DATA COMMUNICATION

CSE 225/233

WEEK-3, LESSON-1

DATA AND SIGNAL

 Background
• To be transmitted, data must be transformed to
electromagnetic signal.

Data Communication Lecture Series, NRC, MAY2020 3.2

Analog and Digital
Data can be analog or digital. The term analog data
refers to information that is continuous; digital data
refers to information that has discrete states. Analog
data take on continuous values. Digital data take on
discrete values.

Topics discussed in this section:

Analog and Digital Data
Analog and Digital Signals
Periodic and Nonperiodic Signals

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Analog and Digital (Contd.)
Data can be analog or digital. Analog data are continuous
and take continuous values. Digital data have discrete states
and take discrete values.

Signals can be analog or digital. Analog signals can have an

infinite number of values in a range; digital signals can have
only a limited number of values.

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Periodic and Aperiodic signals
Both analog and digital signals can take one of two forms.

—Periodic: completes a pattern within a measurable time

frame called a period and repeats that pattern over
subsequent identical periods

—Aperiodic: Signal changes without exhibiting a pattern or

cycle that repeats over time

In data communications, we commonly use periodic

analog signals and nonperiodic digital signals.

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PERIODIC ANALOG SIGNALS
Periodic analog signals can be classified as simple or
composite. A simple periodic analog signal, a sine wave,
cannot be decomposed into simpler signals. A composite
periodic analog signal is composed of multiple sine waves.

Topics discussed in this section:

• Sine Wave
• Wavelength
• Time and Frequency Domain
• Composite Signals
• Bandwidth

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A sine wave

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Two signals
Same phase and frequency, but different amplitude

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Period and frequency
Period refers to the amount of time, in seconds, a signal
needs to complete 1 cycle.
• Denoted by T, measured in seconds.

Frequency refers to the number of periods in one second

• Denoted by f, measured in Hertz (Hz)

Frequency and period are the inverse of each other.

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Two Signals
Same amplitude and phase, but different frequencies

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Units of period and frequency

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Example (1)
The power we use at home has a frequency of 50 Hz. The
period of this sine wave can be determined as follows:

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Example (2)
The period of a signal is 100 ms. What is its frequency in
kilohertz?

Solution
First, we change 100 ms to seconds, and then we
calculate the frequency from the period (1 Hz = 10−3
kHz)

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More about 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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Phase
Phase describes the position of the waveform relative to
time 0.
Following figure shows the Same amplitude and frequency,
but different phases.

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Example
A sine wave is offset 1/6 cycle with respect to time 0.
What is its phase in degrees and radians?

Solution
We know that 1 complete cycle is 360°.
Therefore, 1/6 cycle is

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Wavelength and Period
• Wavelength is another characteristic of a signal traveling through a
transmission medium.
• The wavelength depends on both the frequency and the medium.
• The wavelength is the distance a signal can travel in one period.

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The time-domain and frequency-domain plots of a sine wave

A complete sine wave in the time domain can be represented by one

single spike in the frequency domain.

3.18
Example
The frequency domain is more compact and useful when we are dealing
with more than one sine wave. For example, Figure 3.8 shows three sine
waves, each with different amplitude and frequency. All can be
represented by three spikes in the frequency domain.

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Composite Signal
A single-frequency sine wave is not useful in data communications;
we need to send a composite signal, a signal made of many simple
sine waves.
The figure shows a periodic composite signal with frequency f. This
type of signal is not typical of those found in data communications.
We can consider it to be three alarm systems, each with a different
frequency. The analysis of this signal can give us a good
understanding of how to decompose signals.

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Decomposition of a composite periodic signal in the time and
frequency domains

3.21
Example
Following figure shows a nonperiodic composite signal. It can be the
signal created by a microphone or a telephone set when a word or
two is pronounced. In this case, the composite signal cannot be
periodic, because that implies that we are repeating the same word
or words with exactly the same tone.

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Bandwidth
The bandwidth of a composite signal is the difference between the
highest and the lowest frequencies contained in that signal.

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Example (1)
If a periodic signal is decomposed into five sine waves with
frequencies of 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900 Hz, what is its
bandwidth? Draw the spectrum, assuming all components have a
maximum amplitude of 10 V.
Solution
Let fh be the highest frequency, fl the lowest frequency, and B the
bandwidth. Then

The spectrum has only five spikes, at 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900
Hz

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Example (2)
A periodic 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 frequencies of the same amplitude.
Solution
Let fh be the highest frequency, fl the lowest frequency, and B the
bandwidth. Then

The spectrum contains all integer frequencies. We show this by a

series of spikes

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Example (3)
A nonperiodic composite signal has a bandwidth of 200 kHz, with a
middle frequency of 140 kHz and peak amplitude of 20 V. The two
extreme frequencies have an amplitude of 0. Draw the frequency
domain of the signal.

Solution
The lowest frequency must be at 40 kHz and the highest at 240 kHz.
Figure 3.15 shows the frequency domain and the bandwidth.

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Digital Signal
In addition to being represented by an analog signal, information can
also be represented by a digital signal. For example, a 1 can be
encoded as a positive voltage and a 0 as zero voltage. A digital signal
can have more than two levels. In this case, we can send more than
1 bit for each level.

Topics discussed in this section:

Bit Rate
Bit Length
Digital Signal as a Composite Analog Signal
Application Layer

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Two Digital Signals
one with two signal levels and the other with four signal levels

3.28
Example (1)
A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits are needed per
level?

Solution
We calculate the number of bits from the formula log2n

Each signal level is represented by 3 bits.

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Example (2) Signal Level Vs Bits
A digital signal has nine levels. How many bits are needed per
level?

Solution
We calculate the number of bits by using the formula log2n, i.e.
log29=3.17

So each signal level is represented by 3.17 bits. However, this answer

is not realistic. The number of bits sent per level needs to be an
integer as well as a power of 2. For this example, 4 bits can represent
one level.

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Bit rate and bit interval
• Most digital signals are aperiodic, so the period or
frequency are not appropriate.

• Bit interval (instead of period) and bit rate (instead of

frequency) are used to describe digital signals.

• Bit interval is the time required to send one single bit

• Bit rate is the number of bit intervals per second

—Usually expressed as bits per second (bps)

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Example (3) bit rate for text
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 (4) bit rate for audio
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

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Example (4) bit rate for video
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.

The TV stations reduce this rate to 20 to 40 Mbps through

compression.

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3.35