T1 Analog Vs. Digital
If you need a fast internet connection for your business, T1 analog is probably the best bet because it most natural data is analog before the digital conversion required to get a digital signal, resolution of analog recording and transmitting technology has been higher until recent times. However, just to make sure, it is a good idea to look at t1 analog and t1 digital. T1 digital communications were introduced in the early 1960s to reduce the amount of copper cable needed to carry the same number of telephone conversations as analog communications. The term T1 circuit is used to identify a multiplexed 24 channel, 1.544 Mbps digital data circuit providing communications between two facilities or from a local service provider. T1 refers to the transport of a DS-1 formatted signal onto a copper, fiber or wireless medium for deploying voice, data or video-conferencing services.
The T1 is part of an extensive digital hierarchy that starts with 24 DS0s at 64 kbps. These individual DS0s are used to provide voice or digital data to support point to point or network applications. By combining multiple DS0s, a high-speed interface can be provided to support a synchronous interface to a LAN router or voice PBX. For distances longer than one mile, a repeater is placed every mile to regenerate the signal.
To clarify and simplify, a string tied to a doorknob would be an analog system. Analog systems are like wave systems. They have a value that changes steadily over time and can have any one of an infinite set of values in a range. If you put a measuring stick or ruler at a specific point along the string, you can measure the string's value every so many seconds at that point. When you watch it move, you will see it moves constantly. It does not instantly jump up and down the ruler.
Our string example is not a digital system. A digital system would be to flick the light switch on and off. There are no in between values, unlike the analog string. If the switch you are using is not a dimmer switch, either then the light is on, or off, there is no in between. In this case, the transmitter is the light bulb, the media is the air, and the receiver is your eye. This would be a digital system.
It can become confusing when people explain that digital systems have a square wave appearance. The light does not instantly turn on, but it does happen so fast that we humans do not normally see the light actually in the process of 'lighting up'. We see it either lit, or unlit. When a signaling system changes that fast between specific values, it is called a 'digital' system, especially when a computer is hooked up at either end.
One example of a digital system would be the digital voice telephone system. The phone system uses something known as Pulse Mode Modulation (PCM). PCM uses 256 discrete voltage states to represent specific values. The phone system uses these discrete symbols to represent various values of sound on the phone line. Because there are only 256 symbols, the phone system cannot reproduce the sound exactly, but it can sample it 8,000 times a second. Some of the data is lost but because it is sampled so fast, we do not notice much of the lost sound. The same thing occurs with digital photography. The camera can only record a limited number of colors, not the billions of colors our eyes can perceive. This is why digital photos sometimes look washed out, flat or off-color compared to the real thing. This loss in conversion from analog to a digital format is referred to as digital noise.
