Answer to selected Review Questions in Chapter 1

R1. What is the difference between a host and an end system? List several different types of end
systems. Is a Web server an end system?
There is no difference. Throughout this text, the words “host” and “end system” are used
interchangeably. End systems include PCs, workstations, Web servers, mail servers, PDAs,
Internet-connected game consoles, etc.

R3. Why are standards important for protocols?

R6. What access network technologies would be most suitable for providing Internet access in
rural areas?
In most American cities, the current possibilities include dial-up; DSL; cable modem; fiber-to-the-
home

R8. What are some of the physical media that Ethernet can run over?
Today, Ethernet most commonly runs over twisted-pair copper wire. It also can run over fibers
optic links.

R9. Dial-up modems, HFC, DSL and FTTH are all used for residential access. For each of these
access technologies, provide a range of transmission rates and comment on whether the
transmission rate is shared or dedicated.
Dial up modems: up to 56 Kbps, bandwidth is dedicated; ADSL: up to 24 Mbps downstream and
2.5 Mbps upstream, bandwidth is dedicated; HFC, rates up to 42.8 Mbps and upstream rates of up
to 30.7 Mbps, bandwidth is shared. FTTH: 2-10Mbps upload; 10-20 Mbps download; bandwidth
is not shared.

R10. Describe the different wireless technologies you use during the day and their characteristics.
If you have a choice between multiple technologies, why do you prefer one over another?
There are two popular wireless Internet access technologies today:
a) Wifi (802.11) In a wireless LAN, wireless users transmit/receive packets to/from an base station
(i.e., wireless access point) within a radius of few tens of meters. The base station is typically
connected to the wired Internet and thus serves to connect wireless users to the wired network.
b) 3G and 4G wide-area wireless access networks. In these systems, packets are transmitted over
the same wireless infrastructure used for cellular telephony, with the base station thus being
managed by a telecommunications provider. This provides wireless access to users within a radius
of tens of kilometers of the base station.

R11. Suppose there is exactly one packet switch between a sending host and a receiving host. The
transmission rates between the sending host and the switch and between the switch and the
receiving host are R1 and R2, respectively. Assuming that the switch uses store-and-forward packet
switching, what is the total end-to-end delay to send a packet of length L? (Ignore queuing,
propagation delay, and processing delay.)
At time t0 the sending host begins to transmit. At time t1 = L/R1, the sending host completes
transmission and the entire packet is received at the router (no propagation delay). Because the
router has the entire packet at time t1, it can begin to transmit the packet to the receiving host at
time t1. At time t2 = t1 + L/R2, the router completes transmission and the entire packet is received
at the receiving host (again, no propagation delay). Thus, the end-to-end delay is L/R1 + L/R2.

R12. What advantage does a circuit-switched network have over a packet-switched network? What
advantages does TDM have over FDM in a circuit-switched network?
A circuit-switched network can guarantee a certain amount of end-to-end bandwidth for the
duration of a call. Most packet-switched networks today (including the Internet) cannot make any
end-to-end guarantees for bandwidth. FDM requires sophisticated analog hardware to shift signal
into appropriate frequency bands.

R14. Why will two ISPs at the same level of the hierarchy often peer with each other? How does
an IXP earn money?
If the two ISPs do not peer with each other, then when they send traffic to each other they have to
send the traffic through a provider ISP (intermediary), to which they have to pay for carrying the
traffic. By peering with each other directly, the two ISPs can reduce their payments to their
provider ISPs. An Internet Exchange Points (IXP) (typically in a standalone building with its own
switches) is a meeting point where multiple ISPs can connect and/or peer together. An ISP earns
its money by charging each of the the ISPs that connect to the IXP a relatively small fee, which
may depend on the amount of traffic sent to or received from the IXP.

R16. Consider sending a packet from a source host to a destination host over a fixed route. List the
delay components in the end-to-end delay. Which of these delays are constant and which are
variable?
The delay components are processing delays, transmission delays, propagation delays, and
queuing delays. All of these delays are fixed, except for the queuing delays, which are variable.

R19. Suppose Host A wants to send a large file to Host B. The path from Host A to Host B has
three links, of rates R1 = 500 kbps, R2 = 2 Mbps, and R3 = 1 Mbps.
a. Assuming no other traffic in the network, what is the throughput for the file transfer?
b. Suppose the file is 4 million bytes. Dividing the file size by the throughput, roughly how long
will it take to transfer the file to Host B?
c. Repeat (a) and (b), but now with R2 reduced to 100 kbps.
a) 500 kbps
b) 64 seconds
c) 100kbps; 320 seconds

R20. Suppose end system A wants to send a large file to end system B. At a very high level,
describe how end system A creates packets from the file. When one of these packets arrives to a
router, what information in the packet does the router use to determine the link onto which the
packet is forwarded? Why is packet switching in the Internet analogous to driving from one city
to another and asking directions along the way?
End system A breaks the large file into chunks. It adds header to each chunk, thereby generating
multiple packets from the file. The header in each packet includes the IP address of the destination
(end system B). The packet switch uses the destination IP address in the packet to determine the
outgoing link. Asking which road to take is analogous to a packet asking which outgoing link it
should be forwarded on, given the packet’s destination address.

R22. If two end-systems are connected through multiple routers and the data-link level between
them ensures reliable data delivery, is a transport protocol offering reliable data delivery between
these two end-systems necessary? Why?
Five generic tasks are error control, flow control, segmentation and reassembly, multiplexing, and
connection setup. Yes, these tasks can be duplicated at different layers. For example, error control
is often provided at more than one layer.

R23. What are the five layers in the Internet protocol stack? What are the principal responsibilities
of each of these layers?
The five layers in the Internet protocol stack are – from top to bottom – the application layer, the
transport layer, the network layer, the link layer, and the physical layer. The principal
responsibilities are outlined in Section 1.5.1.

R24. What do encapsulation and de-encapsulation mean? Why are they needed in a layered
protocol stack?
Application-layer message: data which an application wants to send and passed onto the transport
layer; transport-layer segment: generated by the transport layer and encapsulates application-layer
message with transport layer header; network-layer datagram: encapsulates transport-layer
segment with a network-layer header; link-layer frame: encapsulates network-layer datagram with
a link-layer header.

R25. Which layers in the Internet protocol stack does a router process? Which layers does a link-
layer switch process? Which layers does a host process?
Routers process network, link and physical layers (layers 1 through 3). (This is a little bit of a
white lie, as modern routers sometimes act as firewalls or caching components, and process
Transport layer as well.) Link layer switches process link and physical layers (layers 1 through2).
Hosts process all five layers.