COMMUNICATION TRANSMISSION MEDIA:
CHARACTERISTICTS, PROS AND CONS
MARTIN MATOVU
06/U/5761/PSA 206006175
BSc. In Telecommunications Eng, Department of Electrical Engineering
Faculty of Technology, Makerere University
Kampala, Uganda
Abstract - Inorder to carry a communication
signal from one end to another, we need a physical
system which is the transmission medium. A
transmission medium is a material substance which
can propagate energy waves. [1] Take for example,
the transmission medium for sound received by the
ears is usually air, but solids and liquids may also
act as transmission media for sound. This paper
deals with the different transmission media: their
characteristics, comparative advantages as well as
disadvantages.
I. INTRODUCTION
In telecommunications, transmission is the process
of sending, propagating and receiving an analogue or
digital information signal over a physical point-to-
point or point-to-multipoint transmission medium,
either wired or wireless. [2] A transmission may be
simplex (one station is a transmitter and the other is
the receiver), Half-duplex (both stations may transmit,
but only one at a time), Duplex (both stations transmit
simultaneously).
Many transmission media are used as communication
Figure 1: Operating frequencies of different transmission media [3]
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channels thus the term, Communication transmission
media. The quality of transmission is determined by
both the characteristics of the medium and the
characteristics of the signal.
There are two basic categories of Transmission Media:
Guided media and unguided media
Basically, the guided transmission media uses a
"cabling" system that guides the data signals along a
specific path. The signals are bound by the "cabling"
system. Guided media is also known as bound media.
And the unguided transmission media consists of a
means for the signals to propagate but nothing to guide
them along a specific path and as such are often called
unbound media.
II. TRANSMISSION MEDIA
There are design factors considered when using
transmission media: Bandwidth- higher bandwidth
gives higher data rates, Transmission impairments like
attenuation, interference and the number of receivers-
in guided media, more receivers (multi-point)
introduce more attenuation.
For the guided media, the medium itself is more
important in determining the limitations of
transmission while for unguided media, the bandwidth
of the signal is more important than the medium
because the medium is shared by many applications. [4]
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Figure 2: Categories of transmission media [5]
A. GUIDED MEDIA
The three basic types of guided media include;
Twisted pair, Coaxial cable, Optical fiber as shown in
the figure 2.
• TWISTED PAIR
They are often twisted together, bundled into
cables and insulated. The nearby pairs have different
twist length inorder to reduce crosstalk. The twist
length varies from 5 to 15cm, and wire thickness 0.4 to
0.9mm.
(a) Twisted pair
Being the most common medium, twisted pair has
wide applications- telephone networks, Private branch
exchange (PBX) within buildings, Local area networks
(LAN) usually 10Mbps or 100Mbps.
The transmission characteristics exhibited by the
twisted pair include:
- Analog signal transmission requires amplifiers for
every 5 to 6km.
- Digital signal transmission requires repeaters every
few hundred meters
- Has the highest attenuation compared to other media
- Limited bandwidth (1MHz) and data rates (100MHz)
- Susceptible to interference and noise.
MARTIN MATOVU
On the other hand, twisted pair is cheap and easy to
work with as well.
There are two categories of the twisted pair-
Unshielded twisted pair (UTP) and Shielded twisted
pair (STP)
• COAXIAL CABLES
These basically have a braided shield as an outer
conductor and the inner conductor is a solid metal. The
two conductors are separated by an insulating material
and are covered by padding.
Coaxial cables allow operation for a wider range
of frequencies, the conductor diameter range from 1 to
2.5 cm. Due to the shielding; coaxial cables are much
less susceptible to interference and cross- talk.
Coaxial cables various applications due to their
versatility. They are used for TV distribution, Long
distance telephone transmission using FDM, Short
distance computer systems links and Local area
networks as well.
Common to coaxial cables, are the following
characteristics:
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- Analog, amplifiers needed for every few km
- Frequency up to 500MHz
- Digital, repeaters needed every 1km and closer for
higher data rates
- Performance is limited by attenuation, thermal noise,
and intermodulation noise
• OPTICAL FIBER
Made of a core with one or more thin strands or
fibers (8 to 100 mm), Cladding: glass or plastic coating
with different optical properties than the core, the
-Core/Cladding interface: reflector –confine ray and
the jacket for protection against moisture, abrasion and
crushing.
The ultrapure fiber is used for
lowest losses though difficult to manufacture and the
higher loss mutlicomponent glass fibers are more
economical. However, the plastic fiber is the cheapest
–used for short-haul links.
Fiber transmission has three modes as shown
below;
(a) Step-index multimode
(b) Graded-index multimode
(c) Single mode
MARTIN MATOVU
The benefits of using fiber include: unlimited
capacity up to hundreds of Gbps, small size and
weight, lower attenuation, electromagnetic isolation as
well as achieving greater repeater spacing up to tens of
kms at least. The applications of fiber range from
being used in Long-haul trunks, metropolitan trunks,
rural exchange trunks, subscriber loops and LANs.
Optical fiber has the following characteristics:
- They act as wave guide for 1014 to 1015 Hz
- Utilize Light Emitting Diode (LED) which are
Cheaper, have wider operating temp range and last
longer
- Operate with the Injection Laser Diode (ILD) which
are more efficient and have higher data rate
- Utilizes Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
Figure 3: Attenuation of typical guided media [3]
B. UNGUIDED MEDIA
The unguided media are classified by the type of wave
propagation; Radio, microwave and satellite also
shown in figure 2.
• RADIO FREQUENCY PROPAGATION [6]
Radio Frequencies are in the range of 300 kHz to 10
GHz. There are 3 types of Radio Frequency
propagation: Ground Wave, Ionospheric and Line of
Sight (LOS) Propagation.
Ground Wave Propagation follows the curvature
of the Earth. Ground Waves have carrier frequencies
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up to 2 MHz. AM radio is an example of Ground
Wave Propagation.

Ionospheric Propagation bounces off of the

Earths Ionospheric Layer in the upper atmosphere. It is
sometimes called Double Hop Propagation. It operates
in the frequency range of 30 - 85 MHz. Because it
depends on the Earth's ionosphere, it changes with
Table showing operating Radio frequencies
weather and time of day. The signal bounces off of the
ionosphere and back to earth. Ham radios operate in
this range.
•MICROWAVE [6]

Microwave transmission is line of sight

Ionospheric Propagation
Line of Sight Propagation transmits exactly in the
line of sight. The receive station must be in the view of
the transmit station. It is sometimes called Space
Waves or Tropospheric Propagation. It is limited by
the curvature of the Earth for ground based stations
(100 km: horizon to horizon). Reflected waves can
cause problems. Examples of Line of Sight
Propagation are: FM Radio, Microwave and Satellite.
transmission. The Transmit station must be in visible
contact with the receive station. This sets a limit on the
distance between stations depending on the local
geography. Typically the line of sight due to the
Earth's curvature is only 50 km to the horizon!
Repeater stations must be placed so the data signal can
hop, skip and jump across the country.
Microwaves operate at high operating frequencies of
3 to 10 GHz. This allows them to carry large quantities
of data due to the large bandwidth. They have the
following advantages:

a. Require no right of way acquisition between

towers.

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b. Carry high quantities of information due to The types of satellites include:
their • Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO)
high operating frequencies. • Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)
c. Low cost land purchase: each tower occupies • Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
small
area. Satellite communication finds applications in the
d. High frequency/short wavelength signals telecommunications sector especially for inter-
require continental communication, TV broadcast where usage
small antenna. is increasing, Navigation and other similar local
applications GPS.

Microwave propagation has the following

disadvantages:
a. Attenuation by solid objects: birds, rain, snow and
fog.
b. Reflected from flat surfaces like water and metal.
c. Diffracted (split) around solid objects
d. Refracted by atmosphere, thus causing beam to be
projected away from receiver.

• SATELLITE [6]

Satellites are transponders that are set in a

geostationary orbit directly over the equator. A
transponder is a unit that receives on one frequency
and retransmits on another. The geostationary orbit is
36,000 km from the Earth's surface. At this point, the
gravitational pull of the Earth and the centrifugal
force of Earths rotation are balanced and cancel each
other out. Centrifugal force is the rotational force
placed on the satellite that wants to fling it out to
space.
The uplink is the transmitter of data to the satellite.
The downlink is the receiver of data. Uplinks and
downlinks are also called Earth stations due to be
located on the Earth. The footprint is the "shadow" that
the satellite can transmit to. The shadow being the area
that can receive the satellite's transmitted signal.
REFERENCES

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_medium
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_(telecommuni
cations)
3. William Stallings, Data & Computer communications, 6th
Edition , November, 2, 1999
4. http://arquiredes.unsl.googlepages.com/
TransmissionMedia.pdf
5. Transmission media- guided and unguided by Norrima
Mokhtar

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6. http://www.techbooksforfree.com/intro_to_data_com/toc
.html#toc

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