#2 HOW DATA IS TRANSMITTED?: THE NETWORKING SERIES
Are you online? Of course you are! And that’s how you are reading this blog right now. Would you like to know how this is possible? This series is all about what it takes to be online and access internet!
Hey peeps, in the previous blog, we have discussed about Internet and local networks. In this part, you will get to know how data is transmitted across a network, how it is measured and different methods of transmission. Let’s dive into the topic!
Transmission of data
Initially, the data can be classified as:
- Volunteered data: The data which is created and shared voluntarily by an individual such as social network profiles which might include photos, videos, music, text, etc.
- Observed data: The data which is obtained by observing the actions of individual such as location data.
- Inferred data: The data which is based on analysis of volunteered data and observed data such as credit card scores etc.
The Bit
The data can only be transmitted series of bits where each bit be either 0 or 1. The bit is the abbreviation of “binary digit” which represents the smallest piece of data. A bit is stored and transmitted as two possible discrete states such as two direction of magnetization, two distinct levels of light intensity, two distinct voltage or current levels, or any other physical system of two discrete states. For example, the light can be either on or off, but it is represented as 1 and 0 respectively in binary representation.
Before transmitting, any type of information whether it is a photo, music, video, computer data, it is converted into bits (0’s and 1’s).
Common Methods of Data Transmission
The data is transmitted from one device to another in various methods. After the data is transformed into bit, it is converted into signals that can be transmitted across the network media to its destination. “Media”, here, is referred to the physical medium across which the signals are transmitted. Examples of media are copper wire, fiber-optic cables and electromagnetic waves through air. There are three common methods of signal transmission used in network:
- Electrical signals: Transmission is carried out by representing data as electric signals over copper wire.
- Optical signals: Transmission is carried out by representing data as light pulses.
- Wireless signals: Transmission is carried out by using infrared, radio or micro waves through the air.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the capacity of a medium to carry data. Digital bandwidth is the measure of data that can be transmitted from one place to another in a given amount of time. Bandwidth is generally measured by the number of bits (theoretically) that can be sent across a media in a second. Common bandwidth measurements are:
- bps (bits per second)
- kbps (Thousands of bits per second)
- Mbps (Millions of bits per second)
- Gbps (Trillions of bits per second)
Throughput
Throughput, similar to bandwidth, is the measure of the transfer of bits across the media over a given period of time. Throughput measurement does not take into account the validity and usefulness of the data that is being transmitted and received. Throughput does not usually match the specified bandwidth due to number of factors including:
- The type of data being transmitted
- The amount of data being transmitted
- The latency created by the number of networks encountered between the source and destination.
Latency refers to the amount of time, or delay, for data to travel from given point to another.
Hope you have enjoyed the second part of “THE NETWORKING SERIES”. I’ll catch you up in the next part.
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