Increasing redundancy beyond a practical optimum in a noisy channel can lead to what outcome?

Increasing redundancy beyond a practical optimum in a noisy channel can lead to what outcome?

• A. Higher net data rate
• B. Lower bit error rate with more overhead
• C. No change in throughput
• D. Net data rate approaches zero due to overhead

Answer: (D)

Increasing redundancy in a noisy channel creates more protection against errors but also adds more bits that don’t carry new information. The net data rate—the amount of useful payload sent per second—is the payload bits divided by the total transmitted bits (including overhead). When redundancy is raised beyond what’s practically needed, the overhead grows faster than the payload, so the efficiency drops. In the extreme, most of the transmitted data are redundant bits, leaving almost nothing useful to transmit; the net data rate then approaches zero. This is why, despite better error protection, pushing redundancy too far collapses throughput.

Increasing redundancy in a noisy channel creates more protection against errors but also adds more bits that don’t carry new information. The net data rate—the amount of useful payload sent per second—is the payload bits divided by the total transmitted bits (including overhead). When redundancy is raised beyond what’s practically needed, the overhead grows faster than the payload, so the efficiency drops. In the extreme, most of the transmitted data are redundant bits, leaving almost nothing useful to transmit; the net data rate then approaches zero. This is why, despite better error protection, pushing redundancy too far collapses throughput.