Data Transmission:

Data, Signals, and Transmission methods

Based on Chapter 3 of William Stallings, Data and

Computer Communication, 6th Ed.

Kevin Bolding
Electrical Engineering
Seattle Pacific University

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Data Transmission
• Three aspects of data transmission:
• Data
• Actual information being sent/received
• Analog (continuous) or digital (discrete)
• Signals
• Electronic or electromagnetic representation of data
• Analog or digital (independent of data type)
• Transmission
• Communication of data by sending and processing
signals
• Processing depends on the data type

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Data
• Data comes in thousands of flavors…
• Audio
• Speech and music are the most common
• Video
• Television, remote monitoring
• Text
• Files, email
• Various computer formats
• Word documents, Excel documents
• Control information
• Remote operation, commands

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 Audio Data
AM FM
radio radio
0dB
25dB
Telephone
Power ratio

-20dB Channel
Speech 70dB
30dB
-40dB 3.1kHz

-60dB

Music

10Hz 100Hz 1kHz 10kHz 100kHz

Frequency

Source: Stallings, Fig. 3.9

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Video (NTSC) Data
Portion of TV screen
1 NTSC Television:
2 480 Lines x 450 pixels
3
4 (more or less)
5
6
7
8
9 Interlaced: Odd lines
10 scanned first, then even
11
13
12 lines
14
15
16 Bandwidth lost to horizontal
17 retrace and vertical flyback
18
19

Scan line (even) Horiz. Retrace

Scan line (odd)
Vert. Flyback
Source: http://www.ntsc-tv.com

Try: http://www.ntsc-tv.com/images/tv/aa-raster-1.gif for an interesting animation.

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Text and Computer Data
• Text data is human-readable
• Transmitted in the International Reference Alphabet
(IRA), known in the US as ASCII
• Seven bits per character
• Computer data is not human-readable
• May be in any one of thousands of formats (.doc, .xls,
.wav, etc.)
• Binary in nature – Interpretation is left to the computer

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Signals
• Signals are the physical representation of data
• Signal must have enough capacity (bandwidth) as the
data being transmitted needs

• Analog signals are continuous in nature

• Contain an infinite number of possible signal levels
• Limited by noise

• Digital signals are discrete in nature

• Finite number of signal levels
• Still limited by noise, but easier to deal with it

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Telephone Signals

• Speech occupies a band between 100Hz and 7kHz

• Almost all useful information is between 300Hz and
3.4kHz
• Telephone signals (POTS) are electrical
representations of the sound signals
• Bandwidth of 3.1kHz (300 – 3400 Hz)
• S/N ratio of 30dB (Maximum signal power is 1000x the
average noise power)
• S/N ratio (dB) = 10 log10(Signal power/Noise power)

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Video (NTSC) Signals
• An analog signal giving a gray scale value for each pixel
• Synchronizes to the TV’s scanning circuitry, then just
blasted to the screen
• Approximate Analysis:
• Scanning frequency: 525 lines in 1/30 sec. 63.5s/line, but 11s
used for retrace  52.5s/line
• Each line contains approx. 450 pixels
• Highest frequency needed when displaying alternating black/white
pattern
• Two pixels per period (high/low portions of wave)
• Requires 52.5s/450 pixels/ 2 pixels/period = 233.3 ns/pixel 
4.2MHz (high end)
• Low end: All black or all white  DC (0 Hz)
• Bandwidth needed is (4.2 – 0 MHz) = 4.2MHz

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 Digital Signals
• Digital signals are sent as pulses (square waves)
• ‘1’ represented by a high voltage, ‘0’ by a low voltage
• Other representations are possible as well
A square wave:
Requires Infinite bandwidth.

Square wave using finite bandwidth:

Using bandwidth of 6x base frequency
Using bandwidth of 4x base frequency

Source: Stallings, Fig. 3.7

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Data and Signals

Any combination of digital/analog data and digital/analog signals

is possible

Analog Data Analog Signal

Digital Data Modem Analog Signal

Analog Data Digitizer Digital Signal

Digital Data Transceiver Digital Signal

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Transmission
• Once a signal is on a transmission medium, it may
be modified or shaped
• Analog transmission sends signals through amplifiers
• Amplifiers do not distinguish between signal and
noise
• Digital transmission sends signals through repeaters
• Restore signal to its original form
• Filter out noise
• May perform error correction
• Digital data may be sent on an analog signal, but
using digital transmission
• Uses repeaters rather than amplifiers

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The Future: Digital or Analog?
• Data is inherently digital or analog
• Digital signals and digital transmission are taking
over
• Better data integrity
• Possible to ensure 100% accurate transmission of
a digital signal
• Better utilization
• Easier to multiplex digital signals
• Security
• Encryption is easy with digital data

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