Physical Layer and Media

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 TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT
• 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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 Causes of impairment

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 Attenuation
• Signal Attenuation: Phenomenon whereby the
Amplitude of a signal decreases as it propagates
along a transmission line, i.e. the input signal is
weaker than the output signal.
• Loss of signal strength over distance
• Use of amplifiers to boost analog signals;
– entire signal (including noise or distortion) is amplified
• Use of repeaters for digital data; data recovered
and then transmitted
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 Attenuation

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 Attenuation Distortion
• Analog signal is made up of several
frequencies
• Attenuation is different for different
frequencies; Different losses at different
frequencies
• More of a problem for analog signals than
digital

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 Attenuation
• Attenuation
– the strength of a signal falls off with distance
• Attenuation Distortion
– attenuation varies as a function of frequency.
• Attenuation is proportional to the distance and
frequency of signal.
• Repeaters are used to increase the power of the signal
at appropriate intervals.

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 Attenuation is measured in deciBels - dB

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 Attenuation (dB) Calculation

• Example
– Input power is 1 Watt
– Output power is 1 mW
– dB Attenuation is
– 10 * log (1 W/1 mW) = 10 * (3)
– = 30 dB

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 Example
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 3.27

A signal travels through an amplifier, and its power is increased 10

times. This means that P2 = 10P1 . Calculate the amplification (gain
of power)

Solution: This can be calculated as follows:

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 Example
One reason that engineers use the decibel to measure the changes in
the strength of a signal is that decibel numbers can be added (or
subtracted) when we are measuring several points (cascading)
instead of just two. In the Figure below, a signal travels from point 1
to point 4. In this case, the decibel value can be calculated as

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 Use of Repeaters

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 • Signal Distortion: Involves the Shape
of the signal becoming altered as it
propagates along the line.
–One cause of distortion is the different
attenuation rates for different frequency
components of the signal.
-This can be addressed using an
equalizer.

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 Delay Distortion
• The velocity of propagation of a signal through
a guided medium varies with frequency.
• Different frequency components travel at
different speeds therefore arrive at a
destination at different times.
• Particularly critical for digital data because bits
may spill over causing Inter-Symbol
Interference.

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 Transmission Impairments Visually

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 Noise
• What is Noise?
– Any unwanted signal
• Types of Noise
– Thermal
– Intermodulation
– Impulse
– Crosstalk
– Next End crosstalk

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 Thermal Noise
• Thermal noise, white noise
– Due to random motion of atoms
– N = kTW
– k = Boltzman Constant (1.381 X 10-23 J/K)
– T = Absolute Temperature (Kelvin)
– W = Bandwidth (Hz)
– Why is it called White Noise?

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 Inter-modulation Noise
• Inter-modulation noise
– when two signals at different frequencies are
mixed in the same medium, sum or difference of
original frequencies or multiples of those
frequencies can be produced, which can interfere
with the intended signal.
• occurs when there is some non-linearity in the system

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 Noise
• Crosstalk
• When there is an unwanted coupling between signal paths.
• For example some times talking on the telephone you can
hear another conversation.
• Near-End Crosstalk(NEXT)
• Caused when a strong transmitter output signal interferes
with a much weaker incoming receiver signal.
• Impulse noise
• Due to lightning or some other random transient
phenomenon

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 Effect of Noise

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 Noise

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 Transmission Impairments in Un-Guided Media

• Free-Space loss
– Signal disperses with distance
• Atmospheric Absorption
– Attenuation caused by water vapor and oxygen
• Water vapor: High around 22 GHz, less around 15 GHz
• Oxygen: High around 60 GHz, less below 30 GHz

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 Transmission Impairments in Un-Guided Media

• Refraction
– Radio waves get bent by change in speed with
altitude
• Thermal Noise
– White noise. Important factor for satellite
communications
• Multipath
– Receive multiple signals reflected by many
obstacles
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 Channel Capacity
• The rate at which digital data can be
transmitted over a given communication
channel
• Two formulations
– Shannon’s Formulation
– Nyquist Formulation

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 Shannon’s Law
• Considers the noise (only white noise)
• Key parameter is signal-to-noise ratio (S/N, or
SNR),
– which is the ratio of the power in a signal to the
power contained in the noise,
– typically measured at the receiver - often
expressed in decibels

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 Shannon Channel Capacity
• The maximum bit rate of a channel depends on
the bandwidth of the channel (W) and the Signal
to Noise Ratio (SNR)
– Shannon Channel Capacity,
C = Wlog2(1 + S/N) bits/sec
Where,
– C = Channel Capacity
– S/N = Signal Power, S to Noise Power, N
– SNR = 10log(S/N) dB
– Where SNR = Signal
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 Shannon’s Theorem (channel capacity)
• In defining information, Shannon identified the critical
relationships among the elements of a communication
system
– the power at the source of a signal
– the bandwidth or frequency range of an
information channel through which the signal travels
– the noise of the channel, such as unpredictable static
on a radio, which will alter the signal by the time it
reaches the last element of the System
– the receiver, which must decode the signal.
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 Example
• What is the channel capacity of a 10KHz
channel operating in a SNR of 15dB?
• Solution
– W = 10KHz = 10000Hz, SNR = 15dB,
– From SNR = 10log (S/N) dB
– 15=10log(S/N)
– S/N = 10 3/2
– S/N= 31.62
– From C = Wlog2(1 + S/N)
– C = 10000log2(32.62)
– C=50277b/s
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 Signal to Noise Ratio - S/N
• Signal to Noise ratio: ratio of power in signal to power contained
in noise
• Doubling the bandwidth doubles the data rate
• At a given noise level, higher the data rate, the higher the error
rate
• Increasing signal strength increases intermodulation noise
• Wider the bandwidth, the more noise is admitted.
• As W increases, S/N decreases
• Goal: Get highest data rate with lowest error rate at cheapest
cost

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 Example with S/N of 1000 for Telephone Line

• Example for voice-grade telephone line:

• Using Shannon's formulation for channel
capacity:
– C = W * log2(1 + S/N)
– Where log2 represent logarithm base 2
– 30 dB S/N = 1000 S/N
– C = 3100 * log2(1 + 1000)
– C = 30,894 bps
• Hence the channel capacity is 30,894 bits per
second.
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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 C is
calculated as

This means that the capacity of this channel is zero regardless of the
bandwidth. In other words, we cannot receive any data through this
channel.

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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 3000.
The signal-to-noise ratio is usually 3162. For this channel the
capacity is calculated as

This means that the highest bit rate for a telephone line is 34.860
kbps. If we want to send data faster than this, we can either increase
the bandwidth of the line or improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

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 Example
The signal-to-noise ratio is often given in decibels. Assume that
SNRdB = 36 and the channel bandwidth is 2 MHz. The theoretical
channel capacity can be calculated as

For practical purposes, when the SNR is very high, we can assume
that SNR + 1 is almost the same as SNR.
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 Example
We have a channel with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The SNR for this
channel is 63. What are the appropriate bit rate and signal level?

Solution
First, we use the Shannon formula to find the upper limit.

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 Example (continued)
The Shannon formula gives us 6 Mbps, the upper limit. For better
performance we choose something lower, 4 Mbps, for example.
Then we use the Nyquist formula to find the number of signal
levels.

C = 2 B log2 L

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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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 Nyquist Limit
• Nyquist limit (in a noise-free environment)
• C = 2 W log2M
• Given a bandwidth of W, highest signal rate
that can be carried is 2W with binary signaling
(M=2)
• For multilevel signaling
C = 2W log2M
– where M is the number of discrete signals or
voltage levels
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Example with M-ary Signaling with 3100 Hz Bandwidth C
= 2 W log2M

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Figure 28 Distortion

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 Example
The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the noise is 1 μW;
what are the values of SNR and SNRdB ?

Solution
The values of SNR and SNRdB can be calculated as follows:

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 Example
The values of SNR and SNRdB for a noiseless channel are

We can never achieve this ratio in real life; it is an ideal.

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 Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and a low SNR

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 3-5 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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 Capacity of a System
• The bit rate of a system increases with an increase in the number
of signal levels we use to denote a symbol.

• A symbol can consist of a single bit or “n” bits.

• The number of signal levels = 2n.

• As the number of levels goes up, the spacing between level

decreases -> increasing the probability of an error occurring in
the presence of transmission impairments.

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 Nyquist Theorem (noise less channel)
• Nyquist gives the upper bound for the bit rate of a transmission
system by calculating the bit rate directly from the number of bits
in a symbol (or signal levels) and the bandwidth of the system
(assuming 2 symbols/per cycle and first harmonic).

• Nyquist theorem states that for a noiseless channel:

C = 2 B log22n

C= capacity in bps

B = bandwidth in Hz

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 Example 34
Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000 Hz
transmitting a signal with two signal levels. Calculate the maximum
bit rate.

This can be calculated as:

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 Example 35
Consider the same noiseless channel transmitting a signal with four
signal levels (for each level, we send 2 bits). The maximum bit rate
can be calculated as

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 Example
We need to send 265 kbps over a noiseless channel with a
bandwidth of 20 kHz. How many signal levels do we need?
Solution
We can use the Nyquist formula as shown:

Since this result is not a power of 2, we need to either increase the

number of levels or reduce the bit rate. If we have 128 levels, the bit
rate is 280 kbps. If we have 64 levels, the bit rate is 240 kbps.

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 3-6 PERFORMANCE

One important issue in networking is the performance of the network

– how good is it?

We’ll discuss quality of service, an overall measurement of network

performance, in greater detail later

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 Bandwidth
In networking, we use the term bandwidth in two contexts.
❏ The first, bandwidth in hertz, refers to
the range of frequencies in a
composite signal or the range of
frequencies that a channel can pass.

❏ The second, bandwidth in bits per

second, refers to the speed of bit
transmission in a channel or link.

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 Throughput
Throughput is the measure of how fast we can actually send
data through a network
Example: A network with bandwidth of 10 Mbps can pass only an average of
12,000 frames per minute with each frame carrying an average of 10,000
bits.What is the throughput of this network?

Solution
We can calculate the throughput as

The throughput is almost one-fifth of the bandwidth in this case.

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 Latency
• Latency or delay defines how long it takes for an entire
message to completely arrive at the destination from
the time the first bit is sent out from the source
• Latency is made of four components; propagation
time, transmission time, queuing time, processing
delay

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 Cont……….
• Propagation time; the time required for a bit to travel
from the source to the destination;
• Propagation time = Distance/propagation
speed
• Transmission time = message size/bandwidth
• Queuing time; is the time needed for each
intermediate or end device to hold the message
before it can be processed
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Example 3.45

What is the propagation time if the distance between the

two points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed to
be 2.4 × 108 m/s in cable.

Solution
We can calculate the propagation time as

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 Example 3.46
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a
2.5-kbyte message (an e-mail) if the bandwidth of the network
is 1 Gbps? Assume that the distance between the sender and
the receiver is 12,000 km and that light travels at 2.4 × 108
m/s.

Solution
We calculate the propagation and transmission time as:

Propagation time = Distance/propagation speed

Transmission time = message size/bandwidth

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 Example 3.47

What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a 5-
Mbyte message (an image) if the bandwidth of the network is 1
Mbps? Assume that the distance between the sender and the
receiver is 12,000 km and that light travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.

Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission times as shown
on the next slide.

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 Example 3.47 (continued)

Note that in this case, because the message is very long and the
bandwidth is not very high, the dominant factor is the transmission
time, not the propagation time. The propagation time can be
ignored.

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 Next lecture

Attn: BCSIII & BIT II(GroupB)

Assignment:
See Datacommunication and Networking by B. Farouzan
• Chapter 2 : Numbers 21, 23
• Chapter 3 : Numbers 48, 41, 23

• Other Trial Questions

• State the Nyquist theorem
• State the Shannon theorem
• What is the relationship between the two.
• What is the relevance of the of the Shannon communication theorem
on the design of communication systems
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 Q&A

“In life, always expect questions, but do not expect answers”

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