In reality, we cannot have a noiseless channel; the channel is always noisy. In 1944, Claude Shannon introduced a formula, called the Shannon capacity, to determine the theoretical highest data rate for a noisy channel:
Shannon Capacity for Noisy Channel
Capacity =bandwidth X log2 (1 +SNR)In this formula, bandwidth is the bandwidth of the channel, SNR is the signal-to-noise ratio, and capacity is the capacity of the channel in bits per second.
Note that in the Shannon formula there is no indication of the signal level, which means that no matter how many levels we have, we cannot achieve a data rate higher than the capacity of the channel. In other words, the formula defines a characteristic of the channel, not the method of transmission.