Information Source

• Any communication system serves to

communicate a message or information. This
message originates in the information source. In
general, there may be several messages in the form
of words, group of words, code symbols etc. Out
of these messages, only the desired message is
selected and conveyed.
• Out of the total message, usually only a part is
conveyed. This part of the message which is
conveyed is called INFORMATION.

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 Information measure
The information sent from a digital source when the jth
message is transmitted is given by
Ij = log2 (1/pj) bits
where pj is the probability of transmitting the jth message.
The unit of information are Bit, Nat, Hartley
• The name "bit" is a contraction of "binary digit", and
the name "nat" is a contraction of "natural unit". The
decimal unit has been named in honor of R. V. L.
Hartley, because of his pioneering work on
communication theory.
• Hartleys are also called bans, and a tenth of a Hartley is
a deciban.
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 Information measure
The average information measure of a digital
source is
bits

The average information is called entropy.

The source rate is given by

where H is the average information, T is the

time required to send a message

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 Information measure
For the case of signal plus white Gaussian noise:

If the information rate is less than the channel

capacity C, the probability of error would approach
zero.
The channel capacity C is given by Shannon’s
equation:

Where B : the channel bandwidth in Hertz (Hz)

S/N : the signal-to-noise ratio at the input to the
digital receiver
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 Gain & Attenuation
•Most circuits in electronic communication are used
to manipulate signals to produce a desired result.

•All signal processing circuits involve:

–Gain
–Attenuation
 Gain
• Gain means amplification. It is the ratio of a circuit’s
output to its input.
 Power Gain
• Most amplifiers are also power amplifiers, so the
same procedure can be used to calculate power
gain AP where Pin is the power input and Pout is the
power output.

Power gain (Ap) = Pout / Pin

Example:
The power output of an amplifier is 6 watts (W). The power
gain is 80. What is the input power?

Ap = Pout / Pin therefore Pin = Pout / Ap

Pin = 6 / 80 = 0.075 W = 75 mW
 Power Gain
• An amplifier is cascaded when two or more stages are
connected together.
• The overall gain is the product of the individual circuit
gains.

• Example:
Three cascaded amplifiers have power gains of 5, 2, and
17. The input power is 40 mW. What is the output
power?

Ap = A1 × A2 × A3 = 5 × 2 × 17 = 170
Ap = Pout / Pin therefore Pout = ApPin
Pout = 170 (40 × 10-3) = 6.8W
 Attenuation
• Attenuation refers to a loss introduced by a
circuit or component. If the output signal is lower
in amplitude than the input, the circuit has loss or
attenuation.
• The letter A is used to represent attenuation
• Attenuation A = output/input = Vout/Vin
• Circuits that introduce attenuation have a gain
that is less than 1.
• With cascaded circuits, the total attenuation is the
product of the individual attenuations.
 Decibels
• The decibel (dB) is a unit of measure used to express
the gain or loss of a circuit.
• The decibel was originally created to express hearing
response.
• When gain and attenuation are both converted into
decibels, the overall gain or attenuation of a circuit can
be computed by adding individual gains or
attenuations, expressed in decibels.
– Voltage Gain or Attenuation
dB = 20 log Vout/ Vin
– Current Gain or Attenuation
dB = 20 log Iout/ Iin
– Power Gain or Attenuation
dB = 10 log Pout/ Pin
 Example
Q. An amplifier has an input of 3 mV and an
output of 5 V. What is the gain in decibels?

dB = 20 log 5/0.003
= 20 log 1666.67
= 20 (3.22)
= 64.4
 dBm and dBc
• When a decibel value is computed by comparing
a power value to 1 mW, the result is a value
called the dBm. This is a useful reference value.
• The value dBc is a decibel gain attenuation figure
where the reference is the carrier
 Transmitter
• The transmitter converts the electrical signal into a
form that is suitable for transmission through the
physical channel or the transmission medium.
• In general, transmission performs the matching of
the message signal to the channel by a process
called modulation.

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 The channel
• The physical medium that is used to send the
signal from the transmitter to the receiver.
• There may be any physical medium for
transmission, but the essential feature is that the
transmitted signal is corrupted in a random manner
by a variety of possible mechanisms.
• The most common form of signal degradation
comes in the form of additive noise, often called
thermal noise.
• While designing a comm. system, the designer
works with mathematical models that statistically
characterize signal distortion on physical channels.

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 Channel characteristics
• Physical channel
▪ Pair of wires
▪ Optical fiber
▪ Free space
• Common problems in signal transmission
• Thermal noise is generated internally by
components
• Interference from other users of the channel
• Signal attenuation
• Amplitude and phase distortion
• Multipath distortion

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 Thermal noise
• Thermal noise often dominates in comm. systems and
originates from the free movement of electrons within
a conductor.
• The name arises because the energy and hence the
degree of movement of electrons increases
proportionally with the temp. of the conductor. The
current and hence the voltage generated by this
movement has a waveform that is entirely random in
nature and which will, over time, have an average
power spectrum that is flat over all the frequencies.
• The average power attributable to thermal noise is
Thermal Noise,

k - Boltzmann’s constant
T- Temp. in 0K
B – Bandwidth used

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 Receiver
• It is used to recover the message signal contained
in the received signal.
• If the message signal is transmitted by carrier
modulation, the receiver performs carrier
demodulation in order to extract the message
signal from the sinusoidal carrier.
• The fidelity of the received message signal is a
function of
▪ The type of modulation.
▪ The strength of additive noise.
▪ The type and strength of any other additive or
non additive interference.

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 Carrier
In information technology, a carrier (or signal) is a
transmitted electromagnetic pulse or wave at a
steady base frequency of alternation on which
information can be imposed by increasing signal
strength, varying the base frequency, varying the
wave phase, or other means. This variation is
called modulation.

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Classification of Comm. Systems
According to
•Information source
▪Digital/Analog comm. system
•Frequency
▪Baseband transmitting/Bandpass
transmitting system
•Transmitting medium
▪Wire/wireless
•Service of transmission
▪Telephone/data/image etc.

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 Another classification
•Simplex transmission – one way comm. From one
point to another. E.g: radio/TV broadcasting
stations.
•Full-duplex transmission – simultaneous comm. In
both directions. E.g: telephone.
•Half-duplex transmission – information can flow
in both the directions but one-way at a time. E.g:
walkie-talkie.

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 Bandwidth
• Signal bandwidth:
– We can divide signals into two categories: The
pure tone signal (the sinusoidal wave,
consisting of one frequency component), and
complex signals that are composed of several
components, or sinusoids of various
frequencies.
T=1x10-3 s f=1/1x10-3
=1000Hz=1 kHz

0 1 t (ms)

Pure signal
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 Bandwidth
• The bandwidth of a signal composed of
components of various frequencies (complex
signal) is the difference between its highest and
lowest frequency components, and is expressed
in Hertz (Hz) - the same as frequency.

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 Channel bandwidth
Channel bandwidth:
– The bandwidth of a channel (medium) is defined to be
the range of frequencies that the medium can support.
Bandwidth is measured in Hz
– With each transmission medium, there is a frequency
range of electromagnetic waves that can be transmitted:
» Twisted pair cable: 0 to 109 Hz
(Bandwidth : 109 Hz)
Increasing » Coax cable: 0 to 1010 Hz (Bandwidth : 1010
bandwidth Hz)
» Optical fiber: 1014to 1016 Hz (Bandwidth :
1016 -1014 9.9*1015 Hz)

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 Channel bandwidth
• Optical fibers have the highest bandwidth (they
can support electromagnetic waves with very high
frequencies, such as light waves)
• The bandwidth of the channel dictates the
information carrying capacity of the channel
• This is calculated using Shannon’s channel
capacity formula
 Bandwidth
• The bandwidth of a composite signal is the
difference between the highest and the lowest
frequencies contained in that signal.
• Spectrum (range of frequencies)
• Bandwidth (width of the spectrum)
• Two composite signals with different spectrums
might have the same bandwidth.

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 Bandwidth

The bandwidth of periodic and nonperiodic

composite signals 26
 Example
If a periodic signal is decomposed into five sine waves
with frequencies of 100, 300, 500, 700, and 900 Hz,
what is its bandwidth? Draw the spectrum, assuming
all components have a maximum amplitude of 10 V.

Solution
Let fh be the highest frequency, fl the lowest frequency,
and B the bandwidth. Then

The spectrum has only five spikes, at 100, 300, 500,

700, and 900 Hz

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Bandwidth for above example

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 Example
A non periodic composite signal has a bandwidth
of 200 kHz, with a middle frequency of 140 kHz
and peak amplitude of 20 V. The two extreme
frequencies have an amplitude of 0. Draw the
frequency domain of the signal.
Solution
Let fh be the highest frequency, and fl the
lowest frequency. Then
fh – fl = 200
(fh+fl)/2 = 140
The lowest frequency must be at 40 kHz and
the highest at 240 kHz.

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Bandwidth for above example

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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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 Signal
Signal-to-Noise
to Noise Ratio
Ratio
(S/N)
• S/N is normally measured in dB (decibel). It is a
relationship between the signal we want versus the
noise that we do not want, which is in the medium.

• It can be thought of as a fractional relationship

(that is, before we take the logarithm):
• Decibel: measures the relative strengths of two
signals or one signal at two different points.

• It is negative if a signal is attenuated and positive

if a signal is amplified

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 Signal to Noise Ratio (S/N)
• SNR = Average signal power/Average noise power

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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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 SNR
• For practical purposes, when the SNR is very
high, we can assume that SNR + 1 is almost the
same as SNR. In these cases, the theoretical
channel capacity can be simplified to

• For example, The signal-to-noise ratio is often

given in decibels. Assume that SNRdB = 36 and
the channel bandwidth is 2 MHz. Calculate
theoretical channel capacity

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 Digital Signals
• In addition to being represented by an analog
signal, information can also be represented by a
digital signal. For example, a 1 can be encoded as
a positive voltage and a 0 as zero voltage.
• A digital signal can have more than two levels. In
this case, we can send more than 1 bit for each
level.

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 Frequency Vs Bit Rate
Frequency: The number of periods in 1 sec.
Bit rate: The number of bits sent in 1sec,
expressed in bits per second (bps).
Bits per second (bps): The number of bits
transmitted across a medium in a given
second.
Baud rate: The number of times a signal
changes value per second.

bps and baud rate are not always the same.

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 Digital Signal

Two digital signals: one with two levels and the other
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with four signal levels
 Example
• A digital signal has eight levels. How many bits
are needed per level?
• We calculate the number of bits from the formula

• Each signal level is represented by 3 bits

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 Example
• What is the bit rate for high-definition TV
(HDTV)?
Solution
• HDTV uses digital signals to broadcast high
quality video signals. The HDTV screen is
normally a ratio of 16 : 9. There are 1920 by 1080
pixels per screen, and the screen is renewed 30
times per second. Twenty-four bits represents one
color pixel.

• The TV stations reduce this rate to 20 to 40 Mbps

through compression. 41