In
telecommunication
Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...
, degradation is the loss of quality of an electronic signal, which may be categorized as either "''
graceful''" or "''catastrophic''", and has the following meanings:
#The deterioration in quality, level, or standard of performance of a
functional unit.
#In
communications
Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...
, a condition in which one or more of the required performance parameters fall outside predetermined limits, resulting in a lower
quality of service
Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, such as a telephony or computer network, or a cloud computing service, particularly the performance seen by the users of the network. To quantitat ...
.
There are several forms and causes of degradation in electric signals, both in the
time domain
In mathematics and signal processing, the time domain is a representation of how a signal, function, or data set varies with time. It is used for the analysis of mathematical functions, physical signals or time series of economic or environmental ...
and in the physical domain, including
runt pulse,
voltage spike
In electrical engineering, spikes are fast, short duration electrical transients in voltage (voltage spikes), current (current spikes), or transferred energy (energy spikes) in an electrical circuit.
Fast, short duration electrical transients ...
,
jitter
In electronics and telecommunications, jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumably periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock signal. In clock recovery applications it is called timing jitter. Jitter is a signifi ...
,
wander, swim,
drift,
glitch
A glitch is a short-lived technical fault, such as a transient one that corrects itself, making it difficult to troubleshoot. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among pl ...
,
ringing,
crosstalk
In electronics, crosstalk (XT) is a phenomenon by which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel of a transmission system creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel. Crosstalk is usually caused by undesired capacitive, ...
, antenna effect (not the same
antenna effect
The antenna effect, more formally plasma induced gate oxide damage, is an effect that can potentially cause yield and reliability problems during the manufacture of MOS integrated circuits. Factories (''fabs'') normally supply antenna rules, wh ...
as in IC manufacturing), and
phase noise
In signal processing, phase noise is the frequency-domain representation of random fluctuations in the phase of a waveform, corresponding to time-domain deviations from perfect periodicity (jitter). Generally speaking, radio-frequency enginee ...
.
Degradation usually refers to reduction in quality of an analog or digital signal. When a signal is being transmitted or received, it undergoes changes which are undesirable. These changes are called degradation. Degradation is usually caused by: distance,
imitation
Imitation (from Latin ''imitatio'', "a copying, imitation") is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of learning that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our cu ...
:''see Remote Control'', noise, interference or EMI.
Digital electronics
Fault tolerance
Noise (electronics)
Telecommunications engineering
{{telecomm-stub