What are the Transmission Impairments in computer networks?

Transmission impairment occurs when the received signal is different from the transmitted signal. As we know, a signal can be transmitted as Analog signal or it can be transmitted as a digital signal.

In Analog signals due to transmission impairment the resulting received signal gets different amplitude or the shape. In the case of digitally transmitted signals at the receiver side we get changes in bits (0's or 1's).

Causes

There are various causes of transmission impairments −

Noise
Distortion
Attenuation

Let us understand them one by one.

Noise

Noise is the major factor for the transmission distortion as any unwanted signal gets added to the transmitted signal by which the resulting transmitted signal gets modified and at the receiver side it is difficult to remove the unwanted noise signal. These noises are various kinds like shot noise, impulse noise, thermal noise etc.

Noise is diagrammatically represented as follows −

Distortion

This kind of distortion is mainly appearing in case of composite signals in which a composite signal has various frequency components in it and each frequency component has some time constraint which makes a complete signal.

But while transmitting this composite signal, if a certain delay happens between the frequencies components, then there may be the chance that the frequency component will reach the receiver end with a different delay constraint from its original which leads to the change in shape of the signal. The delay happens due to environmental parameters or from the distance between transmitter and receiver etc.

Distortion is diagrammatically represented as follows −

Attenuation

Attenuation is generally decreased in signal strength, by which the received signal will be difficult to receive at the receiver end. This attenuation happens due to the majority factor by environment as environment imposes a lot of resistance and the signal strength decreases as it tries to overcome the resistance imposed.