What Is Multiplexing

What is Multiplexing ? Multiplexing is a form of data transmission in which one communication channel carries several transmissions at the same time. The telephone lines that carry our daily conversations can carry thousands or even more of conversations at a time using multiplexing concept. The exact number of simultaneous transmission depends on the type of communication channel and the data transmission rate.

Economics of scale play an important role in the telephone system. It costs essentially the same amount of money to install and maintain a high-bandwidth trunk as low-bandwidth trunk between two switching officers. Consequently, telephone companies have developed elaborate schemes for multiplexing many conversations over a single physical trunk.

Accordingly, the communication channel is shared in such a way as to maximum the utilization of the channel capacity. Thus the method of dividing a single channel into many channels so that a number of independent signals may be transmitted on it is known as Multiplexing.

Multiplexing schemes can be divided into two basic categories:

• Frequency Division Multiplexing FDM
• Time Division Multiplexing TDM

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