Transmission Impairments
Transmission Impairments
Signals travel through transmission media,
which are not perfect. The imperfection
causes signal impairment. This means that
the signal at the beginning of the medium is
not the same as the signal at the end of the
medium. What is sent is not what is received.
Three causes of impairment are attenuation,
distortion, and noise.
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Signal Distortion
attenuation
distortion
noise
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Example 3.26
Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium
and its power is reduced to one-half. This means that P2
is (1/2)P1. In this case, the attenuation (loss of power)
can be calculated as
A loss of 3 dB (–3 dB) is equivalent to losing one-half
the power.
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Example 3.29
Sometimes the decibel is used to measure signal power
in milliwatts. In this case, it is referred to as dBm and is
calculated as dBm = 10 log10 Pm , where Pm is the power
in milliwatts. Calculate the power of a signal with dBm =
−30.
Solution
We can calculate the power in the signal as
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Data Rate Limits
A very important consideration in data
communications is how fast we can send data, in bits
per second, over a channel. Data rate depends on
three factors:
1. The bandwidth available
2. The level of the signals we use
3. The quality of the channel (the level of noise)
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Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
Defines theoretical maximum bit rate for
Noiseless Channel:
Bit Rate=2 X Bandwidth X log2L
L: Levels of signals
we can have any bit rate we want by increasing the number of
signal levels.
Increasing the levels of a signal may reduce the reliability of the
system.
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Example
Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000
Hz transmitting a signal with two signal levels. The
maximum bit rate can be calculated as
Bit Rate = 2 3000 log2 2 = 6000 bps
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Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
Defines theoretical maximum bit rate for
Noisy Channel:
Capacity=Bandwidth X log2(1+SNR)
SNR: Signal to Noise Ratio
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Example
Consider the same noiseless channel, transmitting a signal
with four signal levels (for each level, we send two bits).
The maximum bit rate can be calculated as:
Bit Rate = 2 x 3000 x log2 4 = 12,000 bps
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Example
Consider an extremely noisy channel in which the value
of the signal-to-noise ratio is almost zero. In other words,
the noise is so strong that the signal is faint. For this
channel the capacity is calculated as
C = B log2 (1 + SNR) = B log2 (1 + 0)
= B log2 (1) = B 0 = 0
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Example
We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a
regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has a
bandwidth of 3KHz. The signal-to-noise ratio is usually
3162. For this channel the capacity is calculated as
C = B log2 (1 + SNR) = 3000 log2 (1 + 3162)
= 3000 log2 (3163)
C = 3000 11.62 = 34,860 bps
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Example
We have a channel with a 1 MHz bandwidth. The SNR
for this channel is 63; what is the appropriate bit rate and
signal level?
Solution
First, we use the Shannon formula to find our upper
limit.
C = B log2 (1 + SNR) = 106 log2 (1 + 63) = 106 log2 (64) = 6 Mbps
Then we use the Nyquist formula to find the
number of signal levels.
6 Mbps = 2 1 MHz log2 L L = 8
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Note
The Shannon capacity gives us the
upper limit; the Nyquist formula tells us
how many signal levels we need.
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Performance
Bandwidth
Throughput
Latency (Delay)
Bandwidth-Delay Product
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Throughput
Throughput is the rate of production or the rate at which something
can be processed.
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Propagation Time
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Bandwidth Delay Product
Bandwidth delay product is defined as capacity of a pipe
The bandwidth-delay product defines the number of bits that can fill
the link.
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QA Session
