Probability of error in PAM systems with intersymbol interference and additive noise

The effect of intersymbol interference and additive noise on the performance of a digital data transmission system is considered. The data sequence is assumed to be independent and equiprobable. The additive noise is independent of the signal but is not restricted to be Gaussian. A simple lower bound, an upper bound, and a simple approximation to the upper bound, on the probability of error are derived. The approximation to the upper bound is twice the lower bound; hence, either can be taken as an approximation to the actual error probability.