Transmission Impairments

Analog signaling consists of varying a voltage with time to represent an information stream. If transmission media were perfect, the receiver would receive exactly the same signal that the transmitter sent. Unfortunately, media are not perfect, so the receiver signal is not the same as the transmitted signal. For digital data, this difference can lead to errors.

Transmission lines suffer from three major problems: attenuation, delay distortion, and noise. Attenuation is the loss of energy as the signal propagates outward. On guided media (e.g., wires and optical fibers), the signal falls off logarithmically with the distance. The loss is expressed in decibels per kilometer. The amount of energy lost depends on the frequency. To see the effect of this frequency dependence, imagine a signal not as a simple waveform, but as a series of Fourier components. Each component is attenuated by a different amount, which results in a different Fourier spectrum at the receiver, and hence a different signal.

If the attenuation is too much, the receiver may not be able to detect the signal at all, or the signal may fall below the noise level. In many cases, the attenuation properties of a medium are known, so amplifiers can be put in to try to compensate for the frequency-dependent attenuation. The approach helps but can never restore the signal exactly back to its original shape. (…)

(A. S. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 3rd ed., p. 109)

Segundo o texto, a quantidade de energia perdida do sinal depende de sua