Data Communication and Networking
Data Communication and Networking
Chapter – 1
Fundamental of Data Communications
1. Introduction
Data Communication is a system consisting of carries and related devices used to transport data
from one point to another. Communication means to convey a message, an idea, a picture or speech
that is received and understood clearly and correctly by the person for whom it is conveyed.
Ancient Methods of Communication and Their Demerits – Message were sent in olden times
either through horse riders or by using pigeons. There was no surety that the messenger will be able to
convey the message exactly in the same form as told to him verbally.
Electronic Methods of Communication – With the invention of telephone instrument and the
communication satellites, the means of electronic communication has become very popular in India
even though the cost of installation and maintenance of telephones is still very high and beyond the
means of a common man.
Limitations of Telephonic Communication:
(a) Both the sender and the receiver of the message should be available at the same time and
should speak the same language to understand.
(b) Telephone communication is not a secured means of communication because anyone can
overhear the message.
(c) It is not suitable to send picture or any other type of message except a spoken message.
(d) It is affected by the electrical interference or by the people digging roads etc.
(e) It is still quite costly to make a telephone call outside the city or the country.
Computerized Communication – Since the time computers have started playing an important role in
the field of communications. The main reason for this is that computers can send data extremely fast.
They can even transmit pictures and sound in a much secured manner. Further, PCs can send
information on the existing telephone line.
Advantage of Computerized Communication –
(a) Telephonic calls, using Internet, can be made to any part of the world with the same expenses
as a local telephone call made within the city.
(b) Pictures, sound and written matter can be sent within minutes and a confirmation about it
reaching at the destination can be obtained immediately.
(c) Message can be sent in coded form so that they are not understood by anybody else except the
person who is sending and the person who is receiving them.
(d) Message can be sent in any language from any place of world to any place.
(e) Users need not take highly specialized training for sending or receiving message.
2. Communication Systems
A Communication system is the combination of hardware, software and data transfer links that
make up a communication facility for transferring data in a cost effective and efficient manner. A
communication system itself can be either analog or digital. The technique by which a digital signal is
converted to its analog form is known as Modulation. The reverse process i.e. conversion of analog
signal to digital signal is known as Demodulation. These processes of conversions carried out by a
special device called Modem.
Advantage of Digital Transmission over Analog Transmission:–
(a) The voice data, music and images can be interspersed to make more efficient use of the same
circuits and equipment.
(b) Much higher transmission rates are possible using telephone lines.
(c) Digital transmission is much cheaper than analog transmission.
(d) Maintenance of a digital system is easier than maintenance of analog system.
(e) A digital signal can pass through an arbitrary number of regenerators in with no loss in signal
and thus travel long distances with no information loss. In contrast, analog signal always suffer
some information loss when amplified, and this loss is cumulative.
3. Signal And Data
Data in a communication system can be either digital data or analog data.
Digital Data – On the hockey playground, the referee blows a whistle and all the players in the field
understand the message instantaneously. The whistle blown in short bursts of high pitched sound like
PEE, PE or it may have a long burst PEEEEEEE. The first one is indication to the players to start the
game and the second long whistle is to stop the match immediately. The message conveyed by the
sound energy in short pulses is very clear to all the players. This is an example of Digital Data
Transmission.
Analog Data – When we sit in a concert hall where many musical instrument being played by different
players. For example say one player to playing sitar and other is playing tabla. This is an analog data
communication. Both sitar and tabla are sending sound waves in the same sequence and there is a
rhythm and harmony between the two. Any music system conveys the songs in the analog form.
Different Characteristics of Analog and Digital Data Communication: -
NOTES BY-BALJEET SINGH SINWAR
43
DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKING
Item Analog Transmission Digital Transmission
Form It is in the form of continuous It is in the form of discrete
variable of physical quantities quantities and has binary digits
Cost of transmission Low High
Efficiency Low high
Maintenance cost of High Low
equipment
Effect of noise High Low
Attenuation High Low
Example TV transmission from DoorDarshan Data transmission from hard
disk to memory
4. Channel Characteristics
A communication channel provides the medium to move electromagnetic energy from a source
to one or more destination points. It is a pathway over which data are transferred between remote
devices.
Characteristics: -
(a) It should be able to deliver maximum amount of electromagnetic energy from the transmitter to
the receiver with minimum cost.
(b) It should not add much noise on the way so that the receiver is able to understand the message
correctly.
(c) There should not be any restriction on the distances between the transmitter where the sender
is located and the receiver where the signal is received.
Types of Communication Channels: -
There are two types of communication channel used in data communication. These are:
(a) A public telephone system
(b) A commercial radio station
Both these channels are used for transfer of voice in analog form. The other type of channel is used for
the transmission of the data between a PC and a printer. This carries digital data and transmits square
waves. The digital signal between a PC and printer also gets attenuated if the distance of the printer is
long.
Digital Channel Capacity: -
The capacity of a digital channel is the number of data bits a channel conveys in one second.
The measurement is in bits per second (bps). It is also known as bit rate of channel. The bit rate of
networking ranges from kilobits per second or Kbps to millions of bits per second. The duration of a
binary digit determines the bit rate. The shorter duration of bit is the cause of the greater the bps
rating of the signal.
Relationship between bit time and bit rate per second: -
Bit time (milli Bit rate per Bit time (milli Bit rate per
sec) second(bps) sec) second(bps)
3.3 300 .833 1200
.416 2400 .104 9600
.052 19200
Baud and Bit Rate: - Baud is a measure of the digital signaling rate in a channel. Bit rate is a measure
of the digital bit values the channel conveys with each baud.
The only way to increase the digital bit rate is to decrease the bit time of the signal. But
electrical characteristics of the material used for conveying the bits limit the reduction in the size of the
bit time and thus fixing the maximum bit rate per second.
Maximum Data Rate of a Channel: - The maximum data rate of a noisy channel whose bandwidth is
in Hertz (Hz), and whose signal-to-noise ratio, shown as S/N in decibels, is given by:
Maximum number of bits/sec = H1092 (1 + S/N)
5. Transmission Modes
There are three modes of data transmission. These are:
(a) Simplex – Simplex communication imply a simple method of communication. In simplex
communications mode, there is a one way communication transmission. Television transmission
is a very good example of this type of communication.
(b) Half-duplex - In half-duplex mode, both units communicate over the same medium, but only one
unit can send at a time. While one is in send mode, the other unit is in receiving mode. It is like
two polite people talking to each other—one talks, the other listens, but neither one talks at the
same time.
(c) Full-duplex - In a half-duplex system, the line must be "turned around" each time the direction is
reversed. This involves a special switching circuit and requires a small amount of time
(approximately 150 milliseconds). With high speed capabilities of the computer, this turn-around
or % efficiency =
d ata bits x 100
to ta lbits
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC): - In synchronous communications, CRC is used to verify the
integrity of the entire packet or block of data. Integrity of the packet means whether the complete
packet of data is received in its correct form as it was sent at the sending end. In synchronous
communications, parity checking is sufficient to ensure data integrity. In high-speed asynchronous
communications, single bit corrections are not enough. As each packet is created, a CRC check is
placed somewhere in the packet and is verified at the receiving end.
CRC is a calculation method used to check the accuracy of a digital transmission over a
communication link. The sending computer uses one of several formulas to calculate a value from the
If the analog signal is band pass, the bandwidth value is lower than the value of the
maximum frequency.
(b) Quantization - The result of sampling is a series of pulse with amplitude values between the
maximum to minimum amplitudes of the signal. The set of amplitude can be infinite with non-
integral values b/w the two limits. These values
can’t be used in the encoding process.
Steps in Quantization: -
We assume that the original analog signal
has instantaneous amplitude between Vmin
& Vmax.
We divide the range into 1 zones, each of
height ∆(delta)
Vmax - Vmin
i.e. ∆=
2
We assign quantized values of 0 to 1-10 to
the mid-point of each zone.
We approximate the value of the sample
amplitude to the quantized values.
For quantization & encoding, we take a sampled signal and the sample amplitude are
between -20 v and + 20 v.
We decided to have eight levels. This means that ∆ = SV
(c) Encoding – After each sample is quantized & no. of bits per sample is decided, each sample can
be changed to an n-bit codeword i.e. no. of bits nn = log2L, where L = Quantization level & Bit
rate = Sampling rate x no. of bits per sample = fs x nn
In PCM decoder, we first use circuitry to convert the code words into a pulse that holds
the amplitude. After the
staircase signal is
completed, it passes
through a low-pass filter
to smooth the staircase
signal into an analog
signal. The filter has the
same cut off frequency
as the original signal at
the sender. If the signal
has been sampled at or
greater than the Nyquist sampling rate & if
there are enough quantization levels, the
original signal will be recreated. The
maximum and minimum values of the original
signal can be achieved by using amplification.
Application of FDM:-
FDM is used in AM & FM radio broadcasting with band from 530 to 1700 KHz & 88 to 108
MHz respectively.
FDM is used in television broadcasting
FDM is used in first generation cellular telephones.
(b) Wavelength division multiplexing: - WDM is an analog technique that is designed to use the
high data-rate capability of fiber-optic cable. The optical-fiber data rate is higher than the data rate
of metallic transmission cable. Using a fiver-optic cable fox one single line wastes the available
bandwidth. Multiplexing allows us to combine several lines into one. In WDM, the multiplexing &
demultiplexing involve optical signals transmitted through fiber-optic channels.
In WDM technology, we want to
combine multiple sources light into one
single light at the multiplexer & do the
reverse at the demultiplexer. The
combining & splitting of light source are
easily handled by a prism. A prism bends
a beam of light based on the angle of incidence & the frequency. Using this technique, a multiplexer
can be made to combine several input beams of light, each containing a narrow band of frequencies
into one output beam of a wider band of frequencies. A demultiplexer can also be made to reverse
the process.
Dense WDM can multiplex a
very large number of channels by
spacing channels very close to one
another. It achieves even greater
efficiency.
Application of WDM: -
WDM is used in SONET
network in which multiple optical fiber
lines are multiplexed & demultiplexed.
(c) Time–division multiplexing: - TDM is a digital
multiplexing technique for combining several low
rate channels into one high-rate one.
Two schemes for TDM: -
1. Synchronous TDM: - In synchronous TDM, the
data flow of each input connection is divided into
units, where each input occupies one input time slot. A unit can be 1 bit, 1charecter of 1 block of
data. Each input unit becomes one output unit & occupies one output time slot. However the
duration of an output time slot is n times shorter. Than the duration of an input time slot. If an
input time slot is Ts, the output time slot is
T/n & where n is the no. of connections. In
other wards, a unit in the output
connection has a shorter duration; it
travels faster.
Chapter – 5
Network fundamentals
AN OVERVIEW OF NETWORKING
A network is a group of computers connected in some fashion in order to share resources. A
group of computers in a network provide greater storage capacity and processing power than that by
standalone independent machines. In addition to computers, a network also consists of peripheral
devices with carriers and data communication devices used for the purpose of exchanging data and
information.
By using computer networks, the cost of data transfer can be made cheaper than other conven-
tional means like telegrams etc. as computers can send data at a very fast speed. Thus, computers
enable us to reduce both cost and time in transferring data. In a network, computers of different make
can be connected together and users can work together in a group. Software packages have been
developed for group working in Data Base Management (DBMS) and graphical artworks. Also, data from
different departments located at distant places can be transferred to and stored on a central computer.
This data can then be accessed by the computers located in different departments. The data at the
central computer is updated and accessed by all users. This prevents any bottlenecks in the smooth
functioning of the organization because all the users will get the latest information (for example,
inventory) stored in the central computer.
Communication Switching Techniques: - In a WAN two devices are not connected directly but a
network of switching nodes provides a transfer path between the two devices. The process of
transferring data block from one node to another is called data switching. There are following types of
switching techniques: -
Circuit Switching – In Circuit Switching, there is a dedicated communication path between the
sending and receiving
devices.
A circuit
switched network is
made of a set of
switches connected by
physical links in which
each link is divided into
n-channels.
Circuit switching
takes place at the
physical layer. In this,
data are continuous
flow sent by the source
station & received by the destination station, although there may be periods of silence. There is no
addressing involved during data transfer.
Switching at the physical layer in the traditional telephone network uses the circuit switching
approach.
Workstation – It is a basically a PC or printer or other sharable resources. Workstation is also called
a terminal or data access point of a network.
The dedicated path is a sequence of links between switching nodes.
Circuit Switching involves three steps:
(a) Circuit Establishment
(b) Signal Transfer
(c) Circuit Transfer
Circuit Switching is mainly used for voice based network. It is not effective for data
communication.
Header R C S S Y I
Length G K H T N N Window Size
Application Layer: - The Application Layer provides services that can be used by other applications for
example protocols have been developed for remote login, for e-mail, for file transfer etc. The
application layer program run directly over the transport layer.
Transport Layer: - Two basic services are provided by this layer: -
The first service consists of reliable connection oriented transfer of byte stream, which is
provided by TCP. The second service consists of connectionless transfer of individual package i.e.
provided by UDP. UDP is used for applications that require quick but reliable delivers.
The TCP/IP Model doesn’t require strict layering. In other words the application layer has the
option of by passing intermediate layer.
Internet Layer: - The Internet layer handles the transfer of information access multiple networks
through the use of gateways or routers. It has similar function as network layer of OSI Model. A key
aspect of the Internet layer is the definition of global unique address for the machines that are attached
with the Internet. The Internet layer provides a single service namely best effort connectionless packet
transfer. For this packets are also called data grams. The connectionless approach makes the system
robust i.e. if failures occur in the network the packets are routed around the point of failure. There is no
need to setup the connection.
Network Interface Layer: - Network Interface Layer is concern with the network specific aspects of the
transfer of packets. It must deal with port of network layer and data link layer. The network interface
layer is particularly concern with the protocols that access the intermediate networks.
TCP/IP Services and Application Protocols: -
Client Server Model – In this model, transaction responsibilities are divided into two parts: client and
server. Clients rely on servers for services such as file storage, printing, and processing power.
Client is a PC running front-end software that knows how to communicate with the server. This
model improves performances.
Telnet – Previously Described.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) – Previously described.
Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) – This protocol is nofrills, unauthenticated protocol used to
transfer files. TFTP depends on UDP and often is used to boot diskless workstations.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) – This protocol is a TCP/IP protocol that specifies how
computers exchange electronic mail. It works post office protocol, and is one of the reasons that
Internet E-mail functions so well.
Network File System (NFS) – This is a distributed file system protocol suite developed by Sun
Microsystems that allow to remote file access across a network. It allows all network users to access
shared files stored on computers of different types.
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) – This is a network management protocol for TCP/IP
networks. SNMP provides a means to monitor and control network devices, and to manage
configurations, statistics collection, performance, and security. It specifies how nodes are managed
on a network, using agents to monitor network traffic and maintain a management information
base.
Domain Name System (DNS) - Previously described.
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) – This is an integral part of the IP that handles error and
control message. Specially routers and hosts use ICMP to send reports of problem about datagram,
back to the original source that sends to the datagram.
Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) – This protocol is mainly used with multicast network to
group the members, used by host.
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) – This protocol is used as a device driver which accepts packets
from internet layer and converts the packet into Ethernet format.
The address resolution protocol (ARP) associates an IP address with the physical address. On
a typical physical network, such, as a LAN, each device on a link is identified by a physical or station
address usually imprinted on the network interface card (NIC). ARP maintains tables of name-to-
address mappings.
RARP (Reverse Address Resolution Protocol) performs the
same function as ARP does but in reverse, that is given an IP
address, it determines the corresponding physical address.
Data Encapsulation: - The data from the application program is
encapsulated into the TCP segment. This means that the data in a
TCP segment is the data from the application program. The IP
datagram encapsulates this TCP segment. Thus, means the TCP
segment forms the data part of the IP datagram. The IP datagram
is sent along the physical wire, encapsulated in the Ethernet
frame (or any other LAN frame). That is, IP datagram is
transported as the data of the frame. This process is known as
data encapsulation. The same process gets reversed at the
receiver side. This is known as data decapsulation.
Data Routing: - The IP protocol in the TCP/IP suite is responsible
for routing the data packets to its destination. Routing means
finding the route (next hop) for a data-gram. If the destination
node is on the same network as the source node, the delivery is
direct. In direct delivery, the sender can compare the destination
address with the addresses of the computers to which it is
connected to. If a match is found, the packet is delivered to the
same.
If the destination host is not in the same network as the sender, the delivery is indirect. In the
indirect delivery, the packet goes from router to router until it reaches the network of the destination
host. In indirect delivery, the sender uses the IP address of the destination computer and a routing
CHECKSUM = R[ ∑ ASCIIValueofCharacter ]
1
255
in which R is the remainder of the division process. The receiver checks each part of the received
block to confirm the following:
Was first character a Start Of Header (SOH)?
Was the block number exactly one more than the previous block received?
Were exactly 128 characters of data received?
Was the locally computed checksum identical to the last character received in the block?
If the receiver is satisfied, it sends an Acknowledge (ACK) back to the transmitter, and the
transmitter sends the next block. If not, an NAK is sent, and the transmitter resents the block found
in error. This process is continued, block by block, until the entire file is sent and verified. At the end
of the data, the transmitter sends an End Of Text character. The receiver replies with an ACK, and
the session is terminated.
Limitations of XMODEM Protocol - There are several points to consider about the XMODEM
protocol.
It is easy to implement with a small computer, but it does require a computer at each end.
It requires manual setup for each file to be transferred.
The error detection technique (ordinary sum of the data characters) is unsophisticated and
unable to detect reliably the most common type of transmission error, which is a noise burst
that can last of the order of 10 milliseconds (the duration of about 12 bits at 1200 bps).
It is a half-duplex protocol; that is, information is sent, and then the sender waits for a reply
before sending the next message.
Because operation of the XMODEM protocol generally assumes a full duplex line, it is inefficient
in use of the transmission facility.
Support for XMODEM Protocol - In spite of the previously mentioned limitations, the XMODEM
protocol and several derivatives are supported by most asynchronous communication pro-;-rams
designed for operation on PCs. The rationale for the widespread support of these protocols is dated to
the initial placement of the XMODEM protocol into the public domain.
Most of the asynchronous communications programs developed during the early 1980s
eventually included XMODEM support. In the late 1980s, several derivatives of the XMODEM protocol
gained acceptance due to the increased level of functionality they provided. Some new versions of the
XMODEM protocol added CRC error checking. Other versions provided a full-duplex transmission
capability with CRC error detection, thus increasing the efficiency of the protocol. Today, almost all
communication programs designed for use on PCs support XMODEM and several of its derivatives.
YMODEM - YMODEM Protocol is similar to XMODEM, with the following differences:
• The data unit is 1024 bytes.
• Multiple files can be sent simultaneously.
• ITU-T, CRC-16 is used for error checking.
ZMODEM - ZMODEM is a newer protocol combining features of both XMODEM and YMODEM.
BLAST (Blocked asynchronous transmission) - BLAST (Blocked asynchronous transmission) is more
powerful than XMODEM. It is a full-duplex operation with sliding window flow control. It allows the
transfer of data and binary files.
CHARACTER ORIENTED PROTOCOLS (COP)
There is one type of COP called Binary Synchronous Protocol (Bisync or BSC). BSC stands for
Binary Synchronous Communication protocol. It was developed by IBM in the year 1964. It supports
NOTES BY-BALJEET SINGH SINWAR
43
DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKING
half-duplex transmission, using stop and wait/ARQ (Acknowledgement Request) flow control and error
detection. It does not support full-duplex or sliding window protocol transmission.
BIT ORIENTED PROTOCOLS (BOP)
SDLC (Synchronous Data Link Control Protocol) and HDLG (High Level Data Link Control
Protocol) is the two bit-oriented protocols. SDLC was developed by IBM. HDLC is one of the ISO
designed protocols and has become the basis for all bit-oriented protocols in use.
Synchronous Data Link Control Protocol (SDLC)
SDLC is a data-link layer protocol developed in the 1970s by IBM for its Systems Network
Architecture (SNA) networking environment. It is primarily used in wide area networks (WANs) that use
leased lines to connect Mainframe SNA hosts and remote terminals.
In a serial SDLC link, data is sent as a synchronous bit stream divided into frames that contain
addressing and control information in addition to the pay- load of data.
SDLC uses a master/slave architecture in which one station is designated as primary (master)
and the remaining stations are secondary (slaves). The primary station establishes and tears down
SDLC connections, manages these connections, and polls each secondary station in a specific order to
determine whether any secondary station wants to transmit data.
SDLC can be used in a variety of connection topologies such as the following:
Direct point-to-point connections between a primary and a secondary station
Multipoint connections between a primary and a group of secondary stations.
High Level Data Link Control Protocol (HDLC)
This is a protocol to prevent aliasing error. It determines where a true message block begins and
ends and what part of the message is to be included in the CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check). It uses bit-
stuffing for data
transparency.
In HDLC, all
information is carried by
frames that can be of the
following types:
Information Frames
(1-frames)
Supervisory control
sequences (S-
frames), or
unnumbered
command/
responses (U-
frames).
Figure shows one
information frame as a
angular block divided into
six fields. These fields are:
A beginning Flag
(F1) field.
An address (A) field. It is used to identify ME the terminals. It is of 8 bits.
A control (C) field. It is used for sequence numbers and acknowledgements. It is of 8 bits.
An information field (I) or data field contain information.
A frame check sequence (FCS) field. It is situ to CRC.
A final flag (F2) field.
There are three kinds of controls. Control field Information (I-Frame), Control field for Supervisory (S-
Frame) and control field for Unnumbered frame). The contents are shown in Figure. S-frames and U-
frames have the same fields except that the I field is left out.
The P/F bits stand for Poll/Final. It is used when a computer is polling a group of terminals. When
used as P, the computer is inviting the term send data. All the frames sent by the terminal, except the
final one, have the P/F bit set to P. The final one is set to F.
Transmission Control Procedure Types: - The following are the different transmission control
procedure types:
Non-procedure – Non-procedure protocols are those which do not have any laid down procedure
for connecting two PCs together. Examples include Ethernet, Token ring, Token bus, FDDI etc.
Basic procedure - Basic Control Procedure protocols include LAPB (Link Access Procedure,
Balanced), LAPD (Link Access Procedure for D channel) and LAPM (Link Access Procedure for
Modems).