In the telecom world, understanding analog versus digital isnt as simple as comparing one technology to another. Analog technology has been around for decades. Its not that complicated a concept and its fairly inexpensive to use. The trouble is, analog signals have size limitations as to how much data they can carry.

20 phones and inexpensive TVs, we only get so much.

The beauty of digital is that it knows what it should be when it reaches the end of the transmission. That way, it can correct any errors that may have occurred in the data transfer.

The nature of digital technology allows it to cram lots of those 1s and 0s together into the same space an analog signal uses.

Compare your simple home phone with the one you may have at the office. Your phone at work is loaded with function keys, call transfer buttons, and even voice mail. Digital offers better clarity, but analog gives you richer quality. But like any new technology, digital has a few shortcomings.

Since devices are constantly translating, coding, and reassembling your voice, you wont get the same rich sound quality as you do with analog. And for now, digital is still relatively expensive. First you have to get analog signal to be within the analog voltage range of the ADC. This is done by using an AGC or some kind of attenuation.

Assuming that your ADC analog input has a range from.