Brief History of Data Communications and Telecommunication

• 1837 – Samuel Morse exhibited a working telegraph system

• 1843 – Alexander Bain patented a printing telegraph.

• 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell invented the first telephone.

• 1880 – First pay telephone.

• 1915 – First transcontinental telephone service and first transatlantic voice connections.

• 1947 – Transistor invented in Bell Labs

• 1951 – First direct long-distance dialing

• 1962 – First international satellite telephone call

• 1968 – Carterfone court decision allowed non-Bell equipment to connect to Bell System
Network.

• 1970 – Permitted MCI to provide limited long distance service in competition to AT&T.

• 1984 – Deregulation of AT&T

• 1980s – Public service of Digital Networks

• 1990s – Cellular telephones commonplace

Phases of Telecommunication Development

• Telegraph & Telephone (19th Century)

• Satellite Communications (1960s)

• Digital Communications (1980s)

• Internet Age (1990s)

• Wireless Communications (1990s)

• 21st Century?

Trends: From wired to wireless, from analog to digital, from voice, video, picture to data.
Five Components of Data Communications

1. Message – The message is the information (data) to be communicated. Popular forms of

information include text, numbers, pictures, audio, and video.

2. Sender – The sender is the device that sends the data message. It can be a computer,
workstation, telephone, handset, video camera, and so on.

3. Receiver – The receiver is the device that receives the message. It can be a computer,
workstation, telephone, handset, video camera, and so on.

4. Transmission Medium – The transmission medium is the physical path by which a message
travels from sender to receiver. Some examples of transmission media include twisted-pair
wire, coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable, and radio waves.

5. Protocols – rules and conventions used to exchange information in a Data Communications

Network.

Two Role in Data Communications

1. DTE or Data Terminal Equipment – These are the end devices that is used to deliver the
message in that can be understood end to end.

2. DCE or Data Communications Equipment – Another term for the MODEM (Modulator-
Demodulator) equipment. The equipment used in long distance serial data communication
system is responsible for different modulation techniques.

Data Representation

• Text – alphanumeric characters represented as bit patterns (sequence of bits, 1 and 0). Each
set is called a code.

• Numbers – also represented as bit patterns, in data communications, the numbers are
converted to binary equivalent.

• Images – it is also represented as bit patterns, composed of a

matrix of pixels (picture elements) where each pixel is a dot.

• Audio – recording or broadcasting of sound or music. Continuous form.

• Video – recording or broadcasting of a picture or a movie.

Common Terms used in Data Communication

• Information – knowledge or intelligence, (analog/digital)

• Data – information stored in digital format.

• Data Transmission Code – information converted to binary code.

• Data Communication Code – Used to represent characters or symbols. Includes character

codes, character set, symbol codes, character languages.

• Bandwidth – range of frequencies contained in a frequency spectrum. It is used to define a

particular channel in a transmission system.

• Information Theory – a highly theoretical study of the efficient use of bandwidth to propagate
information through electronic communication systems.

• Bit – binary digit. It is the most basic digital symbol used to represent information. It could be
a 1 or 0.

• Mark – refers to binary 1.

• Space – refers to binary 0.

• Block/Frame/Packet – group of bits transferred as a unit.

• Bit Rate – rate of change of a digital information signal. It is also referred to the number of bits
transmitted per second.

• Information Capacity – measure of how much information can be represented through a

communications system. Represent the number of independent symbols that can be carried
through a system in each unit of time. It is usually dependent on the frequency and
bandwidth.

• Baud Rate – refers to the rate of change of signal in a transmission (communications) medium
after encoding and modulation have occurred. Number of signaling element per second in a
transmission medium. It is equal to 1/time of one output signaling element.

• Station or Node – an endpoint where subscribers gain access to the data communications
circuit.

• Communication Link – path for transmission of signals between communicating devices.

• Channel – specific band of frequencies allocated to a particular service of transmission.

• Protocol – format set of conventions governing how communications should take place in a
communications system.

• Protocol Stack – the list of protocols used by the system.

• Network – set of devices (nodes or stations) interconnected by communications media link.

 • Data Communications Network – Systems of interrelated computers and computer equipment
that are interconnected to one another for the purpose of transmitting and/or receiving
information.

• Computer Network - Two or more computers interconnected with one another for the
purpose of sharing resources such as printers, databases, files, and backup devices.

• Analog Signal – signal whose amplitude continuously varies with time.

• Digital Signal – signals which are discrete, their amplitude maintains a constant level for a
prescribed period.

Two Basic Types of Electronic Communication System

• Analog Communication System – system in which signals are transmitted and received in
analog format.

• Digital Communication System – system in which signals are transmitted and received in digital
form (discrete levels such as +V, -V, and 0V)

Data Transmission (Data Flow)

• Simplex – communication is unidirectional. Only one of the two devices on a link can transmit;
the other can only receive.

• Half Duplex – Only one of the two devices on a link can transmit; the other can only receive.

• Full Duplex – Both stations can transmit and receive mail simultaneously.

Networks

A network is a set of devices (often referred to as nodes) connected by communication links. A node
can be a computer, printer, or any other device capable of sending and/or receiving data generated by
other nodes on the network.

• Most networks use distributed processing, in which a task is divided among multiple
computers. Today it can be referred to as cloud computing.
Network Criteria

• Reliability - is based on the frequency of failure measurement. It’s the ability of the network
to recover from a network link failure and the network’s robustness in a catastrophe.

• Security – protecting data from unauthorized access, protecting data from damage and
development, and implementing policies and procedures for recovery from breaches and data
loses.

Types of Network Connection

• Point to Point – dedicated link between two devices.

• Multipoint – multiple connection in a single link. Also called multidrop.

Network Topologies: Bus, Ring, Star, Mesh

NOTE: In mesh topology, the number of links (L) is equivalent to n(n-1)/2 where n is the number of
stations or nodes to be connected
Data Communication Codes

Morse Code (International Morse Code)

• The first character set was developed by Samuel Morse.

• Variable Length Source Code which uses dot, dash, and space symbols

• Each character (letter or numeral) is represented by a unique sequence of dots and dashes.
The duration of a dash is three times the duration of a dot.

• Was used in telegraph, not suited for modern data communications.

• Literally requires reasoning ability of human brain to decode.

Baudot Code

• Named after Emil Baudot who invented the firstconstant length teleprinter.

• Fixed length 5-bit code used for telegraph and is also called Telex Code.

• Less characters / codes can be used (25)

• Used figure shift and letter shiftcontrol characters to expand its capability to 58 characters.

American Standard Code for Information Exchange (ASCII)

• 7-bit code standardized by ITU as International Telegraph Alphabet #5 (ITA #5), ASCII contains
128 code words.

• ASCII is the coding scheme used almost universally with personal computers and other
devices such as keyboards, printers, and the like.

• Most often, 7-bit ASCII code is converted to 8-bit code by the addition of a parity bit to check
the correctness of transmission.

Extended ASCII Code

• Developed by IBM.

• Forbids using parity bit.

• All 8 bits can be used to represent characters.

• Codes 00 hex to 7F hex are backward compatible to standard ASCII Code.

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC)

• Code developed by IBM.

• Used mainly on IBM mainframe and IBM midrange computer operating systems.

• Uses 8 bits (256 codes possible)

• Does not facilitate the use of parity bit.

• LSB is designated b7, MSB is designated b0, such that b7 is transmitted first and b0 is
transmitted last.

Unicode

• A 16-bit code intended to support all world languages, particularly Chinese, Japanese,
and Korean.

• 65,536 code words are available.

• The standard has been implemented in many recent technologies including modern operating
systems, XML, the Java programing language, and the Microsoft.NET Framework.

• As of September 2023, the most recent version is Unicode 15.1 with 149,878 characters.

Two Mapping Methods of Unicode

• UTF (Unicode Transformation Format)

• UCS (Universal Character Set)

Bar Codes

• Bar Code is an optical machine-readable representation of data relating to an object to which

it is attached.

• Originally barcodes systematically represented data by varying the widths and spacing of
parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or one dimensional (1D).

• Later they evolved into rectangles, dots, hexagons, and other geometric patterns in two
dimensions (2D)

Examples: Code 39, Universal Product Code (UPC), POSTNET Bar Code
OSI Model

• Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model (OSI Reference Model or OSI Model) is
an abstract description for layered communications and computer network protocol design.

• It was developed as part of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) initiative. In its most basic
form, it divides network architecture into seven layers which, from top to bottom, are the
Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data-Link, and Physical Layers. It is
therefore often referred to as the OSI Seven Layer Model.
Application Layer

• The application layer is responsible for providing services to the user.

Concerned:

• Network virtual terminal (Software)

• File transfer, access and management

• Mail services

• Directory services (access to distributed database sources for global information about
various objects and services)

Presentation Layer

• The presentation layer is responsible for translation, compression and encryption.

Concerned:

• Translation (interoperability between different encoding system)

• Encryption (Privacy schemes)

• Compression (data compression)

Session Layer

• The session layer synchronization is responsible for dialog control and synchronization

Concerned:

• Dialog Control (Half Duplex/Full duplex)

• Synchronization (Synchronization points, process inline within

• same page)
Transport Layer

• The transport layer is responsible for the delivery of a message from one process to another.

Concerned:

• Service-point addressing (Port address) Segmentation and reassembly (Sequence number)

• Connection control (Connectionless or connection oriented)

• Flow control (end to end)

• Error Control (Process to Process)

Network Layer

• The network layer is responsible for the delivery of individual packets from the source host to
the destination host.

Concerned:

• Logical addressing (IP Address)

• Routing (Source to destination transmission between networks)

Data Link Layer

• Data link layer is responsible for moving frames from one hop (Node) to the next.

Concerned:

• Framing (stream of bits into manageable data units)

• Physical addressing (MAC Address)

• Flow Control (mechanism for overwhelming the receiver)

• Error Control (trailer, retransmission)

• Access Control (defining master device in the same link)

Physical Layer

• One of the major functions of the physical layer is to move data in the form of electromagnetic
signals across a transmission medium.

• It’s responsible for movements of individual bits from one hop (Node) to next.

• Both data and the signals can be either analog or digital.

• Transmission media work by conducting energy along a physical path which can be wired or
wireless.

Concerned:

• Physical characteristics of interface and medium (Transmission medium)

• Representation of bits (stream of bits (0s or 1s) with no interpretation and encoded into
signals)

• Data rate (duration of a bit, which is how long it last)

• Synchronization of bits (sender and receivers’ clock must be synchronized)

• Line configuration (Point-to-Point, Point-to-Multipoint)

• Physical topology

• Transmission mode (Simplex, half duplex, full duplex)