Some practical aspects of digital transmission

There are three worlds of digital transmission¿digital transmission as an area of academic research, in which theoretical limitations and complicated schemes of modulation and encoding play the starring role; digital transmission in exotic space and military applications, in which it is, or may seem to be, worthwhile to search through the noise in a huge bandwidth in order to receive a few bits per second; and the digital transmission of everyday bulk communication. This article is concerned with that third area, in which apparatus must be economical and reliable; in which the FCC limits the bandwidth we may use in radio transmission; in which the increase in attenuation with frequency limits the bandwidth it is practical to use in cable transmission; in which error rates should be low enough that error correction is an expedient that need be resorted to only in special situations.