Layered approach - Answers physical infrastructure -> Network protocols &
commun. software -> Applications
Analog signal - Answers continuously varying (we live in an analog world)
analog data examples: light, voice, video
-Our sensations of pictures, sounds etc. are analog
Frequency: - Answers Number of seconds per cycle
-Analog signals have continuously repeating waveforms
Hertz (Hz) - Answers Cycles per second
1 Khz -> 1000 Hz
1 Mhz -> 1000 Khz
1 Ghz -> 1000 Mhz
Digital Signals - Answers -Discrete or quantized
-Used for processing, storage, and transmission
Sampling - Answers -analog is sampled at regular intervals to generate a digital
signal, which approximates the the analog waveform
-original analog info may be recovered from the digital signal
Digital convergence - Answers Access to data, voice and video through single, digital
user interface.
advantages of digital tech - Answers -VLSI and the cost of digital circuitry
-Error Correction and Control: A digital signal, since it is a pattern of bits, can be
checked for errors, and the original signal may be regenerated.
-Data integrity and reliability in transmission: Less susceptible to noise, as original
signal can be recovered from distorted signal.
-Capacity utilization: digital signals are easier to multiplex over high bandwidth
channels
-Integration of voice, video and data
-Security and privacy: encryption of digital data
-Compression: digital signals can be easily compressed, allowing transmission of
large amounts of information over limited bandwidth.
Bit - Answers -Binary digit: value 0 or 1
-Bits per second (bps) or bit rate describes transmission speed. The higher the bps, the
shorter the duration of each individual bit.
Increasing units for speed:
-kilobits per second(kbps)
-Megabits per second Mbps
-Gigabits per second Gbps
-Terabits per second Tbps
-Note: computer memory is usually referred to in bytes, kilobytes,megabytes,
gigabytes etc. Transmission speed is referred to in bits per second. A byte, is eight
bits.
Channel Bandwidth - Answers Highest-lowest frequency allowed by the channel
-An analog measure
Data rate - Answers -bit rate, used to specify digital transmission. --For a given
medium, as bandwidth goes up, data rate goes up as well.
-The data rate for a given medium depends on its bandwidth, and the extent of
distortions-noise- induced by it into the signal]