How does spread spectrum technology reduce the probability of signal jamming?

How does spread spectrum technology reduce the probability of signal jamming?

• A. By increasing transmit power.
• B. By spreading the signal over a wide frequency spectrum.
• C. By using shorter frames.
• D. By reducing data rate.

Answer: (B)

Spread spectrum works by distributing the transmitted energy over a much wider bandwidth than the original data rate. Because the energy is spread, the power per hertz is much lower, so a narrowband jammer has a harder time overwhelming the signal. At the receiver, a correlating despreader uses the spreading code to reclaim the original data, concentrating the energy back and providing a processing gain that improves resilience to interference. To jam effectively, an attacker would need to jam a wide portion of the spread band or emit much higher power, which is more difficult than jamming a narrow slice. This combination of spreading and the ability to recover the signal through despreading reduces the likelihood and impact of jamming.

Spread spectrum works by distributing the transmitted energy over a much wider bandwidth than the original data rate. Because the energy is spread, the power per hertz is much lower, so a narrowband jammer has a harder time overwhelming the signal. At the receiver, a correlating despreader uses the spreading code to reclaim the original data, concentrating the energy back and providing a processing gain that improves resilience to interference. To jam effectively, an attacker would need to jam a wide portion of the spread band or emit much higher power, which is more difficult than jamming a narrow slice. This combination of spreading and the ability to recover the signal through despreading reduces the likelihood and impact of jamming.