The Physical Layer

The Physical Layer
THE PHYSICAL LAYER
Muhammad Adil Raja
Roaming Researchers, Inc.
August 25, 2014

The Physical Layer
OUTLINE
INTRODUCTION
THE THEORETICAL BASIS FOR DATA COMMUNICATION
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA
WIRELESS TRANSMISSION
COMMUNICATION SATELLITES
DIGITAL MODULATION AND MULTIPLEXING
THE PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM
CABLE TELEVISION
CONCLUSIONS

The Physical Layer
Introduction
INTRODUCTION I
The lowest layer in a protocol model.
Deﬁnes the electrical, timing and other interfaces by which
bits are sent as signals over channels.
Physical layer is the foundation on which the network is
built.
The properties of different kinds of physical channels
determine the performance.
e.g., throughput, latency, and error rate.
It is a good place to start a journey into network land.
Beginning: With a theoretical analysis of data transmission.
Figure out the constraints of the transmission channels.
Three kinds of transmission media:

The Physical Layer
Introduction
INTRODUCTION II
Guided: Copper wire and ﬁber optics.
wireless: Terrestrial radio.
Satellite.
Each technology has different properties that affect the
design and performance of the networks that use them.
The goal of this lecture is to provide background
information on the key transmission technologies used in
modern networks.
Digital modulation: Analog ⇐⇒ Digital.
Multiplexing schemes: How multiple conversations can be
put on the same transmission medium at the same time
without interfering with one another.
Look at three examples of communication systems used in
practice for wide area computer networks.

The Physical Layer
Introduction
INTRODUCTION III
The ﬁxed telephone system.
The mobile phone system.
The cable television system.

The Physical Layer
The Theoretical Basis For Data Communication
THE THEORETICAL BASIS FOR DATA COMMUNICATION
I
Information can be transmitted on wires by varying some
physical property such as voltage or current.
By representing the value of this voltage or current as a
single-valued function of time, f(t), the behavior of the
signal can be modeled and analysed mathematically.
This analysis is the subject of the following sections.

The Physical Layer
FOURIER ANALYSIS I
Any reasonably behaved periodic function, g(t) with period
T, can be constructed as the sum of a (possibly inﬁnite)
number or sines and cosines:
g(t) =
1
2
c +
∞
n=1
an sin(2πnft) +
∞
n=1
bncos(2πnft) (1)
where f = 1/T is the fundamental frequency.
an and bn are the sine and cosine amplitudes of the nth
harmonics.
c is a constant.
Such a decomposition is called as Fourier series.
From the Fourier series, the function can be reconstructed.

The Physical Layer
FOURIER ANALYSIS II
That is, f the period, T, is known and the amplitudes are
given, the original function of time can be found by
performing the sums of Eq. 1.
The proof was developed by the 19th century French
mathematician Jean-Baptiste Fourier.
A data signal that has ﬁnite duration can be handled by just
imagining that it repeats the entire pattern over and over
forever.
This is to say that the interval T to 2T is the same as from 0
to T, etc.
All data signals are of ﬁnite duration.

The Physical Layer
FOURIER ANALYSIS III
The an amplitudes can be computed for any given g(t) by
multiplying both sides of Eq. 1 by sin(2πkft) and then
integrating from 0 to T.
Since:
T
0
sin(2πkft) sin(2πnft)dt =
0. for k = n
T/2, for k = n
(2)
Only one term of the summation survives: an.
The bn summation vanishes completely.
By multiplying Eq. 1 by cos(2πkft) and integrating between
0 and T, we can derive bn.
By integrating both sides of the equation as it stands, we
can ﬁnd c.

The Physical Layer
FOURIER ANALYSIS IV
The results of performing these operations are as follows:
an = 2
T
T
0 g(t) sin(2πnft)dt (3)
bn = 2
T
T
0 g(t) cos(2πnft)dt (4)
c = 2
T
T
2 g(t)dt (5)

The Physical Layer
FOURIER ANALYSIS V92 THE PHYSICAL LAYER CHAP. 2
0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0
1
0 Time T
1
0
1
0
1
0
1
0
Time
rmsamplitude
1 152 3 4 5 6 7 9 10111213 148
0.50
0.25
Harmonic number
1 harmonic
2 harmonics
4 harmonics
8 harmonics
1
1 2
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Harmonic number
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Figure 2-1. (a) A binary signal and its root-mean-square Fourier amplitudes.
(b)–(e) Successive approximations to the original signal.
FIGURE: (a) A binary signal and its root-mean-square Fourier
amplitudes, (b)–(e) Successive approximations to the signal.

The Physical Layer
BANDWIDTH-LIMITED SIGNALS I
How is all of this relevant to data communication.
Real channels affect different frequency signals differently.
Let us consider a speciﬁc example:
The transmission of the ASCII character “b” encoded in an
8-bit byte.
The pattern that is to be transmitted is 01100010.
The Fourier analysis of this signal yields the coefﬁcients:
an = 1
πn [cos(πn/4) − cos(3πn/4) + cos(6πn/4) − cos(7πn/4)](6)
bn = 1
πn [sin(3πn/4) − sin(πn/4) + sin(7πn/4) − sin(6πn/4)] (7)
c = 3/4 (8)

The Physical Layer
BANDWIDTH-LIMITED SIGNALS II
These values are of interest because their squares are
proportional to the energy transmitted at the corresponding
frequency.
No transmission facility can transmit signals without
loosing some power in the process.
If all the Fourier components were equally diminished, the
resulting signal would be reduced in amplitude but not
distorted.
Unfortunately, all transmission facilities diminish different
Fourier components by different amounts, thus introducing
distortion.

The Physical Layer
BANDWIDTH-LIMITED SIGNALS III
Usually, for a wire, the amplitudes are transmitted mostly
undiminished from 0 up to some frequency fc [measured in
cycles/sec or Hertz (Hz)].
All frequencies above this cutoff are attenuated.
The width of the frequency range transmitted without being
strongly attenuated is called the bandwidth.
In practice, the cutoff is not really sharp.
So often the quoted bandwidth is from 0 to the frequency
at which the received power has fallen by half.
The bandwidth is a physical property of the transmission
medium.
It depends on the construction, thickness, and length of a
wire or ﬁber.

The Physical Layer
BANDWIDTH-LIMITED SIGNALS IV
Filters are often used to further limit the bandwidth of a
signal.
IEEE 802.11 wireless channels are allowed to use up to
roughly 20 MHz.
So 802.11 radios filter the signal bandwidth to this size.
An another example, traditional (analog) television
channels occupy 6 MH each, on a wire or over the air.
This filtering lets more signals share a given region of
spectrum.
This improves the overall efficiency of the system.
It means that the frequency range for some signals will not
start at zero.
But this does not matter.

The Physical Layer
BANDWIDTH-LIMITED SIGNALS V
The bandwidth is still the width of the band of frequencies
that are passed.. And the information that can be carried
depends only on this width and not on the starting and
ending frequencies.
Baseband signals: Signals that run from 0 up to a
maximum frequency.
Passband signals: Signals that are shifted to occupy a
higher range of frequencies, as is the case for all wireless
transmissions.

The Physical Layer
THE MAXIMUM DATA RATE OF A CHANNEL I
Even a perfect channel has a finite transmission capacity
(Henry Hyquist, 1924).
Claude Shannon: The case of a channel subject to random
(that is, thermodynamic) noise.
Nyquist proved that if an arbitrary signal has been run
through a low-pass filter of bandwidth B, the filtered signal
can be completely reconstructed by making only 2B
(exact) samples per second.
Sampling the line faster than 2B times per second is
pointless because the higher-frequency components that
such sampling could recover have already been filtered
out.

The Physical Layer
THE MAXIMUM DATA RATE OF A CHANNEL II
If the signal consists of V discrete levels, Nyquist’s
theorem states.
maximum data rate = 2Blog2Vbits/sec (9)
So, a noiseless 3-kHz channel cannot transmit binary (i.e,
two-level) signals at a rate exceeding 6000 bps.
This result is for noiseless channels.
Situation deteriorates rapidly if random noise is present.
Moreover, there is always random (thermal) noise present
due to the motion of the molecules in the system.
The amount of thermal noise present is measured by the
ration of the signal power to the noise power.

The Physical Layer
THE MAXIMUM DATA RATE OF A CHANNEL III
This is called SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio).
Signal-to-noise ratio is S/N.
Where is S is the signal power and N is the noise power.
Usually, the ratio is expressed on a log scale as the
quantity 10 log10 S/N, because it can vary over a
tremendous range.
The units of this log scale are called decibels (dB).
An S/N ratio of 10 is 10dB, a ratio of 100 is 20dB, a ratio
of 1000i s 30 dB, and so on.
Shannon’s major result is about a noisy channel.
The result is that the maximum data rate or capacity of a
noisy channel whose bandwidth is B Hz and whose
signal-to-noise ratio is S/N, is given by:

The Physical Layer
THE MAXIMUM DATA RATE OF A CHANNEL IV
maximum number of bits/sec = Blog2(1 + S/N) (10)
This tells us the best capacities that real channels can
have.
Repeaters.

The Physical Layer
Guided Transmission Media
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA I
Magnetic Media, CDs, DVDs etc, (Upto 70 Gbps).
Twisted Pairs.
Category 5 cables.
Full duplex links.
Half-duplex links.
Simplex links.
Category 6, UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pairs).
Category 7, Shielding on the individual twisted pairs as well
as around the entire cable.
Shielding reduces the susceptibility to external interference
and crosstalk with other nearby cables to meet demanding
performance speciﬁcations.
Coaxial Cable.

The Physical Layer
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA II
It has better shielding and greater bandwidth than
unshielded twisted pairs, so it can span longer distances at
higher speeds.
Power Lines.
Fiber Optics.
SEC. 2.2 GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA 97
Twisted pair
Figure 2-3. Category 5 UTP cable with four twisted pairs.
To reach higher speeds, 1-Gbps Ethernet uses all four pairs in both directions si-
multaneously; this requires the receiver to factor out the signal that is transmitted
locally.
Some general terminology is now in order. Links that can be used in both di-
rections at the same time, like a two-lane road, are called full-duplex links. In
FIGURE: Category 5 UTP cable with four twisted pairs

The Physical Layer
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA III
factors (e.g., early dipole antennas had an impedance of 300 ohms, and it was
easy to use existing 4:1 impedance-matching transformers). Starting in the mid-
1990s, cable TV operators began to provide Internet access over cable, which has
made 75-ohm cable more important for data communication.
A coaxial cable consists of a stiff copper wire as the core, surrounded by an
insulating material. The insulator is encased by a cylindrical conductor, often as a
closely woven braided mesh. The outer conductor is covered in a protective plas-
tic sheath. A cutaway view of a coaxial cable is shown in Fig. 2-4.
Copper
core
Insulating
material
Braided
outer
conductor
Protective
plastic
covering
Figure 2-4. A coaxial cable.
The construction and shielding of the coaxial cable give it a good combination
of high bandwidth and excellent noise immunity. The bandwidth possible de-
pends on the cable quality and length. Modern cables have a bandwidth of up to a
few GHz. Coaxial cables used to be widely used within the telephone system for
long-distance lines but have now largely been replaced by fiber optics on long-
FIGURE: A coaxial cable

The Physical Layer
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA IV
for broadband Internet access. We will concentrate on the most common scenario:
using electrical wires inside the home.
The convenience of using power lines for networking should be clear. Simply
plug a TV and a receiver into the wall, which you must do anyway because they
need power, and they can send and receive movies over the electrical wiring. This
configuration is shown in Fig. 2-5. There is no other plug or radio. The data sig-
nal is superimposed on the low-frequency power signal (on the active or ‘‘hot’’
wire) as both signals use the wiring at the same time.
Power signal
Data signalElectric cable
Figure 2-5. A network that uses household electrical wiring.
The difficulty with using household electrical wiring for a network is that it
was designed to distribute power signals. This task is quite different than distri-
buting data signals, at which household wiring does a horrible job. Electrical sig-
nals are sent at 50–60 Hz and the wiring attenuates the much higher frequency
(MHz) signals needed for high-rate data communication. The electrical properties
FIGURE: A network that uses household electrical wiring.

The Physical Layer
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA V
Fiber Cables
Fiber optic cables are similar to coax, except without the braid. Figure 2-8(a)
shows a single fiber viewed from the side. At the center is the glass core through
which the light propagates. In multimode fibers, the core is typically 50 microns
in diameter, about the thickness of a human hair. In single-mode fibers, the core
is 8 to 10 microns.
Jacket
(plastic) Core Cladding
Sheath Jacket
Cladding
(glass)
Core
(glass)
(a) (b)
Figure 2-8. (a) Side view of a single fiber. (b) End view of a sheath with three fibers.
The core is surrounded by a glass cladding with a lower index of refraction
than the core, to keep all the light in the core. Next comes a thin plastic jacket to
protect the cladding. Fibers are typically grouped in bundles, protected by an
outer sheath. Figure 2-8(b) shows a sheath with three fibers.
Terrestrial fiber sheaths are normally laid in the ground within a meter of the
surface, where they are occasionally subject to attacks by backhoes or gophers.
FIGURE: (a) Side view of a single ﬁber. (b) End view of a sheath with
three ﬁbers.

The Physical Layer
Wireless transmission
WIRELESS TRANSMISSION I
The electromagnetic spectrum.
Frequency hopping spread spectrum: the transmitter
hops from frequency to frequency hundreds of times per
second.
Suitable for military communication because it makes
transmissions hard to detect and next to impossible to jam.
Direct sequence spread spectrum: Uses a code
sequence to spread the data signal over a wider frequency
band.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access): Signals can be
given different codes.

The Physical Layer
WIRELESS TRANSMISSION II
UWB (Ultra-Wideband) Communication: Sends a series
of rapid pulses, varying their positions to communicate
information.

The Physical Layer
WIRELESS TRANSMISSION IIISEC. 2.3 WIRELESS TRANSMISSION 107
100
102
104
106
108
1010
1012
1014
1016
1018
1020
1022
1024
Radio Microwave Infrared UV X-ray Gamma ray
f (Hz)
Visible
light
104 105 106 107 108 109 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016
f (Hz)
Twisted pair
Coax
Satellite
TV
Terrestrial
microwave
Fiber
optics
Maritime
AM
radio
FM
radio
Band LF MF HF VHF UHF SHF EHF THF
Figure 2-10. The electromagnetic spectrum and its uses for communication.

The Physical Layer
WIRELESS TRANSMISSION IV
FIGURE: The electromagnetic spectrum and its uses for
communication.

The Physical Layer
RADIO TRANSMISSION I
Easy to generate.
Can travel long distances.
Can penetrate buildings easily.
So they are widely used for communication, both indoors
and outdoors.
They are omnidirectional.
They travel in all directions from the source.
So the transmitter and receiver do not have to be aligned
physically.

The Physical Layer
MICROWAVE TRANSMISSION I
Microwaves travel in straight lines.
Microwaves do not pass through buildings well.
Divergence of beam can be a nuisance.
Multipath fading. Delayed waves arriving out of phase with
the direct wave and thus cancel the signal.
Absorption by water.
The politics of electromagnetic spectrum – regulatory
authorities.

The Physical Layer
INFRARED TRANSMISSION
Unguided infrared waves are widely used for short-range
communication.
The remote controls used for televisions, VCRs, and
stereos all use infrared communication.
They are relatively directioal, cheap and easy to build.
They do not pass through solid objects.

The Physical Layer
LIGHT TRANSMISSION
Fiber optics.

The Physical Layer
Communication Satellites
COMMUNICATION SATELLITES
Bounce signals back to receivers.
Signal ampliﬁcation.
Contains transponders.
Geostationary satellites.
Medium earth orbit satellites – Good for GPS (Global
Positioning System).
Low earth orbit satellites.
Satellites Versus Fiber.

The Physical Layer
Digital Modulation and Multiplexing
DIGITAL MODULATION AND MULTIPLEXING I
The process of converting between bits and signals that
represent them is called Digital Modulation.
Various modulation schemes result in various transmission
mechanisms.
Baseband transmission.
Passband transmission.
Sharing of a transmission channel by various signals is
called multiplexing.
It can be accomplished in different ways.
Time division multiplexing.
Frequency division multiplexing.
Code division multiplexing.

The Physical Layer
BASEBAND TRANSMISSION I
The most straightforward form of digital modulation is to
use a positive voltage to represent a 1 and a negative
voltage to represent a 0.
For an optical signal the presence of light may represent a
1 and absence of light may represent a 0.
This scheme is called NRZ (Non-Return-to-Zero) – for
historical reasons.
Once sent, the NRZ signal propagates down the wire.
At the other end, the receiver converts it into bits by
sampling the signal at regular intervals of time.
This signal will not look exactly like the signal that was
sent.

The Physical Layer
BASEBAND TRANSMISSION II
It will be attenuated and distorted by the channel and noise
at the receiver.
To decode the bits, the receiver maps the signal samples
to the closest symbols.
For NRZ, a positive voltage will be taken to indicate that a
1 was sent and a negative voltage will be taken to indicate
that a 0 was sent.
NRZ is a good starting point for studies because it is
simple.
However, it is rarely used in by itself in practice.
More complex schemes can convert bits to signals that
better meet engineering considerations.
These schemes are called line codes.

The Physical Layer
BASEBAND TRANSMISSION III
Line codes help with:
Bandwidth efﬁciency.
Clock recovery.
DC balance.

The Physical Layer
PASSBAND TRANSMISSION I
Often, we want to use a range of frequencies that does not
start at zero to send information across a channel.
For wireless channels, it is not practical to send very low
frequency signals because the size of the antenna needs
to be a fraction of the signal wavelength, which becomes
too large.
In any case, regulatory constraints and the need to avoid
interference usually dictate the choice of frequencies.
Even for wires, placing a signal in a given frequency band
is useful to let different kinds of signals coexist on the
channel.
This kind of transmission is called passband because an
arbitrary band of frequencies is used to pass the signal.

The Physical Layer
PASSBAND TRANSMISSION II
The idea is to take a basband signal that occupies 0 to B
Hz and shift it up to occupy a passband of S to S+B Hz
without changing the amount of information that it can
carry, even the the signal looks different.
To process a signal at the receiver, we can shift it back
down to baseband.
It is more convenient to detect symbols at the receiver.
Digital modulation is accomplished with passband
transmission by regulating or modulating a career signal
that sits in the passband.
We can modulate the amplitude, frequency, or phase of the
career signal.
Each of these methods has a corresponding name.

The Physical Layer
PASSBAND TRANSMISSION III
In ASK (Amplitude Shift Keying), two different amplitudes
are used to represent 0 and 1.
More than two levels can be used to represent more levels.
With FSK (Frequency Shift Keying), two or more different
tones are used.
In PSK (Phase Shift Keying) , the career wave is
systematically shifted 0 or 180 degrees at each symbol
period.
Because there are two phases, it is called BPSK (Binary
Phase Shift Keying).
Binary refers to the two symbols, not that the symbols
represent 2 bits.
A better scheme that uses the channel bandwidth more
efﬁciently is to use four shifts e.g. 45, 135, 225, or 315
degrees, to transmit 2 bits of information per symbol.
This version is QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying).

The Physical Layer
PASSBAND TRANSMISSION IV
Quadrature amplitude modulation: QAM-16, QAM-64.
In QAM different combinations of amplitudes and phase are
used.

The Physical Layer
PASSBAND TRANSMISSION V
SEC. 2.5 DIGITAL MODULATION AND MULTIPLEXING 131
better scheme that uses the channel bandwidth more efficiently is to use four
shifts, e.g., 45, 135, 225, or 315 degrees, to transmit 2 bits of information per sym-
bol. This version is called QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying).
0
(a)
(b)
(c)
1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0

The Physical Layer
FREQUENCY DIVISION MULTIPLEXING I
FDM (Frequency Division Multiplexing) takes advantage
of passband transmission to share a channel.
It divides the spectrum into frequency bands, with each
user having exclusive possession of some band in which to
send their signal.
AM radio broadcasting illustrates FDM.
The allocated spectrum is about 1 MHz, roughly 500 to
1500 kHz.
Different frequencies are allocated to different logical
channels (stations), each operating in a portion of the
spectrum.
The inter-channel separation is is kept great enough to
prevent interference.

The Physical Layer
FREQUENCY DIVISION MULTIPLEXING II
OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing)

The Physical Layer
TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEXING I
The users take turn in a round robin fashion. Each one
periodically gets the entire bandwidyj for a little burst of
time.
Bits from each input stream are taken in a ﬁxed time slot
and output to the aggregate stream. This stream runs at
the sum rate of the individual streams.
Small intervals of guard time analogous to a frequency
guard band may be added to accommodate small timing
variations.
TDM is used widely as part of the telephone and cellular
networks.
It is quite different from STDM (Statistical Time Division
Multiplexing) however.

The Physical Layer
TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEXING II
The preﬁx statistical is added to indicate that the individual
streams contribute to the multiplexed stream not on a ﬁxed
schedule, but according to the statistics of their demand.
STDM is packet switching by another name.

The Physical Layer
TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEXING III
156 THE PHYSICAL LAYER CHAP. 2
6 5 4 3 2 1 0
5 1
4 0
6 2
7 3
6:17:14:1
4 T1 streams in
1 T2 stream out
6.312 Mbps
T2
1.544 Mbps
T1
44.736 Mbps
T3
274.176 Mbps
T4
7 T2 streams in 6 T3 streams in
Figure 2-38. Multiplexing T1 streams into higher carriers.
recovery data are different in the U.S. and ITU standards. The ITU hierarchy for
32, 128, 512, 2048, and 8192 channels runs at speeds of 2.048, 8.848, 34.304,
139.264, and 565.148 Mbps.
FIGURE: Multiplexing T1 streams into higher careers.

The Physical Layer
CODE DIVISION MULTIPLEXING I
CDM (Code Division Multiplexing) is a form of spread
spectrum communication in which a narrowband signal is
spread out over a wider frequency band.
It makes it more tolerant of interference.
It allows multiple signals from different users to share the
same frequency band.
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
CDMA allows each station to transmit over the entire
frequency spectrum all the time.
Multiple simultaneous transmissions are separated using
coding theory.
An analogy:

The Physical Layer
CODE DIVISION MULTIPLEXING II
Consider an airport lounge with many pairs of people
conversing.
TDM is comparable to pairs of people in the room taking
turns speaking.
FDM is comparable to the pairs of people speaking at
different pitches, some high-pitched and some low-pitched
such that each pair can hold its own conversation at the
same time as but independently of the others.
CDMA is comparable to each pair of people talking at once,
but in a different language.
The French-speaking couple just hones in on the French,
rejecting everything that is not French as noise.
So the key to CDMA is to be able to extract the desired
signal while rejecting everything else as random noise.
A somewhat simpliﬁed description of CDMA follows:

The Physical Layer
CODE DIVISION MULTIPLEXING III
In CDMA, each bit time is subdivided into m short intervals
called chips.
Typically, there are 64 or 128 chips per bit.
In our example we have used 8 chips/bit for simplicity.
Each station is assigned a unique m-bit code called a chip
sequence.
For the purpose of pedagogy, it is convenient to use a
bipolar notation to write these codes as sequences of -1
and +1.
The chip sequences are shown in parentheses.
To transmit a 1 bit, a station sends its chip sequence.
To transmit a 0 bit, it sends the negations of its chip
sequence.
No other parentheses are permitted.

The Physical Layer
CODE DIVISION MULTIPLEXING IV
Thus, for m = 8, if station A is assigned the chip sequence
(-1 -1 -1 +1 +1 -1 +1 +1), it can send a 1 bit by transmitting
the chip sequence and a 0 by transmitting (+1 +1 +1 -1 -1
+1 -1 -1).
It is really signals with these voltage levels that are sent, but
it is convenient for us to think in terms of the sequences.

The Physical Layer
The Public Switched Telephone Network
THE PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK I
The goal is to transmit human voice in a more or less
recognizable form.
Structure of the telephone system.
The politics of telephones.
The local loops: Modems, ADSL, and Fiber.
Telephone modems.
Digital subscriber lines.
Fiber to the home.
Passive optical network (PON).
Gigabit-capable PONs (GPONs).
Ethernet PONs (EPONs).
Trunks and Multiplexing.

The Physical Layer
THE PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK II
Digitizing voice signals.
Pulse code modulation (PCM).
Time division multiplexing.
SONET/SDH.
SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork).
Wavelength division multiplexing.
Switching.
Circuit switching.
Packet Switching.

The Physical Layer
THE PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK III
162 THE PHYSICAL LAYER CHAP. 2
(a)
Switching office
Physical (copper)
connection set up
when call is made
Packets queued
for subsequent
transmission
Computer
Computer

The Physical Layer
The Mobile Telephone System
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM I
People expect to use their phones on the go.
1G – Analog voice.
Advanced Mobile Phone System – AMPS.
2G – Digital voice.
Digital Advanced Mobile Phone System – D-AMPS.
Global System for Mobile Communications – GSM.
Based on a mix of FDM and TDM.
3G – Digital voice and data (Internet, email, etc.).
CDMA

The Physical Layer
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM II168 THE PHYSICAL LAYER CHAP. 2
G
F
A
B
C
D
E
G
F
A
B
C
D
E
G
F
A
B
C
D
E
(a) (b)
Figure 2-45. (a) Frequencies are not reused in adjacent cells. (b) To add more
users, smaller cells can be used.

The Physical Layer
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM III
FIGURE: (a) Frequencies are not used in adjacent cells. (b) To add
more users, smaller cells can be used.

The Physical Layer
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM IV
ded into the handset and a removable chip with subscriber and account
ation called a SIM card, short for Subscriber Identity Module. It is the
ard that activates the handset and contains secrets that let the mobile and the
ork identify each other and encrypt conversations. A SIM card can be rem
nd plugged into a different handset to turn that handset into your mobile as
e network is concerned.
VLR
MSC
Air
interface
Cell tower and
base station
PSTNSIM
card
Handset
HLRBSC
BSC
Figure 2-46. GSM mobile network architecture.
The mobile talks to cell base stations over an air interface that we wi
cribe in a moment. The cell base stations are each connected to a BSC (
FIGURE: GSM mobile network architecture.

The Physical Layer
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM V
ceiving does not happen in the same time slot because the GSM radios cannot
transmit and receive at the same time and it takes time to switch from one to the
other. If the mobile device assigned to 890.4/935.4 MHz and time slot 2 wanted
to transmit to the base station, it would use the lower four shaded slots (and the
ones following them in time), putting some data in each slot until all the data had
been sent.
959.8 MHz
935.4 MHz
935.2 MHz
914.8 MHz
890.4 MHz
890.2 MHz
Frequency
Base
to mobile
Mobile
to base
124
2
1
124
2
1
Channel
TDM frame
Time
Figure 2-47. GSM uses 124 frequency channels, each of which uses an eight-
slot TDM system.
The TDM slots shown in Fig. 2-47 are part of a complex framing hierarchy.
Each TDM slot has a specific structure, and groups of TDM slots form mul-
FIGURE: GSM uses 124 frequency channels, each of which uses an
eightslot TDM system.

The Physical Layer
THE MOBILE TELEPHONE SYSTEM VI
equencies are used in each cell. The alternative is a hard handoff, in whic
ld base station drops the call before the new one acquires it. If the new o
nable to acquire it (e.g., because there is no available frequency), the c
isconnected abruptly. Users tend to notice this, but it is inevitable occasio
with the current design. Hard handoff is the norm with FDM designs to avo
ost of having the mobile transmit or receive on two frequencies simultaneou
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 2-49. Soft handoff (a) before, (b) during, and (c) after.
Much has been written about 3G, most of it praising it as the greatest
nce sliced bread. Meanwhile, many operators have taken cautious steps i
irection of 3G by going to what is sometimes called 2.5G, although 2.1G
FIGURE: Soft handoff (a) before, (b) during, and (c) after.

The Physical Layer
Cable Television
CABLE TELEVISION I
Community antenna television.
Internet over cable.
Spectrum allocation.
Cable modems.
ADSL Versus Cable.

The Physical Layer
Cable Television
CABLE TELEVISION II
SEC. 2.8 CABLE TELEVISION 181
Copper
twisted pair
Switch
Toll
office
Head-
end
High-bandwidth
fiber trunk
End
office
Local
loop
(a)
(b)
House
High-bandwidth
fiber
trunk
Coaxial
cable
House
Tap
Fiber node
Fiber
Fiber
Figure 2-51. (a) Cable television. (b) The fixed telephone system.
are, the more competition there is for bandwidth. The telephone system does notFIGURE: (a) Cable television. (b) The ﬁxed telephone system.

The Physical Layer
Conclusions
CONCLUSIONS
The ﬁgures have been taken from, Computer Networks,
Andrew S. Tanenbaum, 5th Edition.

The Physical Layer

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The Physical Layer