ECEN 3224 DATA COMMUNICATIONS

MODULE 1: DATA COMMUNICATIONS FUNDAMENTALS

Mc WINLEY T. GALLEMIT, ECE

I. DEFINITION OF TERMS
DATA COMMUNICATION
- TRANSMISSION OF BINARY OR DIGITAL INFORMATION FROM ONE POINT TO ANOTHER
WHICH INCLUDES THE TRANSFER OF INFORMATION BETWEEN COMPUTERS AND ANY
DIGITIZED ANALOG SIGNAL.
- TRANSMISSION, RECEPTION, AND PROCESSING OF DIGITAL INFORMATION

DATA – INFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN PROCESSED, ORGANIZED AND STORED IN DIGITAL FORM

NETWORK – SET OF DEVICES (SOMETIMES CALLED NODES OR STATIONS) INTECONNECTED BY

MEDIA LINKS

II. HISTORY OF DATA COMMUNICATIONS

WHEN WHO/WHERE WHAT
1753 SCOTLAND PROTOTYPE OF THE 26-WIRE SYSTEM
1833 CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS 5 BY 5 MATRIX (REPRESENTING 25 LETTERS)
1832 SAMULE F.B. MORSE INVENTION OF TELEGRAPH AND MORSE CODE
1844 BALTIMORE TO WASHINGTON DC FIRST TELEGRAPH LINE
1874 EMILE BAUDOT INVENTION OF TELEGRAPH MULTIPLEXER
1899 GUGLIELMO MARCONI FIRST WIRELESS TRANSMISSION OF TELEGRAPH
SIGNALS
1946 J. PRESPER ECKERT DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENIAC COMPUTER
JOHN MAUCHLEY
1951 REMINGTON RAND CORPORATION DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNIVAC COMPUTER (FIRST
MASS PRODUCED ELECTRONIC COMPUTER)
1960s AT&T STARTED PROVIDING BOTH LONG-DISTANCE AND
LOCAL TELEPHONE SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES
1970s ADVANCED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARPANET (FIRST INTERNET)
PROJECTS AGENCY (ARPA)

III. DIGITAL SIGNAL AND CODING SYSTEMS

A. DIGITAL SIGNALS – BINARY PULSES WITH TWO DISTINCT STATES, EACH REPRESENTED BY A
VOLTAGE LEVEL. THESE PULSES SWITCH RAPIDLY BETWEEN THESE TWO LEVELS COMMONLY
REFERRED TO AS BINARY ‘1’ OR BINARY ‘0’

TWO BINARY STATES

i. BINARY ‘1’ – ALSO REFERRED TO AS LOGIC ‘HIGH’ OR ‘MARK’ WHICH IS NORMALLY
CONNECTED TO POSITIVE FIVE VOLTS (+5V)
ii. BINARY ‘0’ – ALSO REFERRED TO AS LOGIC ‘LOW’ OR ‘SPACE’ WHICH IS NORMALLY
CONNECTED TO GROUND OR ZERO VOLTS (0V)
 B. DATA COMMUNICATION CODES – USED TO REPRESENT CODES AND SYMBOLS SUCH AS
LETTERS, DIGITS, AND PUNCTUATION MARKS. ALSO CALLED CHARACTER CODES, CHARACTER
SETS, SYMBOL CODES AND CHARACTER LANGUAGES

i. MORSE CODE – A SERIES OF DOTS AND DASHES THAT REPRESENT THE LETTERS OF THE
ALPHABET, NUMBERS AND PUNCTUATION MARKS. CREATED BY SAMUEL F. B. MORSE
ALONGSIDE WITH HIS INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH

TELEGRAPH – AN INSTRUMENT COMPOSED OF A CARRIER GENERATOR AND A

CLICKER (ALSO KNOWN AS SOUNDER) WHICH ACTS AS A SWITCH THAT TURNED THE
CARRIER OF A TRANSMITTER OFF AND ON TO PRODUCE DOTS AND DASHES. THIS IS
ALSO KNOWN AS CONTINUOUS WAVE (CW) COMMUNICATION.

ii. BAUDOT CODE – IS THE FIRST FIXED-LENGTH CHARACTER CODE DEVELOPED FOR
TELETYPE MACHINES WHICH WAS DEVELPED BY THOMAS MURRAY IN 1875 AND
NAMED THE CODE IT IS A 5-BIT CODING SYSTEM CREATED TO REPRESENT LETTERS,
NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS. ALSO CALLED ‘TELEX CODE’ OR INTERNATIONAL TELEGRAPH
ALPHABET (ITA) NO. 2

TELETYPE – A SYSTEM OF DATA COMMUNICATIONS USING TYPEWRITERLIKE

DEVICES TO SEND AND RECEIVE CODED MESSAGES

iii. AMERICAN STANDARD CODE FOR INFORMATION INTERCHANGE (ASCII) – A 7-BIT

FIXED-LENGTH CHARACTER SET WHICH IS THE MOST WIDELY-USED CODE IN DATA
COMMUNICATIONS NETWORKS TODAY. IT WAS FIRST CREATED IN 1963 AND WAS
FORMERLY KNOWN AS USASCII OR ASCII-63 UNTIL IT WAS RECOMMENDED BY THE
FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS:
1. INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION (ITU) IN 1977 AS
INTERNATIONAL TELEGRAPH ALPHABET NO. 5
2. AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARDS INSTITUTE (ANSI) AS STANDARD X3.4-1986
(R1977)
3. INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS ORGANIZATION (ISO) AS ISO-14962 (1997)

iv. EXTENDED BINARY CODED DECIMAL INTERCHANGE CODE (EBCDIC) – AN 8-BIT FIXED-
LENGTH CHARACTER SET DEVELOPED IN 1962 BY THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
MACHINES CORPORATION (IBM) ALLOWING A MAXIMUM OF 256 CHARACTERS TO BE
REPRESENTED, ALTHOUGH ONLY 139 OF THE 256 CODES ARE ACTUALLY ASSIGNED
CHARACTERS

v. UNICODE (UNIVERSAL CODE) – AN ATTEMPT TO STANDARDIZE LONGER AND MORE

COMPLEX CODING SCHEMES USED TO ACCOMMODATE MORE COMPLEX LANGUAGES
SUCH AS CHINESE AND JAPANESE. IT CAN SUPPORT 65,536 (216) CHARACTERS.

II. 2 TYPES OF DATA TRANSMISSION

A. PARALLEL – ALL BITS OF A CODE IS BEING TRANSFERRED SIMULTANEOUSLY WHICH NEEDS

INDIVIDUAL WIRE FOR EACH BIT OF INFORMATION TO BE TRANSMITTED. ALSO CALLED
PARRALEL-BY-BIT OR SERIAL-BY-CHARACTER
 PROS. EXTREMELY FAST TRANSMISSION
CONS. NEEDS INDIVIDUAL WIRES PER BIT

B. SERIAL – EACH BIT OF A WORD IS TRANSFERRED ONE AFTER ANOTHER WHICH EACH BIT BEING
TRANSFERRED FOR A FIXED INTERVAL OF TIME (𝑡). ALSO CALLED SERIAL-BY-BIT
PROS. MORE PRACTICAL FOR LONG-DISTANCE COMMUNICATIONS
CONS. SLIGHTLY SLOWER THAN PARALLEL TRANSMISSION

2 KINDS OF SERIAL TRANSMISSION

i. ASYNCHRONOUS – EACH DATA WORD IS ACCOMPANIED BY STOP AND START BITS THAT
IDENTIFY THE BEGINNING AND ENDING OF THE CODE WORD
1. START BIT – USUALLY REPRESENTED BY A LOGIC ‘LOW’ OR TRANSITION FROM
MARK-TO-SPACE
2. STOP BIT – USUALLY REPRESENTED BY A LOGIC ‘HIGH’ OR TRANSITION FROM
SPACE-TO-MARK

BIT EFFICIENCY
𝑁𝐷
𝜂= × 100%
𝑁𝑇
WHERE,
𝜂 = BIT EFFICIENCY
𝑁𝐷 = NUMBER OF DATA BITS
𝑁𝐷 = NUMBER OF TOTAL BITS

ii. SYNCHRONOUS – DATA IS USUALLY TRANSMITTED IN MULTIWORD BLOCKS. THESE

BLOCKS MAY CONTAIN HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUSANDS OF CHARACTERS OR CODE
WORDS. SYNCHRONIZATION BLOCKS ARE PLACED AT THE BEGINNING AND AT THE END
OF THE BLOCK.

III. MEASURES OF SPEED OF TRANSMISSION

A. BIT RATE – NUMBER OF BITS PER UNIT OF TIME
B. BAUD RATE – NUMBER OF SIGNALING ELEMENTS OR SYMBOLS THAT OCCUR IN A UNIT OF TIME
CODING SYSTEM NO. OF BITS PER NO. OF ENCODING
SYMBOL LEVELS
BPSK 1 2 BITRATE = BAUD RATE
QPSK 2 4 BITRATE = 2 * BAUDRATE
8-PSK 3 8 BITRATE = 3 * BAUDRATE
16-PSK 4 16 BITRATE = 4 * BAUDRATE
64-PSK 5 32 BITRATE = 5 * BAUDRATE

IV. INFORMATION THEORY

- STUDY OF THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO TRANSMIT INFORMATION

A. HARTLEY’S LAW – THE GREATER THE NUMBER OF BITS TRANSMITTED IN A GIVEN TIME, THE
GREATER THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION THAT IS CONVEYED.

𝐶 = 2𝐵
WHERE,
 𝐶 = CHANNEL CAPACITY, bit/s
𝐵 = BANDWIDTH, Hz

BY TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION MULTIPLE CODING SCHEMES,

𝐶 = 2𝐵 log 2 𝑁
WHERE,
𝐶 = CHANNEL CAPACITY, bit/s
𝐵 = BANDWIDTH, Hz
𝑁 = NUMBER OF ENCODING LEVELS

B. SHANNON-HARTLEY THEOREM – CHANNEL CAPACITY WITH THE CONSIDERATION OF THE

PRESENCE OF GAUSSIAN NOISE WHICH REDUCES THE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION
TRANSMITTED
𝑪 = 𝑩 𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝟐 (𝟏 + 𝑺/𝑵)
WHERE,
𝐶 = CHANNEL CAPACITY, bit/s
𝐵 = BANDWIDTH, Hz
𝑆/𝑁 = SIGNAL-TO-NOISE POWER RATIO

REFERENCES:
TOMASI, W., ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, 2004
BLAKE, R., ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, 2002
FRENZEL, L., PRINCIPLES OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS, 2016