Computer Networks: A Systems Approach, 5e

Larry L. Peterson and Bruce S. Davie

Chapter 2
Getting Connected

Copyright © 2010, Elsevier Inc. All rights Reserved 1

 Chapter 2
Problems
 In Chapter 1 we saw networks consists of links
interconnecting nodes. How to connect two
nodes together?
 We also introduced the concept of ―cloud‖
abstractions to represent a network without
revealing its internal complexities. How to
connect a host to a cloud?
 A problem faced by ISP every day

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 Chapter 2
Chapter Outline
 Perspectives on Connecting nodes
 Encoding
 Framing
 Error Detection
 Reliable Transmission
 Ethernet and Multiple Access Networks
 Wireless Networks

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 Chapter 2
Chapter Goal
 Exploring different communication medium over
which we can send data
 Understanding the issue of encoding bits onto
transmission medium so that they can be
understood by the receiving end
 Discussing the matter of delineating the
sequence of bits transmitted over the link into
complete messages that can be delivered to the
end node
 Discussing different technique to detect
transmission errors and take the appropriate
action

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 Chapter 2
Chapter Goal (contd.)
 Discussing the issue of making the links reliable
in spite of transmission problems
 Introducing Media Access Control Problem
 Introducing Carrier Sense Multiple Access
(CSMA) networks
 Introducing Wireless Networks with different
available technologies and protocol

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 Chapter 2
Perspectives on Connecting

An end-user‘s view of the Internet

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 Chapter 2
Links
 All practical links rely on some sort of electromagnetic
radiation propagating through a medium or, in some
cases, through free space
 One way to characterize links, then, is by the medium
they use
 Typically copper wire in some form (as in Digital Subscriber Line
(DSL) and coaxial cable),
 Optical fiber (as in both commercial fiber-to-the home services
and many long-distance links in the Internet‘s backbone), or
 Air/free space (for wireless links)

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 Chapter 2
Links
 Another important link characteristic is the frequency
 Measured in hertz, with which the electromagnetic waves
oscillate
 Bandwidth and frequency are related
 The wider the frequency band the higher the bandwidth
 Distance between the adjacent pair of maxima or minima
of a wave measured in meters is called wavelength
 Speed of light divided by frequency gives the wavelength.
 Frequency on a copper cable range from 300Hz to 3300Hz;
Wavelength for 300Hz wave through copper is speed of light on
a copper / frequency
 2/3 x 3 x 108 /300 = 667 x 103 meters.
 Placing binary data on a signal is called encoding.
 Modulation involves modifying the signals in terms of
their frequency, amplitude, and phase.
 Modem stands for MOdulator-DEModulator

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 Chapter 2
Links
Visible light is
somewhere here

Electromagnetic spectrum

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 Chapter 2
Links
 Last mile links provided by ISP
 Chosen because they are cost-effective to reach millions of
people

 Dial-Up, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), and

DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) use the same telephone
services wires (copper twisted pair)
 Voice and data use different frequency bands

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 Chapter 2
Links
 TV cables
 Most long-distance links are almost exclusively fiber
optics.
 Use SONET technology (Synchronous Optical Network)
 Ethernet
 Inside buildings/campus
 Wireless technologies
 Started to dominate

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 Chapter 2
Links (Bandwidths)

Common services available to connect your home

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 Chapter 2
Encoding
 Translate binary data onto two kinds of
signals
 0 => low signal
 1 => high signal

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 Chapter 2
Encoding

Signals travel between signaling components; bits flow between adaptors

NRZ (non-return to zero) encoding of a bit stream

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 Chapter 2
Encoding Problem with NRZ
 Too many consecutive 0‘s and 1‘s
 How?
 Causes two problems:
 Baseline wander
 Clock recovery

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 Chapter 2
Encoding (Problem 1 with NRZ)
 Baseline wander
 The receiver keeps an average of the signals it has
seen so far
 Uses the average to distinguish between low and high
signal
 When a signal is significantly low than the average, it
is 0, else it is 1
 Too many consecutive 0‘s and 1‘s cause this average
to change, making it difficult to detect

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 Chapter 2
Encoding (Problem 2 with NRZ)
 Clock recovery
 Frequent transition from high to low or vice versa are necessary
to enable clock recovery
 Both the sending and decoding process is driven by a clock
 Every clock cycle, the sender transmits a bit and the receiver
recovers a bit
 If the receiver‘s clock is even slightly faster or slower than the
send‘s clock =>wrong decoding the signal
 The sender and receiver have to be precisely synchronized
 Send the clock over a separate wire??
 Wasting resources
 Solution: the receiver has to derive the clock from the signals
themselves
 How?

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 Chapter 2
Encoding
 NRZI
 Non Return to Zero Inverted
 Sender makes a transition from the current
signal to encode 1 and stay at the current
signal to encode 0
 Solves for consecutive 1‘s
 Still the problem of consecutive 0‘s

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 Chapter 2
Encoding
 Manchester encoding
 Merging the clock with signal by transmitting
Ex-OR of the NRZ encoded data and the clock
 Clock is an internal signal that alternates from
low to high, a low/high pair is considered as
one clock cycle
 In Manchester encoding
 0: low high transition
 1: high low transition

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 Chapter 2
Encoding
 Problem with Manchester encoding
 50% efficient
 NRZ and NRZI could transmit as twice as
Manchester could

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 Chapter 2
Encoding

Different encoding strategies

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 Chapter 2
Encoding
 4B/5B encoding
 Address the inefficiency of Manchester
 Insert extra bits into bit stream so as to break up the
long sequence of 0‘s and 1‘s
 Every 4-bits of actual data are encoded in a 5- bit
code that is transmitted to the receiver
 5-bit codes are selected in such a way that each one
has no more than one leading 0(zero) and no more
than two trailing 0‘s.
 No pair of 5-bit codes results in more than three
consecutive 0‘s
 80% efficiency
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 Chapter 2
Encoding
 4B/5B encoding

0000  11110 16 left

0001  01001 11111 – when the line is idle
0010  10100 00000 – when the line is dead
.. 00100 – to mean halt
..
1111  11101 13 left : 7 invalid, 6 for various
control signals

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 We are focusing on packet-switched networks,
which means that blocks of data (called frames
at this level), not bit streams, are exchanged
between nodes.
 It is the network adaptor that enables the nodes
to exchange frames.

Bits flow between adaptors, frames between hosts

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 When node A wishes to transmit a frame to node
B, it tells its adaptor to transmit a frame from the
node‘s memory. This results in a sequence of
bits being sent over the link.
 The adaptor on node B then collects together the
sequence of bits arriving on the link and deposits
the corresponding frame in B‘s memory.
 Recognizing exactly what set of bits constitute a
frame—that is, determining where the frame
begins and ends—is the central challenge faced
by the adaptor

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 Byte-oriented Protocols
 To view each frame as a collection of bytes
(characters) rather than bits
 Sentinel approach
 BISYNC (Binary Synchronous Communication) Protocol
 Developed by IBM (late 1960)
 PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol)
 Byte-Counting approach
 DDCMP (Digital Data Communication Protocol)
 Used in DECNet
 Bit-oriented Protocols
 To view each frame as a collection of bits
 HDLC : High Level Data Link Control
 Clock-Based Framing (SONET)
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 Chapter 2
Framing
 BISYNC
 sentinel approach
 Frames transmitted beginning with leftmost field
 Beginning of a frame is denoted by sending a special
SYN (synchronize) character
 Data portion of the frame is contained between
special sentinel character STX (start of text) and ETX
(end of text)
 SOH : Start of Header
 DLE : Data Link Escape
 Character stuffing/escaping: use DLE like you use ‗\‘ to
escape the C++ characters.
 CRC: Cyclic Redundancy Check (check transmission
errors)
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 Chapter 2
Framing

BISYNC Frame Format

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 PPP:
 commonly used over Internet links
 sentinel approach and stuffing (like in BISYNC)
 Special start of text character denoted as Flag
 01111110
 Address, control : default numbers (uninteresting)
 Protocol for demux/routing : IP / IPX
 Payload : by default is 1500 bytes (can be negotiated)
 Checksum : for error detection, 2 or 4 bytes

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 Chapter 2
Framing

PPP Frame Format

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 Byte-counting approach
 DDCMP
 count : how many bytes are contained in the
frame body
 If count is corrupted
 Framing error
 This problem also happens if the ETX is corrupted.
 Will catch up when receiving the SYN bytes of the
next frame to realize that the current frame is
corrupted.

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 Chapter 2
Framing

DDCMP Frame Format

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 Bit-oriented Protocol
 Frame is a collection of bits
 Any character set, ASCII, pixel values in an image,
instructions and operands from an executable
 HDLC : High Level Data Link Control
 Beginning and Ending Sequences
01111110
 Bit stuffing is used (see next slide)

HDLC Frame Format

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 HDLC Protocol
 On the sending side, any time five consecutive
1‘s have been transmitted from the body of
the message (i.e. excluding when the sender
is trying to send the distinguished 01111110
sequence)
 The sender inserts 0 before transmitting the next
bit

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 Chapter 2
Framing
 HDLC Protocol
 On the receiving side
 5 consecutive 1‘s
 Next bit 0 : Stuffed, so discard it
1 : Either End of the frame marker
Or Error has been introduced in the bitstream
Look at the next bit
If 0 ( 01111110 )  End of the frame marker
If 1 ( 01111111 )  Error, discard the whole frame
The receiver needs to wait for next
01111110 before it can start
receiving again

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 Chapter 2
Error Detection
 History of dealing with bit errors in computer
systems
 Date back to 1940s
 Hamming and Reed-Solomon codes algorithms are
two examples
 Different methods are used in computer networking
 Bit errors are introduced into frames
 Because of electrical interference and thermal noises
 Detecting Error
 Only one part of the problem
 Correction Error
 Is the other part
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 Chapter 2
Error Detection
 Three approaches when the recipient detects an
error
 Ignore the whole frame
 Notify the sender that the message was corrupted, so
the sender can send again.
 If the error is rare, then the retransmitted message will be
error-free
 Using some error detection and correction algorithm,
the receiver reconstructs the message

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 Chapter 2
Error Detection
 Common technique for detecting transmission
error
 CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check)
 Used in nearly all the link-level protocols such as
 HDLC, DDCMP, CSMA/CD, Token Ring

 Other (simpler) approaches

 Two Dimensional Parity
 Checksum

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 Chapter 2
Error Detection
 Basic Idea of Error Detection
 To add redundant information to a frame that can be
used to determine if errors have been introduced
 Imagine (Extreme Case)
 Transmitting two complete copies of data
 Identical  No error
 Differ  Error
 Poor Scheme ??? Two reasons:
 n bit message, n bit redundant information
 Error can go undetected, if the same bit is corrupted in the two copies
 Goal: high error-detection probability AND less redundant bits
 In general, we can provide strong error detection technique
 k redundant bits, n bits message, k << n (means: k is much less than n)
 In Ethernet, a frame carrying up to 12,000 bits of data requires only 32-
bit CRC (such called CRC-32)

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 Chapter 2
Error Detection
 Extra bits are redundant
 They add no new information to the message
 Derived from the original message using some algorithm
 Both the sender and receiver know the algorithm
Sender Receiver
m r m r

 The sender computes r by applying some func(m)

 The receiver re-computes r by applying the same func(m)
 If they match, no error
 Else, either m or r has been corrupted

 Error-detecting codes: the redundant bits

 Called checksum if they are computed by adding/summing the
bits up

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 Chapter 2
Two-dimensional parity
 Two-dimensional parity is exactly what the name
suggests
 It is based on ―simple‖ (one-dimensional) parity,
which usually involves adding one extra bit to a
7-bit code to balance the number of 1s in the
byte. For example,
 Odd parity sets the eighth bit to 1 if needed to give an
odd number of 1s in the byte, and
 Even parity sets the eighth bit to 1 if needed to give an
even number of 1s in the byte

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 Chapter 2
Two-dimensional parity
 Two-dimensional parity does a similar
calculation for each bit position across each of
the bytes contained in the frame
 This results in an extra parity byte for the entire
frame, in addition to a parity bit for each byte
 Two-dimensional parity catches all 1-, 2-, and 3-
bit errors and most 4-bit errors

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 Chapter 2
Two-dimensional parity

Two Dimensional Parity

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 Chapter 2
Internet Checksum Algorithm
 Add up all the words that are transmitted and
then transmit the result of that sum
 The result is called the checksum
 The receiver performs the same calculation on
the received data and compares the result with
the received checksum
 If any transmitted data, including the checksum
itself, is corrupted, then the results will not
match, so the receiver knows that an error
occurred

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 Chapter 2
Internet Checksum Algorithm
 Consider the data being checksummed as a
sequence of 16-bit integers.
 Add them together using 16-bit ones
complement arithmetic (explained next slide)
and then take the ones complement of the result.
 That 16-bit number is the checksum

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 Chapter 2
Internet Checksum Algorithm
 In ones complement arithmetic, a negative
integer −x is represented as the complement of
x;
 Each bit of x is inverted.
 When adding numbers in ones complement
arithmetic, a carryout from the most significant
bit needs to be added to the result.

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 Chapter 2
Internet Checksum Algorithm
 Consider, for example, the addition of −5 and −3
in ones complement arithmetic on 4-bit integers
 +5 is 0101, so −5 is 1010; +3 is 0011, so −3 is 1100
 If we add 1010 and 1100 ignoring the carry, we
get 0110
 In ones complement arithmetic, the fact that this
operation caused a carry from the most
significant bit causes us to increment the result,
giving 0111, which is the ones complement
representation of −8 (obtained by inverting the
bits in 1000), as we would expect

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 Chapter 2
Internet Checksum Algorithm
 Summary
 Divide data into 16-bit blocks
 Convert them into ones complement representation.
 Add/sum them together
 If a carry is there, then just increment the result
 Take the ones complement of the result
 You got the checksum, 

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 Chapter 2
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
 Reduce the number of extra bits and maximize
protection
 THE CRC IS NOT REQUIRED FOR THE EXAM
 SELF STUDY, IF INTERESTED
 Given a bit string 110001 we can associate a
polynomial on a single variable x for it.
1.x5+1.x4+0.x3+0.x2+0.x1+1.x0 = x5+x4+1 and the degree
is 5.
A k-bit frame has a maximum degree of k-1

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 Chapter 2
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
 Let M be the message to be sent
 Suppose C(x) is the polynomial of degree d both
the sender and receiver already have and
agreed on
 The sender does the following
 Adds d + 1 zeros to the right of M, call the result N
 Polynomially divides N by C(x); call the remainder r

 Sends M + r as M‘ (altogether as one message)

 The receiver gets M‘ (M + r). Polynomially divides M‘ by

C(x). If the division has no remainder (0) => no errors

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 Chapter 2
Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC)
 Six generator polynomials that have become
international standards are:
 CRC-8 = x8+x2+x+1
 CRC-10 = x10+x9+x5+x4+x+1
 CRC-12 = x12+x11+x3+x2+x+1
 CRC-16 = x16+x15+x2+1
 CRC-CCITT = x16+x12+x5+1
 CRC-32 =
x32+x26+x23+x22+x16+x12+x11+x10+x8+x7+x5+x4+x2+x+1

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 Chapter 2
Reliable Transmission
 CRC is used to detect errors.
 Some error codes are strong enough to correct
errors.
 The overhead is typically too high.
 Corrupt frames must be discarded.
 A link-level protocol that wants to deliver frames
reliably must recover from these discarded
frames.
 This is accomplished using a combination of two
fundamental mechanisms
 Acknowledgements and Timeouts

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 Chapter 2
Reliable Transmission
 An acknowledgement (ACK for short) is a small
control frame that a protocol sends back to its
peer saying that it has received the earlier frame.
 A control frame is a frame with header only (no
data).

 The receipt of an acknowledgement indicates to

the sender of the original frame that its frame
was successfully delivered.

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 Chapter 2
Reliable Transmission
 If the sender does not receive an
acknowledgment after a reasonable amount of
time, then it retransmits the original frame.
 The action of waiting a reasonable amount of
time is called a timeout.
 The general strategy of using
acknowledgements and timeouts to implement
reliable delivery is sometimes called Automatic
Repeat reQuest (ARQ).

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 Chapter 2
Stop and Wait Protocol
 Idea of stop-and-wait protocol is straightforward

 After transmitting one frame, the sender waits for an

acknowledgement before transmitting the next frame.

 If the acknowledgement does not arrive after a certain

period of time, the sender times out and retransmits
the original frame

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 Chapter 2
Stop and Wait Protocol

Timeline showing four different scenarios for the stop-and-wait algorithm.

(a) The ACK is received before the timer expires; (b) the original frame is lost; (c) the
ACK is lost; (d) the timeout fires too soon

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 Chapter 2
Stop and Wait Protocol
 If the acknowledgment is lost (like in c) or delayed in
arriving (like in d)
 The sender times out and retransmits the original frame, but the
receiver will think that it is the next frame since it has correctly
received and acknowledged the first frame
 As a result, duplicate copies of frames will be delivered

 How to solve this

 Use 1 bit sequence number (0 or 1)
 When the sender retransmits frame 0, the receiver can determine
that it is seeing a second copy of frame 0 rather than the first
copy of frame 1 and therefore can ignore it (the receiver still
acknowledges it, in case the first acknowledgement was lost)

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 Chapter 2
Stop and Wait Protocol

Timeline for stop-and-wait with 1-bit sequence number

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 Chapter 2
Stop and Wait Protocol
 The sender has only one outstanding frame on the link at
a time
 This may be far below the link‘s capacity
 Consider a 1.5 Mbps link with a 45 ms RTT
 The link has a delay  bandwidth product of 67.5 Kb or
approximately 8 KB
 Since the sender can send only one frame per RTT and
assuming a frame size of 1 KB
 To use the link fully, then sender should transmit up to eight
frames before having to wait for an acknowledgement

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol

Timeline for Sliding Window Protocol

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 Sender assigns a sequence number denoted as
SeqNum to each frame.
 Assume it can grow infinitely large

 Sender maintains three variables

 Sending Window Size (SWS)
 Upper bound on the number of outstanding (unacknowledged)
frames that the sender can transmit
 Last Acknowledgement Received (LAR)
 Sequence number of the last acknowledgement received
 Last Frame Sent (LFS)
 Sequence number of the last frame sent

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 Sender also maintains the following invariant
LFS – LAR ≤ SWS

Sliding Window on Sender

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 When an acknowledgement arrives
 the sender moves LAR to right, thereby allowing the sender to
transmit another frame
 Also the sender associates a timer with each frame it
transmits
 It retransmits the frame if the timer expires before the ACK is
received
 Note that the sender has to be willing to buffer up to
SWS frames
 WHY?

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 Receiver maintains three variables
 Receiving Window Size (RWS)
 Upper bound on the number of out-of-order frames that the receiver
is willing to accept
 Largest Acceptable Frame (LAF)
 Sequence number of the largest acceptable frame
 Last Frame Received (LFR)
 Sequence number of the last frame received AND ACKed

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 Receiver also maintains the following invariant
LAF – LFR ≤ RWS

Sliding Window on Receiver

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 When a frame with sequence number SeqNum arrives,
what does the receiver do?

 If SeqNum ≤ LFR or SeqNum > LAF

 Discard it or (I think more accurately) don’t buffer it (the frame is
outside the receiver window)
 What about a lost ACK????? The SeqNum is less than LFR
 I think an ACK must be sent

 If LFR < SeqNum ≤ LAF

 Accept it
 Now the receiver needs to decide whether or not to send an ACK

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
 Let SeqNumToAck
 Denote the largest sequence number not yet acknowledged,
such that all frames with sequence number less than or equal
to SeqNumToAck have been received

 The receiver acknowledges the receipt of

SeqNumToAck even if high-numbered packets have
been received
 This acknowledgement is said to be cumulative.
 The receiver then sets
 LFR = SeqNumToAck and adjusts
 LAF = LFR + RWS

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 Chapter 2
Sliding Window Protocol
For example, suppose LFR = 5 and RWS = 4
(i.e. the last ACK that the receiver sent was for seq. no. 5)
 LAF = 9

If frames 7 and 8 arrive, they will be buffered because they

are within the receiver window

But no ACK will be sent since frame 6 is yet to arrive

Frames 7 and 8 are out of order
Frame 6 arrives (it is late because it was lost first time and
had to be retransmitted)
Now Receiver Acknowledges Frame 8
and bumps LFR to 8
and LAF to 12

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 Chapter 2
Issues with Sliding Window Protocol
 When timeout occurs, the amount of data in transit
decreases
 Since the sender is unable to advance its window

 When the packet loss occurs, this scheme is no longer

keeping the pipe full
 The longer it takes to notice that a packet loss has occurred, the
more severe the problem becomes

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 Chapter 2
Issues with Sliding Window Protocol

How to select the window size

 SWS is easy to compute
 Delay  Bandwidth
 RWS can be anything
 Two common setting
 RWS = 1
No buffer at the receiver for frames that arrive out of
order
 RWS = SWS

The receiver can buffer frames that the sender

transmits
It does not make any sense to keep RWS > SWS
WHY?

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 Chapter 2
Issues with Sliding Window Protocol

 Finite Sequence Number

 Frame sequence number is specified in the header
field
 Finite size
 3 bit: eight possible sequence number: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
 It is necessary to wrap around
 WRAP AROUND METHOD IS NOT REQUIRED FOR THE EXAM
 SELF STUDY

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 Chapter 2
Issues with Sliding Window Protocol

 Serves three different roles

 Reliable
 Preserve the order
 Each frame has a sequence number
 The receiver makes sure that it does not pass a frame up to
the next higher-level protocol until it has already passed up all
frames with a smaller sequence number
 Frame control
 Receiver is able to throttle the sender
 Keeps the sender from overrunning the receiver
 From transmitting more data than the receiver is able to

process

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 Chapter 2
Ethernet
 Most successful local area networking technology of last
20 years.
 Developed in the mid-1970s by researchers at the Xerox
Palo Alto Research Centers (PARC).
 Uses CSMA/CD technology
 Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection.
 A set of nodes send and receive frames over a shared link.
 Carrier sense means that all nodes can distinguish between an
idle and a busy link.
 Collision detection means that a node listens as it transmits and
can therefore detect when a frame it is transmitting has collided
with a frame transmitted by another node.

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 Chapter 2
Ethernet
 Uses ALOHA (packet radio network) as the root protocol
 Developed at the University of Hawaii to support communication
across the Hawaiian Islands.
 For ALOHA the medium was atmosphere, for Ethernet the
medium is a coax cable.
 DEC and Intel joined Xerox to define a 10-Mbps Ethernet
standard in 1978.
 This standard formed the basis for IEEE standard 802.3
 More recently 802.3 has been extended to include a 100-
Mbps version called Fast Ethernet and a 1000-Mbps
version called Gigabit Ethernet.

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 Chapter 2
Ethernet
 An Ethernet segment is implemented on a coaxial cable of up
to 500 m.
 This cable is similar to the type used for cable TV except that it
typically has an impedance of 50 ohms instead of cable TV‘s 75
ohms.
 Hosts connect to an Ethernet segment by tapping into it.
 A transceiver (a small device directly attached to the tap)
detects when the line is idle and drives signal when the host is
transmitting.
 The transceiver also receives incoming signal.
 The transceiver is connected to an Ethernet adaptor which is
plugged into the host.
 The protocol is implemented on the adaptor.

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Ethernet

Ethernet transceiver and adaptor

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Ethernet
 Multiple Ethernet segments can be joined together by
repeaters.
 A repeater is a device that forwards digital signals.
 Dump device, just repeats a signal
 One incoming port and one outgoing port
 A hub is muti-port repeater (several incoming and outgoing
ports)
 No more than four repeaters may be positioned between
any pair of hosts.
 An Ethernet has a total reach of only 2500 m.

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Ethernet

Ethernet repeater

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Ethernet

Ethernet Hub

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Ethernet
 Any signal placed on the Ethernet by a host is
broadcast over the entire network
 Signal is propagated in both directions.
 Repeaters forward the signal on all outgoing
segments.
 Terminators (i.e., transceivers) attached to the end of
each segment absorb the signal.

 Ethernet uses Manchester encoding scheme.

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Access Protocol for Ethernet
 The algorithm (protocol) is commonly called Ethernet‘s
Media Access Control (MAC).
 It is implemented in Hardware on the network adaptor.
 Frame format
 Preamble (64bit): allows the receiver to synchronize with the
signal (sequence of alternating 0s and 1s).
 Host and Destination Address (48bit each).
 Packet type (16bit): acts as demux key to identify the higher level
protocol.
 Data (up to 1500 bytes)
 Minimally a frame must contain at least 46 bytes of data.
 Frame must be long enough to detect collision.
 CRC (32bit)

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Ethernet Frame

Ethernet Frame Format

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Ethernet Addresses
 Each host on an Ethernet (in fact, every Ethernet host in
the world) has a unique Ethernet Address.
 The address belongs to the adaptor, not the host.
 It is usually burnt into ROM.
 Called MAC (Media Access Control) address
 Ethernet addresses are typically printed in a human
readable format
 As a sequence of six numbers separated by colons.
 Each number corresponds to 1 byte of the 6 byte address and is
given by a pair of hexadecimal digits, one for each of the 4-bit
nibbles in the byte
 Leading 0s are dropped.
 For example, 8:0:2b:e4:b1:2 is
 00001000 00000000 00101011 11100100 10110001 00000010

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 Chapter 2
Ethernet Addresses
 To ensure that every adaptor gets a unique address,
each manufacturer of Ethernet devices is allocated a
different prefix that must be prepended to the address on
every adaptor they build
 AMD has been assigned the 24bit prefix 8:0:20

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Ethernet Addresses
 Each frame transmitted on an Ethernet is received by
every adaptor connected to that Ethernet.
 Each adaptor recognizes those frames addressed to its
address and passes only those frames on to the host.
 In addition, to unicast address, an Ethernet address
consisting of all 1s is treated as a broadcast address.
 All adaptors pass frames addressed to the broadcast address up
to the host.
 Similarly, an address that has the first bit set to 1 but is
not the broadcast address is called a multicast address.
 A given host can program its adaptor to accept some set of
multicast addresses.

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Ethernet Addresses
 To summarize, an Ethernet adaptor receives all frames
and accepts
 Frames addressed to its own address
 Frames addressed to the broadcast address
 Frames addressed to a multicast addressed if it has been
instructed

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 When the adaptor has a frame to send and the line is
idle, it transmits the frame immediately.
 The upper bound of 1500 bytes in the message means that the
adaptor can occupy the line for a fixed length of time.
 When the adaptor has a frame to send and the line is
busy, it waits for the line to go idle and then transmits
immediately.
 The Ethernet is said to be 1-persistent protocol because
an adaptor with a frame to send transmits with
probability 1 whenever a busy line goes idle.

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 Since there is no centralized control it is possible for
two (or more) adaptors to begin transmitting at the same
time,
 Either because both found the line to be idle,
 Or, both had been waiting for a busy line to become idle.
 When this happens, the two (or more) frames are said to
be collide on the network.

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 Since Ethernet supports collision detection, each sender
is able to determine that a collision is in progress.
 At the moment an adaptor detects that its frame is
colliding with another, it first makes sure to transmit a 32-
bit jamming sequence and then stops transmission.
 Thus, a transmitter will minimally send 96 bits in the case of
collision
 64-bit preamble + 32-bit jamming sequence

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 One way that an adaptor will send only 96 bit (called a
runt frame) is if the two hosts are close to each other.
 Had they been farther apart,
 They would have had to transmit longer, and thus send more
bits, before detecting the collision.

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 The worst case scenario happens when the two hosts
are at opposite ends of the Ethernet.
 To know for sure that the frame its just sent did not
collide with another frame, the transmitter may need to
send as many as 512 bits.
 Every Ethernet frame must be at least 512 bits (64 bytes) long
(besides the preamble)
 14 bytes of header (src addr, dst addr, type) + 46 bytes of data + 4
bytes of CRC

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 Why 512 bits?
 Why is its length limited to 2500 m?

 The farther apart two nodes are, the longer it takes for a
frame sent by one to reach the other, and the network is
vulnerable to collision during this time

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 A begins transmitting a frame at time t
 d denotes the one link (propagation) delay
 The first bit of A‘s frame arrives at B at time t + d
 Suppose an instant before host A‘s frame arrives, host B
begins to transmit its own frame
 B‘s frame will immediately collide with A‘s frame and this
collision will be detected by host B
 Host B will send the 32-bit jamming sequence
 Host A will not know that the collision occurred until B‘s
frame reaches it, which will happen at t + 2 * d
 Host A must continue to transmit until this time in order to
detect the collision
 Host A must transmit for 2 * d to be sure that it detects all
possible collisions

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm

Worst-case scenario: (a) A sends a frame at time t; (b) A’s frame arrives
at B at time t + d; (c) B begins transmitting at time t + d and collides with A’s frame;
(d) B‘s jamming sequence(32-bit) frame arrives at A at time t + 2d.

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 Consider that a maximally configured Ethernet is
2500 m long, and there may be up to four
repeaters between any two hosts, the round trip
time (RTT) has been determined to be 51.2 s
 Which on 10 Mbps Ethernet corresponds to 512 bits
 RTT * bandwidth = the number of bits needed to be sent
 512 bits / 10 Mbps = 51.2 s
 The other way to look at this situation,
 We need to limit the Ethernet‘s maximum latency to a
fairly small value (51.2 s) for the access algorithm to
work
 Hence the maximum length for the Ethernet is on the order of
2500 m.
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 Chapter 2
Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 Once an adaptor has detected a collision, and stopped
its transmission, it waits a certain amount of time and
tries again.
 Each time the adaptor tries to transmit but fails, it
doubles the amount of time it waits before trying again.
 This strategy of doubling the delay interval between each
retransmission attempt is known as
Exponential Backoff.

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Ethernet Transmitter Algorithm
 The adaptor first delays either 0 or 51.2 s, selected at
random.
 If this effort fails, it then waits 0, 51.2, 102.4, 153.6 s
(selected randomly) before trying again;
 This is k * 51.2 for k = 0, 1, 2, 3
 After the third collision, it waits k * 51.2 for k = 0…23 – 1
(again selected at random).
 In general, the algorithm randomly selects a k between 0
and 2n – 1 and waits for k * 51.2 s, where n is the
number of collisions experienced so far.

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Experience with Ethernet
 Ethernets work best under lightly loaded conditions.
 Under heavy loads, too much of the network‘s capacity is wasted
by collisions.
 Most Ethernets are used in a conservative way.
 Have fewer than 200 hosts connected to them which is far fewer
than the maximum of 1024.
 Most Ethernets are far shorter than 2500m with a round-
trip delay of closer to 5 s than 51.2 s.
 Ethernets are easy to administer and maintain.
 There are no switches that can fail and no routing and
configuration tables that have to be kept up-to-date.
 It is easy to add a new host to the network.
 It is inexpensive.
 Cable is cheap, and only other cost is the network adaptor on each host.

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 Chapter 2
Token Rings
 Very popular, but almost obsolete(No longer in
use).
 Optional read, page 129 in the book.

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Wireless Links
 Wireless links transmit electromagnetic signals
 Radio, microwave, infrared
 Bit errors are of a greater concern
 Unpredictable noise environment
 Framing and reliability should be addressed
 Power is a very big issue
 Laptops, small mobiles and sensor devices with limited access
power (battery)
 Wireless is a multi-access media (Shared environment)
 Can NOT direct your radio transmission to a specific receiver
NOR choose not to receive from any close transmitter
 Media access control is a central issue for wireless links
 Also, issue of eavesdropping (‫ )التنصت‬must be addressed in
wireless networks
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Wireless Links
 Different wireless technologies
 One simple way to categorize those technologies
 Data rates they provide and how far apart communicating nodes can be
 Which part of the electromagnetic spectrum they use
 Do they require a license?
 How much power they consume

 Four prominent wireless technologies

 Wi-Fi ( more formally known as 802.11)
 Bluetooth
 Third-generation or (3G) of cellular wireless standards
 WiMAX

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Wireless Links

Overview of leading wireless technologies

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Wireless Links
 Sharing the (wireless) medium is by dividing it along
 Frequency and Space
 The use of a particular frequency in a particular area may be
allocated to an individual entity such as corporation
 The farther the signal from the origin, the weaker
 To reduce to the area covered by your signals, reduce the power
of your transmitter.
 These allocations are determined by government
agencies

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Wireless Links
 Specific bands (frequency) ranges are allocated
(reserved) to certain uses.
 Government, AM radio, FM radio, televisions, satellite
communications, and cell phones
 Specific frequencies within these bands are then allocated to
individual organizations for use within certain geographical areas.
 Finally, there are several frequency bands set aside for ―license
exempt‖ usage
 Bands in which a license is not needed

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Wireless Links
 Devices that use license-exempt frequencies are still
subject to certain restrictions
 The most important of these is a limit on transmission power
 This limits the range of signal, making it less likely to interfere
with another signal
 For example, a cordless phone might have a range of about 100 feet.

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Wireless Links
 Avoiding interference
 Spread Spectrum technique
 The idea is to spread the signal over a wider frequency band
 So as to minimize the impact of interference from other devices
 Originally designed for military use
 First technique: Frequency hopping
 Transmitting signal over a random sequence of frequencies
- First transmitting at one frequency, then a second, then a third…
- The sequence of frequencies is not truly random, instead computed algorithmically
by a pseudorandom number generator
- The receiver uses the same algorithm as the sender, initializes it with the same
seed, and is
- Able to hop frequencies in sync with the transmitter to correctly receive the frame

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Wireless Links
 A second spread spectrum technique called Direct
sequence
 Represents each bit in the frame by multiple bits in the
transmitted signal.
 If some the transmitted bits are damaged by interference, there is
usually enough redundancy to recover the original bit
 For each bit the sender wants to transmit
 It actually sends the exclusive OR of that bit and n random bits
 The sequence of random bits is generated by a pseudorandom
number generator known to both the sender and the receiver.
 The transmitted values, known as an n-bit chipping code,
spread the signal across a frequency band that is n times wider

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Wireless Links

Example 4-bit chipping sequence

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Wireless Links
 Mostly widely used wireless links today are usually
asymmetric
 Two end-points are usually different kinds of nodes
 One end-point usually has no mobility, but has wired connection to the
Internet (known as base station)
 The node at the other end of the link is often mobile

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Wireless Links

A wireless network using a base station

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Wireless Links
 Wireless communication supports point-to-multipoint
communication
 Communication between non-base (client) nodes is
routed via the base station
 The common base station model does not permit direct
communications between the client nodes
 Three levels of mobility for clients
 No mobility: the receiver must be in a fix location to receive a
directional transmission from the base station (initial version of
WiMAX)
 Mobility is within the range of a base (Bluetooth)
 Mobility between bases (Cell phones and Wi-Fi)

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Wireless Links
 The other topology is Mesh (or Ad-hoc) network
 Includes wireless mesh and sensor networks
 Nodes are peers (i.e., no special base station node).
 Messages may be forwarded via a chain of peer nodes

A wireless ad-hoc or mesh network

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IEEE 802.11
 Also known as Wi-Fi (could be from Wireless Fidelity)
 Like its Ethernet and token ring siblings, 802.11 is
designed for use in a limited geographical area (homes,
office buildings, campuses)
 Primary challenge is to mediate access to a shared
communication medium – in this case, signals propagating
through space
 802.11 supports additional features
 power management and
 security mechanisms

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IEEE 802.11
 Original 802.11 standard defined two radio-based physical layer
standard
 One using the frequency hopping
 Over 79 1-MHz-wide frequency bandwidths
 Second using direct sequence
 Using 11-bit chipping sequence
 Both standards provide up to 2 Mbps
 Then physical layer standard 802.11b was added
 Using a variant of direct sequence 802.11b provides up to 11 Mbps
 Uses license-exempt 2.4-GHz band
 Then came 802.11a which delivers up to 54 Mbps a variant of FDM
called Orthogonal FDM (OFDM)
 802.11a runs on license-exempt 5-GHz band
 The came 802.11g (uses OFDM and provide up to 54 Mbps)
 Most recent is 802.11n (up to 600 Mbps)

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IEEE 802.11
 Commercial product may support more than one
standard
 Some base stations support all four (a, b, g, and n) to work with any device
 Also, all 802.11 standard define the maximum rate, but they can
work at lower rates if necessary
 E.g., 802.11a works at bit rates of 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 54 Mbps
 At lower rates, it is easier to decode signals in the presence of noise
 The system try to pick an optimal (the best) bit rate based on the noise
environment

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 Chapter 2
IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 Can we the same Ethernet protocol as the wireless
protocol??!!!!
 Wait until the link becomes idle before sending
 And then, back off if a collision occurs
 To the first approximation, this is what 802.11 does.
 However, the following conditions hold in the Ethernet,
but NOT in the wireless network
 Every node receives every other node‘s transmissions
 In wireless: two nodes may be too far away or blocked by an obstacle
 And, can transmit and receive at the same time
 In wireless: the power generated by the transmitter is much higher than any
received signal, and thus swamps the receiving circuitry

 Thus, collision detection is more complex in wireless

networks

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 Consider the situation in the following figure where each
of four nodes is able to send and receive signals that
reach just the nodes to its immediate left and right
 For example, B can exchange frames with A and C
 C can reach B but not A

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 Suppose both A and C want to communicate with B and
so they each send it a frame.
 A and C are unaware of each other since their signals do not
carry that far (i.e., A‘s signals don‘t reach C, and the same for C).
 These two frames collide with each other at B (the receiver)
 But unlike an Ethernet, neither A nor C is aware of this collision
 A and C are said to hidden nodes with respect to each other

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance

The ―Hidden Node‖ Problem. Although A and C are hidden from each
other, their signals can collide at B. (B‘s reach is not shown.)

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 Another problem called exposed node problem occurs
 Suppose B is sending to A. Node C is aware of this
communication because it hears B‘s transmission.
 It would be a mistake for C to conclude that it cannot transmit to
anyone just because it can hear B‘s transmission.
 Suppose C wants to transmit to node D.
 This is not a problem since C‘s transmission to D will not interfere
with A‘s ability to receive from B.

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance

Exposed Node Problem. Although B and C are exposed to each other‘s

signals, there is no interference if B transmits to A while C transmits to D. (A and D‘s
reaches are not shown.)

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 CSMA/CA: Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance
 Key Idea
 Sender and receiver exchange control frames with each other

before the sender actually transmits any data.

 This exchange informs all nearby nodes that a transmission is

about to begin
 Sender transmits a Request to Send (RTS) frame to the receiver.

 The RTS frame includes a field that indicates how long the sender
wants to hold the medium
- Length of the data frame to be transmitted
 Receiver replies with a Clear to Send (CTS) frame
 This frame echoes this length field back to the sender

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 Any node that sees the CTS frame knows that
 it is close to the receiver, therefore
 cannot transmit for the period of time it takes to send a frame of
the specified length
 Any node that sees the RTS frame but not the CTS
frame
 is not close enough to the receiver to interfere with it, and
 so is free to transmit

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IEEE 802.11 – Collision Avoidance
 Receiver sends an ACK to the sender after successfully
receiving a frame
 If two or more nodes detect an idle link and try to transmit
an RTS frame at the same time
 Their RTS frame will collide with each other
 802.11 does not support collision detection
 So the senders realize the collision has happened when they do
not receive the CTS frame after a period of time
 In this case, they each wait a random amount of time before
trying again.
 The amount of time a given node delays is defined by the same
exponential backoff algorithm used on the Ethernet.

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 Chapter 2
IEEE 802.11 – Distribution System
 Nearly, all 802.11 networks use base-station-oriented
topology
 Though, 802.11 is suitable for an ad-hoc configuration of nodes
that may or may not be able to communicate with all other nodes.
 802.11s standard for mesh networks
 Instead of all nodes being created equal,
 some nodes are allowed to roam
 some are connected to a wired network infrastructure
- they are called Access Points (AP) and they are
connected to each other by a so-called
distribution system

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IEEE 802.11 – Distribution System
 a distribution system that connects three access points
 Each of which services the nodes in the same region
 Each operates on different frequency channel
 The distribution network runs at layer 2 of the ISO architecture
 Could be Ethernet or any other technology

Access points connected to a distribution network

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IEEE 802.11 – Distribution System
 Although two nodes can communicate directly with each other if they
are within reach of each other, the idea behind this configuration is
 Each nodes associates itself with one access point
 For node A to communicate with node E, A first sends a frame to its AP-
1 which forwards the frame across the distribution system to AP-3,
which finally transmits the frame to E

Access points connected to a distribution network

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IEEE 802.11 – Distribution System
 How do the nodes select their access points
 How does it work when nodes move from one cell to another

 The technique for selecting an AP is called scanning

 The node sends a Probe frame
 All APs within reach reply with a Probe Response frame
 The node selects one of the access points and sends that AP an
Association Request frame
 The AP replies with an Association Response frame

 A node engages this protocol whenever

 it joins the network, as well as
 when it becomes unhappy with its current AP
 This might happen, for example, because the signal from its current AP has
weakened due to the node moving away from it
 Whenever a node acquires a new AP, the new AP notifies the old AP of the
change via the distribution system

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 Chapter 2
IEEE 802.11 – Distribution System
 Consider the situation shown in the following figure when node C
moves from the cell serviced by AP-1 to the cell serviced by AP-2.
 As it moves, it sends Probe frames, which eventually result in Probe
Responses from AP-2.
 At some point, C prefers AP-2 over AP-1 , and so it associates itself
with that access point.
 This is called active scanning since the node is actively searching for
an access point

Node Mobility

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IEEE 802.11 – Distribution System
 APs also periodically send a Beacon frame that advertises the
capabilities of the access point; these include the transmission rate
supported by the AP
 This is called passive scanning
 A node can change to this AP based on the Beacon frame simply by
sending it an Association Request frame back to the access point.

Node Mobility

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IEEE 802.11 – Frame Format
 Source and Destinations addresses: each 48 bits
 Data: up to 2312 bytes
 CRC: 32 bit
 Control field: 16 bits
 Contains three subfields (of interest)
 6 bit Type field: indicates whether the frame carries data, is an RTS or CTS
frame, or being used by the scanning algorithm
 1 bit field: called ToDS
 1 bit field: called FromDS

Frame Format

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IEEE 802.11 – Frame Format
 Frame contains four addresses
 How these addresses are interpreted depends on the settings of the
ToDS and FromDS bits in the frame‘s Control field
 This is to account for the possibility that the frame had to be
forwarded across the distribution system which would mean that,
 the original sender is not necessarily the same as the most recent
transmitting node
 Same is true for the destination address
 Simplest case
 When one node is sending directly to another, both the DS bits are 0,
Addr1 identifies the target node, and Addr2 identifies the source node

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IEEE 802.11 – Frame Format
 Most complex case
 Both DS bits are set to 1
 Indicates that the message went from a wireless node onto the distribution
system, and then from the distribution system to another wireless node
 With both bits set,
 Addr1 identifies the ultimate destination,
 Addr2 identifies the immediate sender (the one that forwarded the frame
from the distribution system to the ultimate destination)
 Addr3 identifies the intermediate destination (the one that accepted the
frame from a wireless node and forwarded across the distribution system)
 Addr4 identifies the original source

 For example given for figure 2.32 (A sends to E)

 Addr1: E, Addr2: AP-3, Addr3: AP-1, Addr4: A

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Bluetooth
 Used for very short range communication between
mobile phones, PDAs, notebook computers and other
personal or peripheral devices
 Operates in the license-exempt band at 2.45 GHz
 Has a range of only 10 m
 Communication devices typically belong to one individual
or group
 Sometimes categorized as Personal Area Network (PAN)
 Version 2.0 provides speeds up to 2.1 Mbps
 Power consumption is low

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ZigBee
 ZigBee is a new technology that competes with Bluetooth
 Devised by the ZigBee alliance and standardized as
IEEE 802.15.4
 It is designed for situations where the bandwidth
requirements are low and power consumption must be
very low to give very long battery life
 It is also intended to be simpler and cheaper than
Bluetooth, making it financially feasible to incorporate in
cheaper devices such as a wall switch that wirelessly
communicates with a ceiling-mounted fan

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Cell Phone Technologies
 Self reading
 NOT REQUIRED FOR THE EXAM

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 Chapter 2
Summary
 We introduced the many and varied type of links that are
used to connect users to existing networks, and to
construct large networks from scratch.
 We looked at the five key issues that must be addressed
so that two or more nodes connected by some medium
can exchange messages with each other
 Encoding
 Framing
 Error Detecting
 Reliability
 Multiple Access Links
 Ethernet
 Wireless 802.11, Bluetooth

137