Digital Communications

Contents
• Introduction to Data Communications
• Encoding
• Analog and Digital Transmission Methods
• Transmission Media
Introduction to Data
Communications
 Fundamental concepts
• Communication can be defined as exchange
of information between two humans.
• Data communications can be defined as the
exchange of information between two
computers.
• In its simplest form, the data
communications can be shown as in the
following figure.
Data Communication

Source Destination

Transmission medium
Real-life Data Communication Systems

Demultiplexer
Multiplexe
r
 Data communications
• In the simplest form, data communications
involves the exchange of data between two
computers.
• Computers work with a binary language
consisting of zero and one.
• Therefore, a computer generates a stream of zeros
and ones and sends it to another computer to
which it is connected in some fashion.
• The connection can be either a simple wire or it
can be through wireless media.
 Data communications (I)
• For enabling data communications, a combination of
hardware and software is essential. In any data
communications system, three characteristics are described:
– Correct delivery: When a sender transmits data for an intended
recipient, the data must reach only the intended recipient and
not someone else.
– Accurate delivery: The data sent must be received in the same
form as the one in which it was sent. There must not be any sort
of alternations to it in transit.
– Timely delivery: The data must travel from the sender to the
receiver in a finite amount of time. The term finite is quite
vague, and would depend on the reasons why the data
communication is taking place.
 Data communications (II)
• Two key aspects of data communication systems
need a good amount of understanding.
– Transmission media: the physical path over which data
travels from the sender to the receiver. Ex: twisted-pair
of copper wires, coaxial cable, optical fiber or wireless
media such as radio waves.
– Protocol: a set of rules and conventions. Ex: The sender
and the receiver, the two key parties in data
communication must agree on a common set of rules,
i.e. protocols before they can communicate with each
other.
 Protocols
• A protocol defines the following:
– Syntax (What is to be communicated)– The syntax defines the structure
or format of data. This means that the order in which it is to be sent is
decided. For instance, a protocol could define that the first 16 bits of a
data transmission must always contain the receiver’s address.
– Semantics (How it is to be communicated) – The semantics define the
interpretation of the data that is being sent. For example, the semantics
could define that if the last two bits of the receiver’s address field
contain a 00, it means that the sender and the receiver are on the same
network.
– Timing (When it should be communicated) – This refers to an
agreement between the sender and the receiver about the data
transmission rates and duration. For instance, a protocol could demand
that the sender must send 1000 bytes and then wait for an
acknowledgement from the receiver before sending any more data.
 Standards
• Standards are necessary in every walk of life. For instance, when you want to
replace a light bulb in your home because it has been damaged, you expect the
new bulb to fit in the holder straightaway and work like the old bulb did. What
is the use if the bulb does not fit in the holder, or if it fits in the holder but
does not illuminate because it requires a different voltage level?
Consequently, everything that we use in our daily life has some common
features, some standards that every manufacturer must abide by. In the
absence of standards, every manufacturer can theoretically manufacture a set
of goods or services that are incompatible with other manufacturers.
• To avoid such anomalies, a set of standards is established, which governs the
rules that manufacturers must obey. In exactly the same fashion, standards for
data communications have been set. Consequently, a lot of incompatibility
issues have no place in data communications, which is highly desirable.
Bandwidth of a signal and a medium
• The term bandwidth is very commonly used
in data communication. The basic idea
behind bandwidth can be understood quite
easily with a simple example of pipes
carrying water to our homes. What is the
maximum amount of water a pipe can carry
at any given time? The maximum capacity
of the pipe at a given instance is its
bandwidth.
 Analog and digital signals
• Any signal can be classified into one of the
two types: analog and digital.
• An analog signal is a continuously varying
signal, similar to a sinusoidal waveform.
• A digital signal takes the form of pulses,
where we have something or nothing.
Analog Signal Digital Signal

T V 0 1 1 0 1 0
e O
m
pe L
r T
a
t A
ur G
e
E
Time

Time
Amplitude, period, frequency, phase
• Amplitude: the signal has maximum value
• Period: the time taken for the completion of
one cycle
• Frequency: the number of cycles or
revolutions that our particle would make in
one second
• Phase: the phase of a signal is related to the
position of a waveform relative to time zero
Fourier analysis and the concept
of bandwidth of a signal
• Ex: A periodic signal has been decomposed
using Fourier analysis to yield four sine
waves of frequencies 100, 400, 600 and 800
Hz. What is the bandwidth of the resulting
periodic signal? (800-100=700)
• Ex: A signal has a bandwidth of 20Hz and
its highest frequency is 60Hz. What is the
lowest frequency? (60-20=40)
Encoding
 Introduction
• How computers store data?
• Can a computer understand English?
• Does it store data in some other language?
• If a computer cannot understand English,
how can we codify the data to be stored in a
fashion that the computer will be able to
understand?
• Why a computer uses binary language?
The BCD Equivalent of Decimal Digits

Decimal Digits BCD Equivalent

0 0000
1 0001
2 0010
3 0011
4 0100
5 0101
6 0110
7 0111
8 1000
9 1001
 The BCD code
• Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) code
Decimal 2 5
Binary 0010 0101
• The BCD number for a decimal number 25 is
00100101
Decimal 1 0
Binary 0001 0000
• The BCD number for a decimal number 10 is
00010000
 Portion of the ASCII Table
Character ASCII ASCII Character ASCII (Binary) ASCII
(Binary) (Decimal) (Decimal)

A 1000001 65 [ 1011011 91

B 1000010 66 \ 1011100 92

C 1000011 67 ] 1011101 93

Z 1011010 90 ^ 1011110 94

1 0110001 49 _ 1011111 95

2 0110010 50 ‘ 1100000 96

3 0110011 51 * 0101010 42

9 0111001 57 + 0101011 43

a 1100001 97 , 0101100 44

b 1100010 98 - 0101101 45

c 1100011 99 . 0101110 46

z 1111010 122 / 0101111 47

 Portion of the EBCDIC Table

Decimal Digit EBCDIC

A 11000001
B 11000010
C 11000011
Z 11101001
0 11110000
1 11110001
2 11110010
9 11111001
 Multimedia
• These days, computers can also be used for the following:
– Drawing, storing and viewing pictures
– Storing sounds and playing them back
– Storing videos and playing them back
• However, pictures, videos and sounds are not made up of
alphabets and numbers. How can a computer recognize
and store them? How can we codify information about
these so that a computer can store them?
• To solve this problem of codification of pictures, videos
and sounds, the concept of multimedia came into being. As
the name says, multimedia means multiple media.
 Picture/Images
• Now let us imagine that we divide the picture by a
number of horizontal and vertical lines to form a
grid. Each rectangle is called picture element or
pixel.
• As the number of pixels increases (also called
higher resolution), the pixel size decreases.
• Ex: We choose the resolution such that each pixel
has either a dot or a blank.
Pixels Being Mapped to Zeroes and Ones

Screen Computer’s
Output Memory

Graphics 00000000 01100000

........ ........ 00000000 01100000
........ ........ Hardware /
00001111 11110000
........ ........ Software 00010000 00001000
........ ........ 00100000 00000100
01000000 00000010
01000000 00000010
01111111 11111110
00100111 01110100
 Picture/Image
• In practice, it is common to have 8, 16 or 24 bits
to represent one pixel on the screen.
• It is well known that any color can be derived by
adding or mixing various intensities of three basic
colors: Red, Green, Blue – thus the name RGB.
• Many systems that use 24 bits to describe the
color of one pixel use 8 bits each to describe the
intensities of Red, Green, Blue.
 Video
• The basic principle behind video is the technology
animation. The idea behind animation is very
simple and is used in cartoons and films.
• If a set of pictures is shown rapidly, the human
eye can be fooled into believing that the pictures
are in motion.
• It has been proved that if 24 pictures are shown in
succession in one second, our eyes sense it as a
continuous motion.
 Sound
• A sound wave (i.e. an audio signal) is continuous
in nature.
• The continuity is in two respects: the strength of
wave/signal (called amplitude) and time.
• In contrast, a computer works only with binary
values: 0 and 1.
• If we want to translate an audio signal so that it
can be mapped to the computer-recognizable data
of 0 and 1, it should be clear that we must
somehow map an analog signal as a digital signal.
Audio Signal in the Analog Form

Amplitude

Time
 Signal Representing Only Binary Values (0 and 1)

Amplitude

Time
 Sound
• Sampling: measuring the audio signal at fixed
intervals of time is called sampling. Thus, if we
decide that the audio signal would be measured
say 60 times a second, the sampling rate would be
60.
• Quantizing: having determined how many times
the signal should be measured, the next step is to
assess the range of amplitudes.
Sampling and Quantizing

Original signal Sampling Measuring the signal

5
4
65212369 3
11 10 7 2
1
0
Stored on the disk as numbers Quantizing
Analog and Digital Transmission
Methods
 Introduction
• We have studied that the two major types of
signals are analog and digital. However, the
manner in which these two types of signals can be
transmitted are also of the same types, that is
analog and digital.
• We have four possible combinations:
– Analog Signal, Analog Transmission
– Digital Signal, Digital Transmission
– Digital Signal, Analog Transmission
– Analog Signal, Digital Transmission
 Analog Signal, Analog Transmission

(a) Telephone (b) Analog signal

 Analog signal, analog transmission
• The term analog is very common and used for decades in
the field of telephony.
• The human voice generates an analog(i.e. continuously
varying) signal, which is transmitted as an analog signal
over the medium.
• On the way, the signal suffers attenuation.
• Amplifiers are used to overcome this problem, but then
amplifiers amplify noise along with the original signal,
too.
• The problem with this type of combination is that if the
signal gets distorted, it cannot be reconstructed at all!
• This is the reason why this type is not used where a high
level of accuracy is desired.
 Digital signal, digital transmission
• We know that the information coming out of a
computer is the form of digital signals.
• We also know that a digital signal has an infinite
bandwidth, whereas any medium has only a
limited bandwidth.
• Therefore, as the signal is generated and enters the
medium, the signal is distorted.
• The hardware equipment called regenerative
repeater or repeater is used to regenerate the
signal.
 Regenerative Repeaters
From
A
Data
0 1 0 0 1 0 1
Processing
Machine

0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

B C
Regenerative
Repeater
 Digital signal, digital transmission
• The input to the regenerative repeater is a signal, which looks like
a digital signal. Therefore, the repeater measures the signal
values at regular intervals to recognize the 0s and 1s in the signal
and regenerate them. Therefore, there is no loss of information.
• However, only one repeater will not do. You will require many
such repeaters. The distance between the repeaters is very
crucial. We may like to increase that distance as much as possible
to reduce the cost but then there is also a disadvantage to this. (it
may be difficult to differentiate 0 and 1.)
• Any line with repeaters placed at the appropriate distance is
called a digital line.
• AT&T put such repeaters on the wire pairs used for telephonic
conversations, separated by a distance of only 6000 feet. This
digital line is called a T1 line, which can carry a data rate of
1,54,400 bits per second (1.544 Mbps).
 Digital signal, analog transmission
• The designers had two choices for data
communications between two computers.One was to
create a new digital network with repeaters etc, or use
the existing telephone network.
• When computers were invented, the telephone network
was already in existence. However, telephones use
analog signals and analog circuits. The problem: how
to send a digital signals over an analog network?
• We use a modem for this purpose. The modem is
derived from two components: a modulator and a
demodulator.
Use of Modem for Sending Digital Data Over Analog Lines

Digital signal
Analog signal
Network

modem

Digital signal
Analog signal

modem
 Digital signal, analog transmission

• As the above figure shown, the digital

signals originating from the computer go
through the modem where they are
converted (i.e., codified or modulated) into
analog signals whose bandwidth is < 4000
Hz. This is because the channel for
telephone conversation requires a
bandwidth of 4000 Hz.
 Modulation techniques
• Amplitude Shift Keying: ASK
• Frequency Shift Keying: FSK
• Phase Shift Keying: PSK
• Quadrate Amplitude Modulation: QAM
– The main limitation of PSK is the inability of the
hardware equipment to distinguish small differences in
terms of phase changes. This puts a limitation on its
data rate.
– Combine ASK and PSK, makes higher data rates
possible (since the bandwidth of the transmission
medium is a major limitation, we cannot combine FSK
with anything else)
 Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK)

1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1

The frequency is between 0 and 4000 Hz

Frequency Shift Keying (FSK)
1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1

f1 f2 f2 f1 f2 f1 f2 f1
f1 and f2 are between 0 and 4000 Hz
Phase Shift Keying (PSK)

1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1
 Baud rate and bits per second
• Many people confuse baud rate and bit rate or bits per
second (bps). There is a difference between them.
• The baud rate is the number of times the signal level
changes in a channel per second. This signal level could
be amplitude, frequency of phase.
• The bandwidth of a transmission medium is finite, how
can we achieve higher data rates?
• By associating more than one bit for each signal level,
one can achieve a higher data rate. That is, the bit rate
will be higher that the baud rate in such a case. All this
has to be built into the modem.
Single Bit Transmission by Using FSK

bit rate = baud rate

Double Bit Transmission by Using FSK

bit rate = 2*baud rate

 Analog signal, digital (storage and ) transmission

• This type of transmission is becoming very

popular due to many reasons that we will discuss
later.
• The idea is somehow to represent an analog signal
into digital bits and then transmit it as a digital
signal.
• There are several techniques that are possible to
achieve this and we have discussed the general
overview of the basic idea, but Pulse Code
Modulation (PCM) is the most popular.
 The basic steps in PCM

• At source
– Sample the analog signal at regular interval say t.
(Sampling)
– Convert the analog signal into some discrete values.
(Quantization)
– Convert these values into binary numbers by assigning a
fixed number of bits for each value. (Encoding)
– Convert the binary numbers as a digital signal by
concatenating all these binary numbers.
 The basic steps in PCM

• At destination
– Convert the digital signal into binary numbers.
– Separate out the discrete values of signals by using the
number of bits for each discrete value.
– Reconstruct the original analog signal
• We require an equipment called codec
(Coder/Decoder) at both the source and
destination to perform these functions. We can call
it also as A/D (Analog to Digital) converter and
D/A (Digital to Analog) converter.
 Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)

1.2
1.1
1.0 1. 04 1.07
 1.0 1.1
0.9
0.8 0. 83
 0. 8
0.7
0.78
0.6  0.8
0.5 0.49  0.68
0.4  0.5 0.70
1.0.1.1.1.1.1.1.

0.3
0.2 0.21
 0.2
0.1
t t
Time
 Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)

• The A/D process is called quantization.

• The problem: quantization error.
• In the whole process, we have saved a lot in the
number of bits that we needed to send. Thus, there is a
trade-off between accuracy and cost or speed. The aim
of any good PCM strategy would be to reduce the
quantization noise to a negligible level without
increasing the load on the network significantly.
• The current PCM standard assumes eight bits/sample.
 Nyquist theorem
• An interesting question is : How do we choose the time
interval for sampling or slicing the analog signal?
• At higher speeds of sampling, the signal is more likely
to be reproduced faithfully than if the speeds are low
• In fact, the sampling speed is related to the highest
frequency in a signal. Nyquist showed that the
sampling speed should be 2*fmax where fmax represents
the highest frequency in that signal resulting out of
Fourier analysis. This is called Nyquist theorem.
Sampling Speeds for Different Frequencies

(a) Low frequency

Amplitude

0 t 2t 3t 4t 5t

Time t

(b) High
Amplitude
frequency
x y z
0 t 2t 3t 4t 5t

1.0.1.1.1.1.2
 Nyquist theorem

• Ex: if we want to sample a telephone voice with a

maximum frequency of 4000 Hz, we must have a
sampling rate of 8000 samples per second. This is
exactly what is used in PCM standard.
• Video signals have a far higher bandwidth with
signals at very high frequencies than voice signals.
This is obvious from the data contents and rates of
VCD and DVD players (for video disk) which are
far higher as compared to that of a CD (Compact
Disk) for music.
 Nyquist theorem
• The human voice has various frequency components in the
range of 0 to 20000 Hz. However, out of this range, the
frequency range of 300-3300 Hz is sufficient to recognize
the voice in a telephone conversation.
• The frequencies 0-300 Hz and 3300-4000 Hz act as guard
bands, so that multiplexing of many signals in a single
wire is possible. Therefore, the maximum frequency in this
case is 4000 Hz.
• Using Nyquist theorem, we can conclude that to transmit
human voice over digital telephone line, we must have a
sampling rate of 4000*2=8000 samples per second.
Moreover, if each sample consists of 8 bits, we can have
the following equation for the bandwidth required of the
telephone lines to carry digitized human voice:
Highest frequency of human voice * 2 * Number of bits in each such sample
= 4000 * 2 * 8 = 64,000 bits per second = 64 Kbps
Transmission Media
 Introduction
• Transmission media are the physical infrastructure
components that carry data from one computer to
another.
• Examples:
– Telephone wires that connect telephones to the central
office
– Coaxial cables that carry the cable television
transmission to homes
• Transmission media need not always in the form
of a physical wire – they can be invisible as well.
Categories of Transmission Media

Transmission Media

Guided Media Unguided Media

Types of Guided Media

Guided Media

Twisted-pair wires Coaxial Cables Optical fiber

Categories of Twisted Pair Cable

Twisted Pair Cable

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)

Categories of UTP
Category Usage

1 The basic cable used in the telephone system. This is fine for
voice communication, but is unsuitable for data
communication, except at very low speed.

2 Suitable for voice and data communication up to the speed of

4 Mbps.
3 Can carry voice and data up to 10 Mbps. It requires minimum
three twists per foot. Today, these are more regularly used in
telephone networks.
4 These are similar to the category 3, but can handle data up to
16 Mbps.
5 Can handle data speed of 100 Mbps.
Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)

Copper Insulation Metal shield Plastic cover

Coaxial Cable
 Optical Fiber
• Optical Fiber Structure
– Optical fibers use light instead of electrical signals as a
means of signal propagation. They are made of glass
fibers that enclosed in a plastic jacket. This allows the
fibers to bend and not break.
– A transmitter at the sender’s end of the optical fiber
sends a light emitting diode (LED) or laser to send
pulse of light across the fiber.
– A receiver at the other end makes use of a light-
sensitive transistor to detect the absence or presence of
light to indicate 0 or 1.
Optical Fiber
Propagation Modes
Multimode Step Index Fiber

Source Destination

Core Cladding
Multimode Graded Index Fiber
Single Mode Fiber
 Advantages/Disadvantages of
Optical fiber
• Advantages:
– Resistance to noise
– Huge bandwidth
– Higher signal carrying capacity
• Disadvantages:
– Fragility
– Cost
– Maintenance overhead
 Unguided Media
• Unguided media, also called as wireless
communication, transport electromagnetic
waves without using a physical conductor.
• The signals propagate through air (or
sometimes water).
• The communication band for unguided
media is as shown in the following figure.
Radio Communications Band

Radio
communication

3 KHz 300 GHz

VLF LF MF HF VHF UHF SHF EHF

3 KHz 300 KHz 30 MHz 3 GHz 300 GHz

30 KHz 3 MHz 300 MHz 30 GHz
Terrestrial Microwave Communication
Satellite Microwave Communication

Satellite

A B
Ground stations
 Satellite Communication
• Problem:
– If the earth along with its ground stations is revolving and
the satellite is stationary, the sending and receiving earth
stations and satellite can be out of sync over time.
Therefore, normally Geosynchronous satellite are used,
which move at the same Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) as
that of the earth in the same direction, exactly like the earth.
• Frequency: SHF, 3 GHz to 30 GHz
• Two frequency bands
– From the earth to the satellite (called uplink)
– From the satellite to the earth (called downlink)
Three Satellites to Cover the Planet
 Access Methods
• There are three methods for communication using
satellite. These three methods use principles that are
similar in concept to normal wired communication.
Like the wired world, satellite communication is also
based on modulation techniques. The three primary
modulation techniques are:
– Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
– Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
– Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
• Multiple Access: This simply means that more than
one user (multiple) can use (access) each cell.
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)

Satellite

Frequency Frequency
Group 1 Group 3
Frequency Group 2

Ground stations

This is the most popular method for communication using satellites.

 Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA)

Satellite
Data
packets

Ground stations

This is the second most popular mechanism for communication using satellites.
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)

Satellite

Code 1 Code 1
Code 2
Code 2

Ground
stations
 Cellular (Mobile) Telephones
• First mobile telephone
– As early as 1946.
– The city of St. Louis in USA
– Half-duplex system, known as push-to-talk-system, was
installed in the big cities in 1950s.
– Even today, taxi, CB-radio etc. use the same technology
• The second development took place in 1960s.
– Improved Mobile Telephone System (IMTS)
– Full-duplex system: two frequencies are used
– 23 channels
– In IMTS, users had to wait for a long time to get a dial
tone
 Cellular (Mobile) Telephones
• The third step: Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS)
(TACS in England, MCS-L1 in Japan)
– Cellular phones (Cell: radius 0~12 miles)
– The cells are actually circular, they are shown as
hexagonal for conceptual clarity.
– Each cell has an antenna and a cell office to control that
call.
– A Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO) control
various cell offices and coordinates the communication
between them and Telephone Central Office (TCO) or a
telephone exchange.
– TCO: a part of the wired land telephone system
– The computer at MTSO is responsible for not only the
connections but also for the information and billing of the
calls.
Cellular Phone System

Mobile
Telephone
Switching
Cell Office Office (MTSO)

Cell Office

Cell Office

Cell Office

To land Telephone
telephone Central
system Office (TCO)
 Bands in Cellular Telephony
• Classically, analog transmission is used for cellular
telephony.
– Frequency modulation is used for communication
between the mobile phone and the cell office. Normally,
two frequency bands are allocated for this purpose.
– For preventing interference, adjacent channels are rarely
allocated.
– Some channels are also required for control purposes.
– The number of channel: 40 in USA
– In USA, two bands: 824-849 MHz and 869-894 MHz
Frequency Reuse

A
E D
F
F D E
B F
G
G C C
A B
F D
E
G B
A
 Calls Using Mobile Phones
• A call is made from the mobile phone
– Entering a 7-, 8- or 10-digit phone number
– Mobile phone  cell office  MTSO  TCO. If the
party is available, CTO lets MTSO know. At this juncture,
MTSO allocates an empty voice channel to the cell to
establish the connection.
• When a land phone places a call to a mobile phone
– TCO  MTSO  all cell (paging). The cell where the
mobile phone is currently located responds to the MTSO.
The MTSO then transmit the incoming call signal to the
mobile phone, and when the mobile phone is answered,
the MTSO assigns a voice channel to the call, thus
enabling the conversation.
Handoff Part 1 - A Unit Becomes Weak in Cell A
Handoff Part 2 – MTSO Enquires to See If Anybody
Can Take up Unit 50
Transmission Media Characteristics

Medium Speed Cost Security Attenuation

UTP 1–100 Mbps Low Low High

STP 1–150 Mbps Medium Low High

COAX 1 Mbps–1 Medium Low High

Gbps
Fiber 10 Mbps–2 High High Low
Gbps
Radio 1–10 Mbps Medium Low High-Low

Terrestrial 1 Mbps–10 High Medium Variable

Microwave Gbps
Satellite 1 Mbps-10 High Medium Variable
Microwave Gbps
Cellular 1.6–1.2 Kbps High Low Low
 New Developments
• 1. Digital cellular telephone.
• 2. The integration of cellular phones with
satellite communication. This will enable a
person to have a unique but same telephone
number throughout the world, unlike today,
when we have different numbers for land
phones and mobile phones.
• 3. The integration of mobile telephony with
the PC. The scheme is called Mobile Personal
Communication.