Introduction to data communications

18IST34
COMPUTER NETWORKS
By
S.ARUNA
AP/Department of CT-PG
KEC

UNIT – I
Introduction:
• Data communications
• Network Criteria – Physical Structures
• Network Types
• Internet History
• Standardization and administration.
• Network Models: Protocol Layering
• TCP/IP Protocol suite
• OSI Model
• Physical Layer: Transmission media – Switching.

Data communications
• The term telecommunication means
communication at a distance.
• The word data refers to information
presented in whatever form is agreed upon
by the parties creating and using the data.
• Data communications are the exchange of
data between two devices via some form of
transmission medium such as a wire cable.

Fundamental Characteristics
• The effectiveness of a data communications system depends on four
fundamental characteristics:
1.Delivery. The system must deliver data to the correct destination. Data
must be received by the intended device or user and only by that device
or user.
2.Accuracy. The system must deliver the data accurately. Data that have
been altered in transmission and left uncorrected are unusable.
3.Timeliness. The system must deliver data in a timely manner. Data
delivered late are useless.
In the case of video and audio, timely delivery means delivering
data as they are produced, in the same order that they are produced,
and without significant delay. This kind of delivery is called real-time
transmission.
4.Jitter. Jitter refers to the variation in the packet arrival time.
It is the uneven delay in the delivery of audio or video packets. For
example, let us assume that video packets are sent every 3 ms. If some
of the packets arrive with 3-ms delay and others with 4-ms delay, an
uneven quality in the video is the result. fundamental characteristics of
Communication System

Data Communication
• Data Communications are the exchange of data
between two devices via some form of transmission.

Components of Data Communication
1. Message: data.
2. Sender: The device that send the message.
3. Receiver: The device that receive the message.
4. Transmission Medium: The physical path between
sender and receiver, the message travel.
5. Protocol: Protocol is a set of rules that governs data
communication. It represents an agreement between
the communicating devices. Without a protocol, two
devices may be connected but not communicating.

Data Representation
Information comes in many forms:
– Text may be in ASCII, Extended ASCII,
Unicode or ISO
– Numbers:Integers/fractions/exponentials
– Images: GIF or JPEG or other
– Audio: raw audio or compressed MP3
– Video: AVI, MPEG, Flash or other

Introduction to data communications

Networks
• A network is a set of devices (often referred to as
nodes) connected by communication links. (host,
connecting device)
• A node can be a computer, printer, or any other
device capable of sending and/or receiving data
generated by other nodes on the network.
• A link can be a cable, air, optical fiber, or any
medium which can transport a signal carrying
information.
• Networks use distributed processing, in which a
task is divided among multiple computers.

Advantages
• Security/Encapsulation
• Distributed Databases
• Faster Problem Solving
• Collaborative Processing

Networks
• A Network is a set of node connect
together by communication link to
sharing of resources and to transmit
information.
• Node: Computer, Printer, Scanner,
Software , PDA, etc.
• Information: text, voice, picture, etc.

Network Criteria
• Performance
– Performance can be measured in many ways, including transit time and
response time.
• Transit time is the amount of time required for a message to travel from
one device to another.
• Response time is the elapsed time between an inquiry and a response.
• The performance of a network depends on a number of factors, including
the number of users, the type of transmission medium, the capabilities of
the connected hardware, and the efficiency of the software.
• Reliability
– Network reliability is measured by the frequency of failure, the time it takes
a link to recover from a failure, and the network's robustness in a
catastrophe (disaster).
• Security
– Network security issues include protecting data from unauthorized access,
protecting data from damage and development.
– Implementing policies and procedures for recovery from breaches and data
losses.

Physical Structures
• Type of Connection
– Point to Point - single transmitter and
receiver
– Multipoint - multiple recipients of single
transmission
• Physical Topology
– Connection of devices
– Type of transmission - unicast, multicast,
broadcast

Categories of Topology (Physical
Topology)

A fully connected mesh topology (five
devices)
N(N-1)
N(N-1)/2
N=4 n-1=no.of I/O lines

Mesh Topology
Advantage of Mesh Topology
• No traffic problem as there are dedicated links.
• It has multiple links, so if one route is blocked then
other routes can be used for data communication.
• Points to point links make fault identification easy.
Disadvantage of Mesh Topology
• There is mesh of wiring which can be difficult to
manage.
• Installation is complex as each node is connected to
every node.
• Cabling cost is high.
• Hardware required to connect each link can be
prohibitively expensive.

A star topology connecting four
stations

Star Topology
• In a star network, each node (file server, workstations,
and peripherals) is connected to a central device called
a hub.
• The hub takes a signal that comes from any node and
passes it along to all the other nodes in the network.
• Data on a star network passes through the hub,
switch, or concentrator before continuing to its
destination.
• The hub, switch, or concentrator manages and
controls all functions of the network.
• The star topology reduces the chance of network
failure by connecting all of the systems to a central
node.

Star Topology
Advantages of Star Topology
• Easy to manage
• Easy to locate problems (cable/workstations)
• Easier to expand than a bus or ring topology.
• Easy to install and wire.
• Easy to detect faults and to remove parts.
Disadvantages of Star Topology
• Requires more cable length than a linear topology.
• If the hub or concentrator fails, nodes attached are
disabled.
• More expensive because of the cost of the
concentrators.

A bus topology connecting three stations

Bus Topology
• All the nodes (file server, workstations, and
peripherals) on a bus topology are connected
by one single cable.
• A bus topology consists of a main run of cable
with a terminator at each end. All nodes (file
server, workstations, and peripherals) are
connected to the linear cable.
• Popular on LANs because they are
inexpensive and easy to install.

Bus Topology
Advantages of Bus Topology
• It is Cheap, easy to handle and implement.
• Require less cable
• It is best suited for small networks.
Disadvantages of Bus Topology
• The cable length is limited. This limits the
number of stations that can be connected.
• This network topology can perform well
only for a limited number of nodes.

A ring topology connecting six
stations

Ring Topology
• In a ring network, every device has exactly two
neighbours for communication purposes.
• All messages travel through a ring in the same
direction.
• A failure in any cable or device breaks the loop and
can take down the entire network.
• To implement a ring network we use the Token Ring
technology.
• A token, or small data packet, is continuously passed
around the network.
• When a device needs to transmit, it reserves the token
for the next trip around, then attaches its data packet
to it.

Ring Topology
Advantage of Ring Topology
• Very orderly network where every device has access
to the token and the opportunity to transmit.
• Easier to Mange than a Bus Network.
• Good Communication over long distances.
• Handles high volume of traffic
Disadvantages of Ring Topology
• The failure of a single node of the network can
cause the entire network to fail.
• The movement or changes made to network nodes
affects the performance of the entire network.

Other Topologies
• Tree Topology
• Hybrid Topology

Tree Topology
• A tree topology (hierarchical topology) can be viewed
as a collection of star networks arranged in a
hierarchy.
• This tree has individual peripheral nodes which are
required to transmit to and receive from one other
only and are not required to act as repeaters or
regenerators.
• The tree topology arranges links and nodes into
distinct hierarchies in order to allow greater control
and easier troubleshooting.
• This is particularly helpful for colleges, universities
and schools so that each of the connect to the big
network in some way.

A hybrid topology: a star backbone
with three bus networks

VideosNetwork Topologies (Star,
Bus, Ring, Mesh, Ad hoc,
Infrastructure, & Wireless Mesh
Topology).mp4

An isolated LAN connecting 12 computers
to a hub in a closet

WANs: a switched WAN and a point-
to-point WAN

Switching
• An internet is a switched network in which a
switch connects atleat two links togeather.
• Circuit-Switched Network
– A dedicated connection, called a circuit, is always
available between the two end systems. Eg.
Telephone system
• Packet-Switched Network
– The communication between the two ends is done
in blocks of data called packets.

A heterogeneous network made of
four WANs and two LANs

Internet
• The Internet has revolutionized many
aspects of our daily lives.
• It has affected the way we do business
as well as the way we spend our leisure
time.
• The Internet is a communication system
that has brought a wealth of information
to our fingertips and organized it for our
use.

Hierarchical organization of the Internet

VideosNetwork Types- LAN, WAN,
PAN, CAN, MAN, SAN, WLAN.mp4

Internet History
• There were some communication networks, such as
telegraph and telephone networks, before 1960.
• These networks were suitable for constant-rate
communication at that time, which means that after a
connection was made between two users, the encoded
message (telegraphy) or voice (telephony) could be
exchanged.
• Birth of Packet-Switched Networks:
– For Bursty Traffic, Leonard Kleinrock in 1961 at MIT.
– Two other researchers, Paul Baran at Rand Institute and
Donald Davis at National Physical Laboratory in England
published papers on it.

ARPANET
• In the mid-1960s, mainframe computers in research
organizations were stand-alone devices.
• Computers from different manufacturers were unable to
communicate with one another.
• The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in the
Department of Defense (DOD) was interested in finding a way to
connect computers.
• In 1967, at an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
meeting, ARPA presented its ideas for the Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), a small network of
connected computers.
• The idea was that each host computer (not necessarily from the
same manufacturer) would be attached to a specialized computer,
called an interface message processor (IMP).
• The IMPs, in turn, would be connected to each other.
• Each IMP had to be able to communicate with other IMPs as well
as with its own attached host.

Birth of the Internet
• In 1972, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, both of whom were
part of the core ARPANET group, collaborated on
what they called the Internetting Project.
• There were many problems to overcome: diverse
packet sizes, diverse inter-faces, and diverse
transmission rates, as well as differing reliability
requirements.
• Cerf and Kahn devised the idea of a device called a
gateway to serve as the intermediary hardware to
transfer data from one network to another.

• TCP/IP: Cerf and Kahn's landmark 1973; transmission control protocol
(TCP) included concepts such as encapsulation, the datagram, and the
functions of a gateway.
– Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). IP
would handle datagram routing while TCP would be responsible for
higher level functions such as segmentation, reassembly, and error
detection.
• MILNET: In 1983, ARPANET split into two networks: Military Network
(MILNET) for military users and ARPANET for nonmilitary users.
• CSNET: Another milestone in Internet history was the creation of
CSNET in 1981. Computer Science Network (CSNET) was a network
sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
• NSFNET: With the success of CSNET, the NSF in 1986 sponsored the
National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET), a backbone that
connected five supercomputer centers located throughout the United
States.
• ANSNET: In 1991, the U.S. government decided that NSFNET was not
capable of supporting the rapidly increasing Internet traffic. Three
companies, IBM, Merit, and Verizon, filled the void by forming a
nonprofit organization called Advanced Network &Services (ANS) to
build a new, high-speed Internet backbone called Advanced Network
Services Network (ANSNET).

Internet Today
• World Wide Web
 The 1990s saw the explosion of Internet applications due to the
emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW).
 The Web was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee.
 This invention has added the commercial applications to the
Internet.
• Multimedia
 Recent developments in the multimedia applications such as
voice over IP (telephony), video over IP (Skype), view sharing
(YouTube), and television over IP (PPLive).
 It has increased the number of users and the amount of time
each user spends on the network.
• Peer-to-Peer Applications
 Peer-to-peer networking is also a new area of communication
with a lot of potential.

Internet Standards
• An Internet standard is a thoroughly tested specification
that is useful to and adhered to by those who work with the
Internet.
• It is a formalized regulation that must be followed.
• There is a strict procedure by which a specification attains
Internet standard status.
• A specification begins as an Internet draft.
• An Internet draft is a working document (a work in
progress) with no official status and a six-month lifetime.
• Upon recommendation from the Internet authorities, a
draft may be published as a Request for Comment (RFC).
• Each RFC is edited, assigned a number, and made
available to all interested parties.
• RFCs go through maturity levels and are categorized
according to their requirement level.

Maturity Levels
• An RFC, during its lifetime, falls into one of six
maturity levels: proposed standard, draft
standard, Internet standard, historic, experimental,
and informational .

Proposed Standard.
• A proposed standard is a specification that is
stable, well understood, and of sufficient interest to
the Internet community.
• At this level, the specification is usually tested and
implemented by several different groups.
Draft Standard.
• A proposed standard is elevated to draft standard
status after at least two successful independent
and interoperable implementations.
• Barring difficulties, a draft standard, with
modifications if specific problems are encountered,
normally becomes an Internet standard.

Internet Standard.
• A draft standard reaches Internet
standard status after demonstrations of
successful implementation.
Historic.
• The historic RFCs are significant from a
historical perspective.
• They either have been superseded by later
specifications or have never passed the
necessary maturity levels to become an
Internet standard.

Experimental.
• An RFC classified as experimental
describes work related to an experimental
situation that does not affect the
operation of the Internet.
• Such an RFC should not be implemented
in any functional Internet service.
Informational.
• An RFC classified as informational
contains general, historical, or tutorial
information related to the Internet.
• It is usually written by someone in a non-
Internet organization, such as a vendor.

Requirement Levels
RFCs are classified into five
requirement levels: required,
recommended, elective, limited use, and
not recommended.

Required.
• An RFC is labeled required if it must be
implemented by all Internet systems to achieve
minimum conformance.
• For example, IP and ICMP are required protocols.
Recommended.
• An RFC labeled recommended is not required for
minimum conformance; it is recommended because
of its usefulness.
• For example, FTP and TELNET are recommended
protocols.
Elective.
• An RFC labeled elective is not required and not
recommended.
• However, a system can use it for its own benefit.

Limited Use.
• An RFC labeled limited use should be used
only in limited situations.
• Most of the experimental RFCs fall under
this category.
Not Recommended.
• An RFC labeled not recommended is
inappropriate for general use.
• Normally a historic (deprecated) RFC may
fall under this category.

Internet Administration
• The Internet, with its roots primarily in
the research domain, has evolved and
gained a broader user base with
significant commercial activity.
• Various groups that coordinate Internet
issues have guided this growth and
development.

ISOC
The Internet Society (ISOC) is an
international, nonprofit organization formed in
1992 to provide support for the Internet
standards process.
ISOC accomplishes this through
maintaining and supporting other Internet
administrative bodies such as IAB, IETF, IRTF,
and IANA.
ISOC also promotes research and other
scholarly activities relating to the Internet.

IAB
The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is the
technical advisor to the ISOC.
The main purposes of the IAB are to oversee the
continuing development of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite
and to serve in a technical advisory capacity to research
members of the Internet community.
IAB accomplishes this through its two primary
components, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).
Another responsibility of the IAB is the editorial
management of the RFCs, described earlier.
IAB is also the external liaison between the
Internet and other standards organizations and forums.

IETF
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a
forum of working groups managed by the Internet
Engineering Steering Group (IESG).
IETF is responsible for identifying operational
problems and proposing solutions to these problems.
IETF also develops and reviews specifications
intended as Internet standards.
The working groups are collected into areas, and
each area concentrates on a specific topic.
Currently nine areas have been defined.
The areas include applications, protocols, routing,
network management next generation (IPng), and
security.

IRTF
The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)
is a forum of working groups managed by
the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG).
IRTF focuses on long-term research topics
related to Internet protocols, applications,
architecture, and technology.

Protocol Layering
• A protocol defines the rules that both the
sender and receiver and all intermediate
devices need to follow to be able to
communicate effectively.
• When the communication is complex, we may
need to divide the task between different
layers, in which case we need a protocol at
each layer, or protocol layering.

Scenarios
First Scenario:
• In the first scenario, communication is so simple that it can
occur in only one layer.
• Assume Maria and Ann are neighbors with a lot of common
ideas.
• Communication between Maria and Ann takes place in one
layer, face to face, in the same language.

First Scenario:
• First, Maria and Ann know that they should greet
each other when they meet.
• Second, they know that they should confine their
vocabulary to the level of their friendship.
• Third, each party knows that she should refrain from
speaking when the other party is speaking.
• Fourth, each party knows that the conversation
should be a dialog, not a monolog: both should have
the opportunity to talk about the issue.
• Fifth, they should exchange some nice words when
they leave.

Second Scenario
• In the second scenario, we assume that Ann is offered a
higher-level position in her company, but needs to move to
another branch located in a city very far from Maria.
• The two friends still want to continue their communication
and exchange ideas because they have come up with an
innovative project to start a new business when they both
retire.
• They decide to continue their conversation using regular
mail through the post office.
• However, they do not want their ideas to be revealed by
other people if the letters are intercepted. They agree on an
encryption/decryption technique.
• The sender of the letter encrypts it to make it unreadable
by an intruder; the receiver of the letter decrypts it to get
the original letter.

Tasks involved in sending a letter

Protocol layering
• Protocol layering enables us to divide a complex task
into several smaller and simpler tasks.
• They need to change only the second layer machine;
the other two can remain the same. This is referred to
as modularity.
• Modularity in this case means independent layers.
• A layer (module) can be defined as a black box with
inputs and outputs, without concern about how inputs
are changed to outputs.
• If two machines provide the same outputs when given
the same inputs, they can replace each other.

Advantages:
• It allows us to separate the services from
the implementation.
• Communication does not always use only
two end systems; there are intermediate
systems that need only some layers, but not
all layers.

Principles of Protocol Layering
First Principle
The first principle dictates that if we want bidirectional
communication, we need to make each layer so that it is able to
perform two opposite tasks, one in each direction.
For example, the third layer task is to listen (in one
direction) and talk (in the other direction). The second layer needs
to be able to encrypt and decrypt. The first layer
needs to send and receive mail.
Second Principle
The second principle that we need to follow in protocol
layering is that the two objects under each layer at both sites
should be identical.
For example, the object under layer 3 at both sites should
be a plaintext letter. The object under layer 2 at both sites should
be a ciphertext letter. The object under layer 1 at both sites should
be a piece of mail.

Logical Connections
• We can think about logical connection
between each layer layer-to-layer
communication.
• Maria and Ann can think that there is a
logical (imaginary) connection at each
layer through which they can send the
object created from that layer.

Logical connection between peer
layers

PROTOCOLS
• A protocol is identical with rule. It
consists of a set of rules that govern data
communications.
• It determines what is communicated,
how it is communicated and when it is
communicated.
• The key elements of a protocol are
syntax, semantics and timing

Elements of a Protocol
• Syntax
– Structure or format of the data
– Indicates how to read the bits - field
delineation
• Semantics
– Interprets the meaning of the bits
– Knows which fields define what action
• Timing
– When data should be sent
– What speed at which data should be sent or
speed at which it is being received.

THE OSI MODEL
Established in 1947, the International Standards
Organization (ISO) is a multinational body
dedicated to worldwide agreement on international
standards. An ISO standard that covers all aspects
of network communications is the Open Systems
Interconnection (OSI) model. It was first
introduced in the late 1970s.
Layered Architecture
Peer-to-Peer Processes
Encapsulation
Topics discussed in this section:

ISO is the organization.
OSI is the model.
Note

Figure 2.2 Seven layers of the OSI model

Figure 2.3 The interaction between layers in the OSI model

Figure 2.4 An exchange using the OSI model

2-3 LAYERS IN THE OSI MODEL
In this section we briefly describe the functions of
each layer in the OSI model.
Physical Layer
Data Link Layer
Network Layer
Transport Layer
Session Layer
Presentation Layer
Application Layer
Topics discussed in this section:

The physical layer is responsible for movements of
individual bits from one hop (node) to the next.
Note

The data link layer is responsible for moving
frames from one hop (node) to the next.
Note

Figure 2.7 Hop-to-hop delivery

The network layer is responsible for the
delivery of individual packets from
the source host to the destination host.
Note

Figure 2.9 Source-to-destination delivery

The transport layer is responsible for the delivery
of a message from one process to another.
Note

Figure 2.11 Reliable process-to-process delivery of a message

The session layer is responsible for dialog
control and synchronization.
Note

Figure 2.13 Presentation layer

The presentation layer is responsible for translation,
compression, and encryption.
Note

The application layer is responsible for
providing services to the user.
Note

MAC Address is
12 digit
Alphanumeric

CSMA –
Carrier Sense
Multiple
Access

TCP/IP PROTOCOL SUITE
The layers in the TCP/IP protocol suite do not exactly
match those in the OSI model. The original TCP/IP
protocol suite was defined as having four layers: host-
to-network, internet, transport, and application.
However, when TCP/IP is compared to OSI, we can
say that the TCP/IP protocol suite is made of five
layers: physical, data link, network, transport, and
application.

Figure 2.16 TCP/IP and OSI model

Encapsulation and Decapsulation

ADDRESSING
Four levels of addresses are used in an internet
employing the TCP/IP protocols: physical, logical,
port, and specific.

Figure 2.17 Addresses in TCP/IP

Figure 2.18 Relationship of layers and addresses in TCP/IP

Multiplexing and Demultiplexing

Lack of OSI Model’s Success
• First, OSI was completed when TCP/IP was
fully in place and a lot of time and money had been spent
on the suite; changing it would cost a lot.
• Second, some layers in the OSI model were never fully
defined. For example, although the services provided by
the presentation and the session layers were listed in the
document, actual protocols for these two layers were not
fully defined, nor were they fully described, and the
corresponding software was not fully developed.
• Third, when OSI was implemented by an organization in a
different application, it did not show a high enough level of
performance to entice the Internet authority to switch from
the TCP/IP protocol suite to the OSI model.

Introduction
• Transmission media are actually located below the
physical layer and are directly controlled by the
physical layer.
• A transmission medium can be broadly defined as
anything that can carry information from a source to a
destination.

Guided Media
• Guided media, which are those that provide a
conduit from one device to another,
include twisted-pair cable, coaxial cable, and
fiber-optic cable.
• A signal traveling along any of these media is
directed and contained by the physical limits
of the medium.
• Twisted-pair and coaxial cable use metallic
(copper) conductors that accept and transport
signals in the form of electric current.
• Optical fiber is a cable that accepts and
transports signals in the form of light.

Twisted-Pair Cable
• A twisted pair consists of two conductors (normally
copper), each with its own plastic insulation, twisted
together.
• One of the wires is used to carry signals to the
receiver, and the other is used only as a ground
reference.
• The number of twists per unit of length (e.g., inch) has
some effect on the quality of the cable.

Categories of unshielded twisted-pair cables

UTP connector
• The most common UTP connector is RJ45 (RJ stands for
registered jack).
• The RJ45 is a keyed connector, meaning the connector can
be inserted in only one way.

Applications
• Twisted-pair cables are used in telephone lines to
provide voice and data channels. The local loop - the
line that connects subscribers to the central telephone
office - commonly consists of unshielded twisted-pair
cables.
• The DSL lines that are used by the telephone
companies to provide high-data-rate connections also
use the high-bandwidth capability of unshielded
twisted-pair cables.
• Local-area networks, such as 10Base-T and 100Base-
T, also use twisted-pair cables.

Coaxial Cable
• Coaxial cable (or coax) carries signals of higher frequency
ranges than those in twisted pair cable, in part because the
two media are constructed quite differently.
• Instead of having two wires, coax has a central core
conductor of solid or stranded wire (usually
copper) enclosed in an insulating sheath, which is, in turn,
encased in an outer conductor
of metal foil, braid, or a combination of the two.
• The outer metallic wrapping serves both as a shield against
noise and as the second conductor, which completes the
circuit.
• This outer conductor is also enclosed in an insulating
sheath, and the whole cable is protected by a plastic cover.

Coaxial Cable Standards
• Coaxial cables are categorized by their Radio
Government (RG) ratings.
• Each RG number denotes a unique set of physical
specifications, including the wire gauge of the inner
conductor, the thickness and type of the inner
insulator, the construction of the shield, and the size
and type of the outer casing.

Coaxial Cable Connectors
• The most common type of connector used today is the
Bayonet Neill-Concelman (BNC) connector.
• Three popular types of these connectors: the BNC
connector, the BNC T connector, and the BNC
terminator.
• The BNC connector is used to connect the end of the
cable to a device, such as a TV set.
• The BNC T connector is used in Ethernet networks to
branch out to a connection to a computer or other
device.
• The BNC terminator is used at the
end of the cable to prevent the reflection of the signal.

Applications
1. Analog telephone network where a single cable
could carry 10,000 voice signals. Later it was used
in Digital telephone networks where cable can carry
600Mbps
2. Cable TV network: hybrid network use coaxial cable
only at the network boundaries , near the consumer.
Cable TV use RG-59
3. Traditional Ethernet LANs.
1. 10-base-2 or “Thin Ethernet”, uses RG-58 coax
cable to transmit data at 10 Mbps with a range
of 185m.
2. 10-base-5 or “Thick Ethernet”, uses RG-11 to
transmit 10 Mbps with rang of 500 m

Fiber-Optic Cable
• A fiber-optic cable is made of glass or plastic and
transmits signals in the form of light.

Bending of light ray
• Optical fibers use reflection to guide light through a
channel.
• A glass or plastic core is surrounded by a cladding of less
dense glass or plastic.
• The difference in density of the two materials must be such
that a beam of light moving through the core is reflected off
the cladding instead of being refracted into it.

Multimode
• Multimode is so named because multiple beams from a
light source move through the core in different paths.
• In multimode step-index fiber, the density of the core
remains constant from the center to the edges.
• A beam of light moves through this constant density in a
straight line until it reaches the interface of the core and
the cladding.
• At the interface, there is an abrupt change due to a lower
density; this alters the angle of the beam’s motion.
• The term step-index refers to the suddenness of this
change, which contributes to the distortion of the signal as
it passes through the fiber.
• A second type of fiber, called multimode graded-index fiber,
decreases this distortion of the signal through the cable.

Single-Mode
• Single-mode uses step-index fiber and a highly focused
source of light that limits beams to a small range of angles,
all close to the horizontal.
• The single-mode fiber itself is manufactured with a much
smaller diameter than that of multimode fiber, and with
substantially lower density (index of refraction).
• The decrease in density results in a critical angle that is
close enough to 90° to make the propagation of beams
almost horizontal.
• In this case, propagation of different beams is almost
identical, and delays are negligible.
• All the beams arrive at the destination “together” and can
be recombined with little distortion to the signal

Fiber Sizes
• Optical fibers are defined by the ratio of the diameter
of their core to the diameter of their cladding, both
expressed in micrometers.

Cable Composition
• The outer jacket is made of either PVC or
Teflon.
• Inside the jacket are Kevlar strands to
strengthen the cable.
• Kevlar is a strong material used in the
fabrication of bulletproof vests.
• Below the Kevlar is another plastic coating to
cushion the fiber.
• The fiber is at the center of the cable, and it
consists of cladding and core.

Fiber-Optic Cable Connectors
• The subscriber channel (SC) connector is used
for cable TV. It uses a push/pull locking
system.
• The straight-tip (ST) connector is used for
connecting cable to networking devices. It uses
a bayonet locking system and is more reliable
than SC.
• MT-RJ is a connector that is the same size as
RJ45.

Applications
• Fiber-optic cable is often found in backbone networks
because its wide bandwidth is cost-effective.
• Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) - transfer
data at a rate of 1600 Gbps.
• Some cable TV companies use a combination of optical
fiber and coaxial cable, thus creating a hybrid
network.
• Optical fiber provides the backbone structure while
coaxial cable provides the connection to the user
premises. This is a cost-effective configuration since
the narrow bandwidth requirement at the user end
does not justify the use of optical fiber.
• Local-area networks such as 100Base-FX network
(Fast Ethernet) and 1000Base-X also use fiber-optic
cable.

Advantages
• Higher bandwidth
• Less signal attenuation
• Immunity to electromagnetic interference.
• Resistance to corrosive materials
• Light weight
• Greater immunity to tapping
Disadvantages
• Installation and maintenance
• Unidirectional light propagation
• Cost

UNGUIDED MEDIA: WIRELESS
• Unguided medium transport electromagnetic waves
without using a physical conductor. This type of
communication is often referred to as wireless
communication.
• Signals are normally broadcast through free space and
thus are available to anyone who
has a device capable of receiving them.
• Unguided signals can travel from the source to the
destination in several ways: ground
propagation, sky propagation, and line-of-sight
propagation.

Electromagnetic spectrum for wireless
communication

• In ground propagation, radio waves travel through the
lowest portion of the atmosphere, hugging the earth. These
low-frequency signals emanate in all directions from the
transmitting antenna and follow the curvature of the
planet. Distance depends on the amount of power in the
signal: The greater the power, the greater the distance.
• In sky propagation, higher-frequency radio waves radiate
upward into the ionosphere (the layer of atmosphere where
particles exist as ions) where they are reflected back to
earth. This type of transmission allows for greater
distances with lower output power.
• In line-of-sight propagation, very high-frequency signals
are transmitted in straight lines directly from
antenna to antenna. Antennas must be directional, facing
each other, and either tall enough or close enough together
not to be affected by the curvature of the earth. Line-of-
sight propagation is tricky because radio transmissions
cannot be completely focused.

Radio Waves
• Electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies
between 3 kHz and 1 GHz are normally called
radio waves.
• Radio waves, for the most part, are omnidirectional.
• When an antenna transmits radio waves, they are
propagated in all directions.
• This means that the sending and
receiving antennas do not have to be aligned.

Radio waves are used for multicast
communications, such as radio and
television, and paging systems.
Note

Applications
 The omnidirectional characteristics of
radio waves make them useful for
multicasting, in which there is one
sender but many receivers.
 AM and FM radio, television, maritime
radio, cordless phones, and paging are
examples of multicasting.

Microwaves
• Electromagnetic waves having frequencies between 1
and 300 GHz are called microwaves.
• Microwaves are unidirectional.
• When an antenna transmits microwaves, they
can be narrowly focused.
• This means that the sending and receiving antennas
need to be aligned.
• The unidirectional property has an obvious advantage.
• A pair of antennas can be aligned without interfering
with another pair of aligned antennas.

Characteristics of Microwave
Propagation
• Microwave propagation is line-of-sight.
• Very high-frequency microwaves cannot penetrate
walls. This characteristic can be a disadvantage if
receivers are inside buildings.
• The microwave band is relatively wide, almost 299
GHz. Therefore wider subbands can be assigned, and
a high data rate is possible.
• Use of certain portions of the band requires
permission from authorities.

Unidirectional Antenna
• Microwaves need unidirectional antennas that send
out signals in one direction.
• Two types of antennas are used for microwave
communications: the parabolic dish and the horn.

Parabolic Dish Antenna
• It is based on the geometry of a parabola:
Every line parallel to the line of symmetry
(line of sight) reflects off the curve at angles
such that all the lines intersect in a common
point called the focus.
• The parabolic dish works as a funnel, catching
a wide range of waves and directing them to a
common point.
• In this way, more of the signal is recovered
than would be possible with a single-point
receiver.

Horn Antenna
• It looks like a gigantic scoop.
• Outgoing transmissions are broadcast
up a stem (resembling a handle) and deflected
outward in a series of narrow parallel
beams by the curved head.
• Received transmissions are collected by the
scooped shape of the horn, in a manner similar
to the parabolic dish, and are deflected down
into the stem.

Applications
• Microwaves, due to their unidirectional
properties, are very useful when unicast (one-
to-one) communication is needed between the
sender and the receiver.
• They are used in cellular phone, satellite
networks, and wireless LANs.

Infrared
• Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300
GHz to 400 THz (wavelengths from 1 mm
to 770 nm), can be used for short-range
communication.
• Infrared waves, having high frequencies,
cannot penetrate walls.
• This advantageous characteristic prevents
interference between one system and another;
a short-range communication system in one
room cannot be affected by another system in
the next room.

Applications
• The infrared band, almost 400 THz, has an excellent
potential for data transmission.
• Used to transmit digital data with a very high data rate.
• Some manufacturers provide a special port called the IrDA
port (Infrared Data Association) that allows a wireless
keyboard to communicate with a PC.
• The standard originally defined a data rate of 75 kbps for a
distance up to 8 m.
• The recent standard defines a data rate of 4 Mbps.
Infrared signals can be used for short-range communication in a
closed area using line-of-sight propagation.

Introduction
• A switched network consists of a series of interlinked
nodes, called switches.
• Switches are devices capable of creating temporary
connections between two or more devices linked to the
switch.
• In a switched network, some of these nodes are
connected to the end systems (computers or
telephones, for example).
• Others are used only for routing.

Three Methods of Switching
Taxonomy of switched networks

Switching and TCP/IP Layers
Physical Layer
Message SwitchingApplication Layer
Packet SwitchingNetwork Layer
Packet SwitchingData-Link Layer
Circuit Switching

Circuit-switched Networks
• A circuit-switched network consists of a set of
switches connected by physical links.
• A connection between two stations is a
dedicated path made of one or more links.
• Each connection uses only one dedicated
channel on each link.
• Each link is normally divided into n channels
by using FDM or TDM.

A Trivial Circuit-Switched Network

Three Phases
• Setup Phase (Connection Establishment)
– Before the two parties (or multiple parties in a
conference call) can communicate, a dedicated
circuit (combination of channels in links) needs to
be established.
• Data-Transfer Phase
– After the establishment of the dedicated circuit
(channels), the two parties can transfer data.
• Teardown Phase (Connection Disconnection)
– When one of the parties needs to disconnect, a
signal is sent to each switch to release the
resources.

• Efficiency: Circuit-switched networks are not as
efficient as the other two types of networks because
resources are allocated during the entire duration of
the connection.
• Delay: Circuit-switched network normally has low
efficiency, the delay in this type of network is minimal.
During data transfer the data are not delayed at each
switch; the resources are allocated for the duration of
the connection.

Delay in a Circuit-switched Network

PACKET SWITCHING
• It needs to be divided into packets of fixed or variable size.
• The size of the packet is determined by the network and
the governing protocol.
• No resource allocation for a packet.
• This means that there is no reserved bandwidth on the
links, and there is no scheduled processing time
for each packet.
• Resources are allocated on demand.
• The allocation is done on a first come, first-served basis.
• When a switch receives a packet, no matter what the
source or destination is, the packet must wait if there are
other packets being processed.

Packet Switching
• The internet is a packet switched network.
• Message is broken into individual chunks
called as packets.
• Each packet is sent individually.
• Each packet will have source and destination
IP address with sequence number.
• Sequence numbers will help the receiver to
– Reorder the packets.
– Detect missing packets and
– Send acknowledgments.

Datagram Networks
• In a datagram network, each packet is treated
independently of all others.
• Even if a packet is part of a multipacket transmission,
the network treats it as though it existed
alone.
• Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams.
• Datagram switching is normally done at the network
layer.

Datagram Networks
• Datagram Packet Switching is also known as
Connectionless Switching.
• Each independent entity is called as datagram.
• Datagrams contain destination information and the
intermediary devices uses this information to forward
datagrams to right destination.
• In Datagram Packet Switching approach, the path is
not fixed.
• Intermediate nodes take the routing decisions to
forward the packets.
• There are no setup or teardown phases.

A datagram network with four
switches (routers)

Routing Table
• In this type of network, each
switch (or packet switch) has a
routing table which is based on the
destination address.
• The routing tables are dynamic
and are updated periodically.
• The destination addresses and the
corresponding forwarding output
ports are recorded in the tables.
The destination address in the header of a packet in a
datagram network remains the same during the entire
journey of the packet.

• Efficiency:
– The efficiency of a datagram network is better than that
of a circuit-switched network; resources are allocated
only when there are packets to be transferred.
• Delay:
 There may be greater delay in a datagram network than
in a virtual-circuit network.
 Although there are no setup and teardown phases, each
packet may experience a wait at a switch before it is
forwarded.
 In addition, since not all packets in a message
necessarily travel through the same switches, the delay
is not uniform for the packets of a message.

• The packet travels through two switches.
• There are three transmission times (3T),
three propagation delays (slopes 3τ of the
lines), and two waiting times (w1 + w2).

Virtual-Circuit Networks
• A virtual-circuit network is a cross between a circuit-
switched network and a datagram network.
• It is also known as connection-oriented switching.
• In the case of Virtual circuit switching, a preplanned
route is established before the messages are sent.
• Call request and call accept packets are used to
establish the connection between sender and receiver.
• In this approach, the path is fixed for the duration of
logical connection.

Addressing
• Global Addressing:
A source or a destination needs to have a
global address—an address that can be unique
in the scope of the network or internationally if the
network is part of an international network.
• Virtual-Circuit Identifier:
The identifier that is actually used for data
transfer is called the virtual-circuit identifier
(VCI) or the label. A VCI, unlike a global address, is a
small number that has only switch scope; it is used by
a frame between two switches. When a frame arrives
at a switch, it has a VCI; when it leaves, it has a
different VCI.

Switch and Tables in a Virtual-Circuit
Network

Three Phases
• Setup – Setup Request and Acknowledgement
• Data Transfer
• Teardown

Source-to-Destination Data Transfer in a
Virtual-Circuit Network

Setup Request in a Virtual-Circuit
Network

Setup Acknowledgment in a Virtual-
Circuit Network

Delay in a Virtual-Circuit Network

• Delay:
The packet is traveling through two switches
(routers). There are three transmission times (3T ),
three propagation times (3τ), data transfer depicted by
the sloping lines, a setup delay (which includes
transmission and propagation in two directions), and
a teardown delay (which includes transmission and
propagation in one direction).
Total Delay = 3T + 3τ + setup delay + teardown delay

Structure of Circuit Switches
Circuit Switching
Space-Division
Switch
Time-Division
Switch

Space-Division Switch
• In space-division switching, the paths in the circuit
are separated from one another spatially.
• This technology was originally designed for use in
analog networks but is used currently in both analog
and digital networks.

Crossbar Switch
• A crossbar switch connects n inputs to m outputs in a grid,
using electronic microswitches (transistors) at each
crosspoint.
• The major limitation of this design is the number of
crosspoints required.
• To connect n inputs to m outputs using a crossbar switch
requires n × m crosspoints.

Multistage Switch
• The multistage switch, which combines crossbar
switches in several (normally three) stages.
• To design a three-stage switch,
1. Divide the N input lines into groups, each of n lines. For
each group, one crossbar of size n × k is used, where k is the
number of crossbars in the middle stage. In other words, the
first stage has N/n crossbars of n × k crosspoints.
2. For k crossbars, each of size (N/n) × (N/n) in the middle
stage.
3. For N/n crossbars, each of size k × n at the third stage.
• The total number of crosspoints,

In a three-stage switch, the total
number of crosspoints is
2kN + k(N/n)2
which is much smaller than the number of
crosspoints in a single-stage switch (N2).
Note

• The multistage switch has one drawback—blocking during
periods of heavy traffic.
• Blocking refers to times when one input cannot be connected to
an output because there is no path available between them—all
the possible intermediate switches are occupied.
• In a single-stage switch, blocking does not occur because every
combination of input and output has its own crosspoint; there is
always a path.
• Clos investigated the condition of nonblocking in multistage
switches.
• In a nonblocking switch, the number of middle-stage
switches must be at least 2n – 1. In other words, we need to have
k ≥ 2n – 1
• The minimum number of crosspoints according to the
Clos criteria is proportional to N^(3/2).

Time-Division Switch
• Time-division switching uses time-division
multiplexing (TDM) inside a switch.
• The most popular technology is called the time-slot
interchange (TSI).

Time- and Space-Division Switch
Combinations
Space-Division
Switching
Time-Division
Switching
Advantages It is instantaneous. It needs no crosspoints.
Disadvantages
The number of
crosspoints required to
make space division
switching acceptable in
terms of blocking.
In the case of TSI, is
that processing each
connection creates
delays. Each time slot
must be stored by the
RAM, then retrieved
and passed on.

Structure of Packet Switches
• A switch used in a packet-switched network has a
different structure from a switch used
in a circuit-switched network.
• A packet switch has four components:
input ports, output ports, the routing processor, and
the switching fabric.

Input Ports
• An input port performs the physical and data-link functions of the
packet switch.
• The bits are constructed from the received signal.
• The packet is decapsulated from the frame.
• Errors are detected and corrected. The packet is now ready to be routed
by the network layer.
• In addition to a physical-layer processor and a data-link processor, the
input port has buffers (queues) to hold the packet before it is directed to
the switching fabric.

Output Port
• The output port performs the same functions as the
input port, but in the reverse order.
• First the outgoing packets are queued, then the
packet is encapsulated in a frame, and
finally the physical-layer functions are applied to the
frame to create the signal to be sent on the line.

Routing Processor
• The routing processor performs the functions
of the network layer.
• The destination address is used to find the
address of the next hop and, at the same time,
the output port number from which the packet
is sent out.
• This activity is sometimes referred to as
table lookup.

Switching Fabrics
• Crossbar Switch
• Banyan Switch:
A banyan switch is a multistage switch with
microswitches at eachstage that route the packets
based on the output port represented as a binary
string.
For n inputs and n outputs, we have log2n stages
with n/2 microswitches at each stage.
The first stage routes the packet based on the
high-order bit of the binary string.
The second stage routes the packet based on the
second high-order bit, and so on.

Examples of Routing in a Banyan Switch

Batcher-Banyan Switch
• The problem with the banyan switch is the possibility
of internal collision even when two packets are not
heading for the same output port.
• Solve this problem by sorting the arriving packets
based on their destination port.
• K. E. Batcher designed a switch that comes before the
banyan switch and sorts the incoming packets
according to their final destinations. The combination
is called the Batcher-banyan switch.
• The trap module prevents duplicate packets (the
packets with the same output destination) from
passing to the banyan switch simultaneously.

Introduction to data communications

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Introduction to data communications