What is understood by the term Communication?

The term communication is defined as the act of disseminating

information. It presupposes that:

• there is information to disseminate

• the desire to disseminate exists
• there is an agency to send/transmit information
• there is a means of encoding information
• there is a medium to carry the information
• there is a recipient to receive the information
• the recipient is capable of understanding the information received

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 Data Transfer Requirements (1)

• Consider the internal work of The Little Man Computer when data is
to be transferred from the calculator to a memory location (for
example location 99). This transfer will require:

• identifying the destination, i.e. getting its address (in this case 99)

• advising it that data will be written into it

• preparing the internal bus structure for data transfer

• instructing the calculator when and how to send its data.

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 Data Transfer Requirements (2)

From this example, you will have noted that transferral of data requires:

• a sender to send the message, in this case the calculator

• addressing to identify the destination, in this case memory address 99
• a transmission medium to allow data flow, in this case the Little Man
Computer’s internal bus
• a receiver to receive the message - the memory location addressed as 99
• co-operation between sender and receiver.
• to be error free
• is compatible with the transmission medium
• is in a format which can be used by the receiver
• has been successfully received

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 Basic Elements of a Communication System

From the above discussion, in any communication between two entities we can
identify the following basic elements:

1. Sender
2. Receiver
3. Addressing - identifies where the Receiver is
4. Protocol - set of co-operation rules to achieve communication
5. Transmission code - “language” being used
6. Transmission rate - speed at which “what is being communicated” is being sent
7. Transmission synchronisation - how to recognise what is being communicated
8. Transmission medium
9. Error detection and correction
10. Transmission efficiency - how much of what is being sent is useful to the receiver

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 Data Transmission Fundamentals - Some Terminology

• Data transmission between sender and receiver occurs over some

transmission medium.
• Transmission may be simplex, half-duplex, or full-duplex
• Transmission media may be classified as guided or unguided. In both cases
communications is in the form of electromagnetic waves.
• The term direct link, also known as data link, is used to refer to a
transmission path in which signals propagate directly from transmitter (sender)
to receiver with no intermediate devices, other than amplifiers or repeaters
used to increase signal strength.
• A guided transmission medium is point-to-point if it provides a direct link
between two devices, and those are the only two devices sharing the medium.
• In a multipoint guided configuration, more than two devices share the same
medium.

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 Signalling Technologies

• Baseband is the transmission of digital signals without modulation. In a

baseband communication network, digital signals (0s and 1s) are put onto the
medium as voltage pulses. The entire bandwidth is consumed by the signal.
• Broadband uses coaxial cable to provide data transfer by means of analogue
signals. The bandwidth is divided in different frequency bands or channels. In
a broadband communication network involving computers, digital signals are
passed onto the medium through a modem and transmitted over one of the
channels. So, several different communication networks can be implemented
over the same medium.
• Analogue transmission is used to mean the transmission of analogue signals
without regard to their content.
• Digital transmission, on the other hand, is used to mean the content of the
signal.

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 Methods of Data Transmission (1) - Data and Signals

Signal
Data Analogue Signal Digital Signal

Analogue Data

Digital Data

2)

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Methods of Data Transmission (2) - Treatment of Signals

Transmission
Signal Analogue Transmission Digital Transmission

Is propagated through Assumes that the

Analogue Signal amplifiers. Same treatment analogue signal carries
whether signal carries digital data. Signal is
analogue or digital data propagated through
repeaters

Digital signals represent

Digital Signal Not used a stream of 0s and 1s.
Signal is propagated
through repeaters

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 Transmission Modes (1)

• Computer based communications always use Digital Transmission, i.e. what

is transmitted is digital data, using either an analog or digital signal.
Normally, the digital data are recovered and repeated at intermediate points to
reduce the effects of noise.
• Irrespective of the type of communications facility being used, in most
applications data is transmitted between computers in a bit-serial mode, most
commonly known as serial transmission.
• Within a computer data is transferred in a word-parallel mode, most
commonly known as parallel transmission.
• In computer communications is necessary to perform a parallel-to-serial
conversion, in the transmitter, and the reverse serial-to-parallel in the
receiver. These conversions are done in the computer interface to the network,
which will be discussed later in this course.

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 Channel Capacity

• To understand the relationship between signals and bits we require to introduce the
concept of baud rate, which is the number of signal elements (transmitted) per second
• The number of bits carried by each signal is related to the number of different signals
used to encode the information. This is given by the following equation:

ns = 2nbits , where ns is No of signals, and nbits is No of bits

• So the channel capacity is given by the equation:

Channel capacity = (baud rate)*(No of bits per signal element)

• In general, the terms channel capacity and data rate are used as synonyms.

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 Speed of Transmission

• Signals travel at almost the speed of light. So, in real terms, we can ignore the
time a signal takes to travel along a data link. This time is called propagation
time.
• The important time to consider is the time a signal element has to exist on the
line to be detected - the time the signal exists on the line. This time depends on
the frequency of the signal.
• Ignoring the propagation time, the total time, T, for a message to be
transmitted along a data link is given by the following equation:

T = (Length of message( in bits)/data rate(in bps))

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 Transmission Synchronisation (1)

• Synchronisation is essential for transmitter and receiver to understand

each other.
• In serial transmission the following synchronisation are required:

 Bit synchronisation - how to recognise a bit.

 Byte or character synchronisation - how to group the bits to make

a character or byte.

 Block synchronisation - how to group the characters/bytes to make

a block.

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 Asynchronous vs Synchronous

Asynchronous Transmission Synchronous Transmission

Start and Stop bits reduce efficiency More efficient use of bandwidth

A character can be transmitted at Characters buffered into blocks for

random times transmission
Variable idle time between characters No idle time between characters

Constant bit rate within a character.
No limit on block length
Low speed communications (19.2
Kbits/s)
Synchronisation errors result in loss
of only a single character
Constant bit rate over a block. Blocks
limited to a maximum size
Higher speed communication
(> = 10 Mbits/s)
Synchronisation errors result in loss
of a complete block

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 Transmission efficiency

• Transmission efficiency = (useful data/total No bits transmitted)*100

• For example for asynchronous transmission of 8-bit characters with one start
and one stop bits, we have:
Transmission efficiency = (8/10)*100 = 80%
• Let's consider now the synchronous transmission of a block of 480 8-bit
characters, assuming 7 synchronisation characters, one start of block character,
and one end of block character.
• The total number of bits transmitted is 480*8 + 7*8 + 2*8 = 3912 bits. So, we
have:
Transmission efficiency = (3840/3912)*100 = 98.16%
Effective Data Rate = (Transmission Efficiency/100)*Capacity

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Interfacing (5) - Example of Implementing Functionality
and Control

ComputerA Modem A
RS-232 RS-232
Pin 2 Pin 2

Pin 3 Pin 3

Cross over to transmit and receive between two RS-232 interfaces

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 Interfacing (6) - Multiplexing

• Another form of interfacing a number of DTEs located together to a

resource like a central computer is Multiplexing.
• Multiplexing is a data transmission function that permits two or more
data sources to share a common transmission medium such that each
data source has its own channel. This is achieved by the use of
Multiplexers.
• A Multiplexer is a communications device that enable a number of
lower data rate devices, normally situated in the same location, to
share a single higher data rate transmission line. The capacity of the
latter must be in excess of the combined rates of the low rate devices.

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Interfacing (7) - Multiplexing Terminals to a Remote
Computer

Terminal Fast Terminal

Lines
MUX A Asynchronous or
MUX B Lines
Computer

(Asynchronous) Synchronous (Asynchronous)

Line

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 Interfacing (8) - Protocols

• A Protocol is the set of rules that regulate and control the communication
between two or more entities.
• The communication interfaces define the physical level protocol between
communicating devices. They define:
• Signalling
• Transmission mode
• The connectors, and
• Control to be used during communication.
• In computer based communications a communication interface is accessed
and controlled by software. This control software is normally called the
interface/device controller/driver

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 Communications Networks.

• A Communications Network is a set of interconnected devices that provide

data transmission facilities between user's end points.
• The Components of communications network are:
• The Transmission Media - Twisted pair cable, coaxial cable, fibre optic,
etc. Communications devices like switches (e.g. telephone exchanges) and
routers are considered part of the media.
• Data Terminal Equipment (DTE) - This is the end-user device at the
end of a communications path.
• Data Circuit Terminating Equipment (DCE) - This is the interface used
to connect the DTE to the network. It has the logic to put and read signals
to/from the medium.
• Communications Software - This is the software that controls the work
of communication devices, DTEs and DCEs.

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 Computer Networks (1)

Computer
Stations
External Devices

Communications
Network

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