COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

DIGITAL AND ANALOG INFORMATION

Digital information is discrete and has allowable
range of values.
Analog information is continuous and has infinite
set of values between any two points.
Analog signalling involves combining the data
with a carrier signal and is referred to as
modulation.
Digital signalling tends to be used for relatively
short distances.

 Direct digital signalling is also called as baseband

modulation and allows only one channel to be in
use on a medium at any point in time.
Baseband uses time division multiplexing to share
the use of the medium on a turn taking basis.
Digital sigalling is cheaper, faster, simpler and
more reliable.
Analog signalling is also called as broadband
transmission.

 Broadband allows several channels on different

frequencies to be in use at the same time, called
frequency division multiplexing.
High transmission speeds require high frequency
waves but these do not travel for long distances.
Digital communication is usually restricted to a
single frequency.
Bandwidth is the frequencies that a
communication medium can carry.

 To avoid interference, there are guard band

between stations which enforce channel
separation.
ASYNCHRONOUS AND SYNCHRONOUS
COMMUNICATION
Asynchronous communication means there is no
real time relationship between the message and
the reply.
Synchronous communication incorporates a real
time element and is connection oriented.

 Three distinct modes

simplex
half duplex
full duplex
Transmitting analog versus digital data
Data transmission requires the data to be
encoded, transmitted and later decoded.
analog data,
analog data,
digital data,
digital data,

analog signal
digital signal
analog signal
digital signal

 Fast circuit switching is a modem hybrid

technology.
Technology convergence
Internet use packet switching, where data is
transmitted in terms of small packets.
Longer message is broken into shorter messages.
In packet switching, when one path is broken,
another path is chosen for destination.

DEVELOPMENTS IN TRANSMISSION
Universities and corporations connect directly to
internet with dedicated leased lines of either
1,544,000 or 45,000,000 bits per second.
Modems twisted pairs 14,000 to 56,000 bps.
ASDL and ISDN use existing wires to connect
users to internet.
Cable TV coaxial cables 27,000,000 bps.
Broadband data - ATM 622, 000,000 bps.

Connection oriented versus connectionless

protocols
HTTP is connectionless protocol. FTP is connection
oriented protocol.
Connectionless protocol disconnects after it
receives a response while connection oriented
waits for future requests.
Disadvantage of connectionless protocol is
wastage of time and energy.

Signal bandwidth
The amount of information that can pass through
the channel.
BW=F2-F1
Channel Bandwidth
It is physically limited by the medium used by the
channel or artificially limited to communication
standards.