levels increases the complexity of the system as it must distinguish between M possible

signal elements and that results in reducing system reliability.

Example 1: Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000 Hz calculate the channel

capacity for the following cases.

 a) Transmitting a signal with two signal levels.

solution: 𝐶 = 2 × 𝐵𝑊 × log 2 𝑀 = 2 × 3000 × log 2 2 = 6000 bits/sec

b) transmitting a signal with 8 signal levels

solution: 𝐶 = 2 × 𝐵𝑊 × log 2 8 = 2 × 3000 × log 2 8 = 18000 bits/sec

note the increase in the capacity when we increased the number of levels.

Example 2: Data is transmitted over a noiseless channel at a maximum rate of 256 kbps. If the

channel bandwidth is 20 kHz. What is the minimum number of signal levels do we need?

solution: we are given the channel capacity as 256 × 103 𝑏𝑖𝑡𝑠/𝑠𝑒𝑐 and the bandwidth is 𝐵𝑊 =

20 𝐾𝐻𝑧 therefore, 256 × 103 = 2 × 20 × 103 × log 2 𝑀

256×103
log 2 𝑀 = = 6.625 , since the number of levels is an integer, we round the result to the
40×103

next highest integer which is 7 therefore, 𝑀 = 27 = 128.

In real life, no channel is noise free therefore, noise and other transmission impairments will

limit the practical value of the capacity 𝐶 and the number of levels M.