Telecommunications networks transmit information in packets, which are screened by computers for fraudulent or corrupted data. Burst errors are strings of corrupted data, measured by the length between the first and last error signals. The causes of burst errors can vary, but most networks have built-in error-checking mechanisms.
Information traveling across a computer network or other type of telecommunications network typically comes in packets. Packages are smaller, “bigger-sized” pieces of a larger chunk of information. While telecommunications technology is generally reliable and seamless from an end user’s point of view, that’s only because the computer does the dirty work. It constantly screens packages for fraudulent and corrupted data, discarding it when found. An error burst is a string of corrupted data, measured as the length between the first and last error signals inclusive.
For example, imagine you are sending a packet containing all the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z. If the recipient’s computer “opens” the packet and finds that the first letter of the sequence is “Q” and the last letter of the sequence is “R”, this is a burst error. The data burst in the packet is corrupted.
Although the first and last letter in the example are said to be corrupted, this does not mean that every letter within the packet is corrupted. Imagine that every other letter is as it should be; only position one, “A”, and position 26, “Z”, were damaged. The number of correct bits of information between the bad ends is called the guard band. In this case the guard band would be 24, because there are 24 correct letters separating the two damaged ones.
Measuring the length of a burst error is simple. It is defined as the number of individual bits that separate the very first occurrence of the error from the last occurrence, including the initial and final bad bits. In the example above, the burst error length would be 26.
The causes of a burst error can vary widely. It is not always possible to measure them accurately. Typically, this corruption can occur through any number of sources, including signal degradation, packet loss, other types of network failure, or computer sending failure. In networking, as in the real world, sometimes things go wrong. Fortunately, most forms of networking provide built-in error-checking mechanisms, which allow a receiving computer to compare the data it actually received with an impression of the data being sent, allowing it to recognize if something went wrong along the way.
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