1) Discuss the effects of Attenuation, Limited bandwidth, Delay distortion

and Noise on the signal:

Attenuation :
When a signal propagates along a transmissionmedium, amplitude of that signal decreases. This is
known as signal attenuation. This attenuation can be compensated by using amplifiers or repeaters. In
transmission medium amplifiers or repeaters are used to restore the original magnitude of the received
signals. This amplifiers are placed periodically along the transmission medium. Distance between any
two amplifier is such that, the signal can be restored easily. However signal attenuation also a function
of frequency, because of the finite capacitance between two wires. Hence a signal which consists with
many frequency will be distorted. So to overcome this effects equalizer are used. Equalizer are used to
compensated the attenuation of a band of frequency. Due to the attenuation, receiver may not detects
the signal bit, due to low amplitude of the bit. Attenuation & amplification both are measured in
decibel.

Limited bandwidth:
Any communication channel or transmission mediums such as cable, wire, fiber has limited
bandwidth. If we want to transmit a signal through the channel, then the signal bandwidth
must be less than channel bandwidth. Otherwise the portion of signal that contain frequencies
greater than channel bandwidth, will be distorted. We know that digital signal consist with only
1 or 0 binary number or bits. Bandwidth of this bits is infinite, which can be determined by
Fourier analysis. So when this bits are transmitted over the channel all frequency of the bit
cannot reach to the destination receiver, only those frequencies which are within the channel
bandwidth will reach to the destination receiver, so shape of the bit will be changed, so
distortion will be occurred . However we know that bandwidth of a digital signal is proportional
to the bit rate, so channel limits the maximum bit rate of the signal. Maximum information
transmission rate of a noiseless channel can be determined by the Nyquist formula.
Delay distortion:
The rate of transmission of the sinusoidal signal along a transmission medium is depend on the
frequency of the signal. So when a signal is transmitted over the channel, which consist with
many frequency components, they reaches at the receiver at different times , due to the
various speed of different frequency component of the same signal. This phenomenon is
known as delay distortion or inter symbol interference(ISI). Due to delay distortion pulse width
of a bit increases & interfere with adjacent bit, so distortion is proportional to the bit rate.
Due to the ISI receiver may not detects original transmitted bit properly, so error will be
occurred.

Noise:
In an ideal channel, in the absence of a signal, total electrical signal in the channel is zero. But
in practice some random signals presents in the channel, during the absence of the
transmitted signal. This signal are generated due to thermal noise, all transmission medium has
this type of noise, it is also called as line noise. So this type of noise distorts the original signal &
error may be occurred at the receiver. Noise is measured by SNR, good quality of a signal has
higher SNR. Theoretical maximum data rate depends on SNR, & can be determined by ShannonHartley law.