Chapter Two

Fundamentals of Data and Signals

Data Communications and Computer

Networks: A Business User's Approach
Fifth Edition
 Objectives

• Distinguish between data and signals, and

cite the advantages of digital data and
signals over analog data and signals
• Identify the three basic components of a
signal
• Discuss the bandwidth of a signal and how it
relates to data transfer speed
• Identify signal strength and attenuation, and
how they are related

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 Objectives (continued)

• Outline the basic characteristics of transmitting analog data

with analog signals, digital data with digital signals, digital
data with analog signals, and analog data with digital signals
• List and draw diagrams of the basic digital encoding
techniques, and explain the advantages and disadvantages
of each
• Identify the different shift keying (modulation) techniques,
and describe their advantages, disadvantages, and uses

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 Objectives (continued)

• Identify the two most common digitization

techniques, and describe their advantages and
disadvantages
• Identify the different data codes and how they
are used in communication systems

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 Introduction

• Data are entities that convey meaning (computer

files, music on CD, results from a blood gas
analysis machine)
• Signals are the electric or electromagnetic
encoding of data (telephone conversation, Web
page download)
• Computer networks and data/voice
communication systems transmit signals
• Data and signals can be analog or digital

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 Introduction (continued)
Table 2-1 Four combinations of data and signals

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 Data and Signals

• Data are entities that convey meaning within a

computer or computer system
• Signals are the electric or electromagnetic
impulses used to encode and transmit data

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 Analog vs. Digital

• Analog is a continuous waveform, with examples

such as (naturally occurring) music and voice
• It is harder to separate noise from an analog
signal than it is to separate noise from a digital
signal (imagine the following waveform is a
symphony with noise embedded)

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 Analog vs. Digital (continued)

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 Analog vs. Digital (continued)

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 Analog vs. Digital (continued)

• Digital is a discrete or noncontinuous waveform

with examples such as computer 1s and 0s
• Noise in digital signal
– You can still discern a high voltage from a low
voltage
– Too much noise – you cannot discern a high
voltage from a low voltage

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 Analog vs. Digital (continued)

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 Analog vs. Digital (continued)

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 Analog vs. Digital (continued)

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 Fundamentals of Signals

• All signals have three components:

– Amplitude
– Frequency
– Phase
• Amplitude
– The height of the wave above or below a given
reference point

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 Fundamentals of Signals (continued)

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 Fundamentals of Signals (continued)
• Frequency
– The number of times a signal makes a complete cycle within a given
time frame; frequency is measured in Hertz (Hz), or cycles per
second
– Spectrum – range of frequencies that a signal spans from minimum
to maximum
– Bandwidth – absolute value of the difference between the lowest and
highest frequencies of a signal
– For example, consider an average voice
• The average voice has a frequency range of roughly 300 Hz to 3100 Hz
• The spectrum would be 300 – 3100 Hz
• The bandwidth would be 2800 Hz

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 Fundamentals of Signals (continued)

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 Fundamentals of Signals (continued)

• Phase
– The position of the waveform relative to a given
moment of time or relative to time zero
– A change in phase can be any number of angles
between 0 and 360 degrees
– Phase changes often occur on common angles,
such as 45, 90, 135, etc.

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 Fundamentals of Signals (continued)

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 Loss of Signal Strength

• All signals experience loss (attenuation)

• Attenuation is denoted as a decibel (dB) loss
• Decibel losses (and gains) are additive

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 Loss of Signal Strength (continued)

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 Loss of Signal Strength (continued)

• So if a signal loses 3 dB, is that a lot?

• A 3 dB loss indicates the signal lost half of its power
– dB = 10 log10 (P2 / P1)
– -3 dB = 10 log10 (X / 100)
– -0.3 = log10 (X / 100)
– 10-0.3 = X / 100
– 0.50 = X / 100
– X = 50

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 Converting Data into Signals

• There are four main combinations of data and

signals:
– Analog data transmitted using analog signals
– Digital data transmitted using digital signals
– Digital data transmitted using analog signals
– Analog data transmitted using digital signals

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 Transmitting Analog Data with
Analog Signals
• In order to transmit analog data, you can
modulate the data onto a set of analog signals
• Broadcast radio and television are two very
common examples of this

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 Transmitting Analog Data with
Analog Signals (continued)

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 Transmitting Digital Data with Digital
Signals: Digital Encoding Schemes
• There are numerous techniques available to
convert digital data into digital signals; let’s
examine five:
– NRZ-L
– NRZI
– Manchester
– Differential Manchester
– Bipolar AMI

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 Transmitting Digital Data with Digital
Signals: Digital Encoding Schemes
(continued)

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 Nonreturn to Zero Digital Encoding
Schemes
• Nonreturn to zero-level (NRZ-L) transmits 1s as zero voltages
and 0s as positive voltages
• Nonreturn to zero inverted (NRZI) has a voltage change at the
beginning of a 1 and no voltage change at the beginning of a 0
• Fundamental difference exists between NRZ-L and NRZI
– With NRZ-L, the receiver has to check the voltage level for each bit to
determine whether the bit is a 0 or a 1
– With NRZI, the receiver has to check whether there is a change at the
beginning of the bit to determine if it is a 0 or a 1

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 Manchester Digital Encoding Schemes

• Note how with a differential Manchester code,

every bit has at least one significant change
– Some bits have two signal changes per bit (baud
rate = twice bps)

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 Manchester Digital Encoding Schemes
(continued)

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 Bipolar-AMI Encoding Scheme

• The bipolar-AMI encoding scheme is unique among all

the encoding schemes because it uses three voltage
levels
– When a device transmits a binary 0, a zero voltage is
transmitted
– When the device transmits a binary 1, either a positive
voltage or a negative voltage is transmitted
– Which of these is transmitted depends on the binary 1
value that was last transmitted

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 4B/5B Digital Encoding Scheme

• Yet another encoding technique that converts

four bits of data into five-bit quantities
• The five-bit quantities are unique in that no five-
bit code has more than two consecutive zeroes
• The five-bit code is then transmitted using an
NRZI encoded signal

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4B/5B Digital Encoding Scheme (continued)

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 Transmitting Digital Data with
Analog Signals
• Three basic techniques:
– Amplitude shift keying
– Frequency shift keying
– Phase shift keying

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 Amplitude Shift Keying

• One amplitude encodes a 0 while another

amplitude encodes a 1 (a form of amplitude
modulation)

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 Amplitude Shift Keying (continued)

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 Amplitude Shift Keying (continued)

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 Frequency Shift Keying

• One frequency encodes a 0 while another

frequency encodes a 1 (a form of frequency
modulation)

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 Frequency Shift Keying (continued)

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 Phase Shift Keying

• One phase change encodes a 0 while another

phase change encodes a 1 (a form of phase
modulation)

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 Phase Shift Keying (continued)

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 Phase Shift Keying (continued)

• Quadrature phase shift keying

– Four different phase angles used
• 45 degrees
• 135 degrees
• 225 degrees
• 315 degrees

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 Phase Shift Keying (continued)

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 Phase Shift Keying (continued)

• Quadrature amplitude modulation

– As an example of QAM, 12 different phases are
combined with two different amplitudes
– Since only four phase angles have two different
amplitudes, there are a total of 16 combinations
– With 16 signal combinations, each baud equals 4
bits of information (2 ^ 4 = 16)

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 Phase Shift Keying (continued)

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 Transmitting Analog Data with
Digital Signals
• To convert analog data into a digital signal, there
are two techniques:
– Pulse code modulation (the more common)
– Delta modulation

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 Pulse Code Modulation

• The analog waveform is sampled at specific

intervals and the “snapshots” are converted to
binary values

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

• When the binary values are later converted to an

analog signal, a waveform similar to the original
results

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

• The more snapshots taken in the same amount

of time, or the more quantization levels, the
better the resolution

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

• Since telephone systems digitize human voice,

and since the human voice has a fairly narrow
bandwidth, telephone systems can digitize voice
into either 128 or 256 levels
• These are called quantization levels
• If 128 levels, then each sample is 7 bits (2 ^ 7 =
128)
• If 256 levels, then each sample is 8 bits (2 ^ 8 =
256)

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 Pulse Code Modulation (continued)

• How fast do you have to sample an input source

to get a fairly accurate representation?
• Nyquist says two times the highest frequency
• Thus, if you want to digitize voice (4000 Hz), you
need to sample at 8000 samples per second

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 Delta Modulation

• An analog waveform is tracked, using a binary 1

to represent a rise in voltage, and a 0 to
represent a drop

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 Delta Modulation (continued)

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 The Relationship Between Frequency and
Bits Per Second
• Higher data transfer rates
– How do you send data faster?
• Use a higher frequency signal (make sure the
medium can handle the higher frequency)
• Use a higher number of signal levels
– In both cases, noise can be a problem

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 The Relationship Between Frequency and
Bits Per Second (continued)
• Maximum data transfer rates
– How do you calculate a maximum data rate?
– Use Shannon’s equation
• S(f) = f x log2 (1 + S/N)
– Where f = signal frequency (bandwidth), S is the signal power in
watts, and N is the noise power in watts
– For example, what is the data rate of a 3400 Hz signal with
0.2 watts of power and 0.0002 watts of noise?
• S(f) = 3400 x log2 (1 + 0.2/0.0002)
= 3400 x log2 (1001)
= 3400 x 9.97
= 33898 bps

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 Data Codes

• The set of all textual characters or symbols and

their corresponding binary patterns is called a
data code
• There are three common data code sets:
– EBCDIC
– ASCII
– Unicode

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 EBCDIC

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 ASCII

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 Unicode

• Each character is 16 bits

• A large number of languages / character sets
• For example:
– T equals 0000 0000 0101 0100
– r equals 0000 0000 0111 0010
– a equals 0000 0000 0110 0001

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 Data and Signal Conversions In Action:
Two Examples
• Let us transmit the message “Sam, what time is
the meeting with accounting? Hannah.”
• This message leaves Hannah’s workstation and
travels across a local area network

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 Data and Signal Conversions In Action:
Two Examples (continued)

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 Data and Signal Conversions In Action:
Two Examples (continued)

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 Data and Signal Conversions In Action:
Two Examples (continued)

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 Summary

• Data and signals are two basic building blocks of computer networks
– All data transmitted is either digital or analog
– Data is transmitted with a signal that can be either digital or analog
• All signals consist of three basic components: amplitude, frequency,
and phase
• Two important factors affecting the transfer of a signal over a
medium are noise and attenuation
• Four basic combinations of data and signals are possible: analog
data converted to an analog signal, digital data converted to a digital
signal, digital data converted to an analog signal, and analog data
converted to a digital signal

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 Summary (continued)

• To transmit analog data over an analog signal, the analog

waveform of the data is combined with another analog
waveform in a process known as modulation
• Digital data carried by digital signals is represented by digital
encoding formats
• For digital data to be transmitted using analog signals, digital
data must first undergo a process called shift keying or
modulation
– Three basic techniques of shift keying are amplitude shift keying,
frequency shift keying, and phase shift keying

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 Summary (continued)

• Two common techniques for converting analog data so that it

may be carried over digital signals are pulse code modulation
and delta modulation
• Data codes are necessary to transmit the letters, numbers,
symbols, and control characters found in text data
– Three important data codes are ASCII, EBCDIC, and Unicode

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