Transmission Media & Switching

Course Code: COE 3201 Course Title: Data Communication

Dept. of Computer Engineering

Faculty of Engineering

Lecture No: 11 Week No: 12 Semester:

Lecturer:
Lecture Outline

1. The first section introduces the transmission media and defines its position in the
Internet model. It shows that we can classify transmission media into two broad
categories: guided and unguided media.

2. The second section discusses guided media. The first part describes twisted-pair
cables and their characteristics and applications. The second part describes coaxial
cables and their characteristics and applications

3. The third section discusses unguided media. The first part describes radio waves and
their characteristics and applications. The second part describes microwaves and
their characteristics and applications.

4. The fourth Section discuss about Switching Techniques

Transmission Medium

Transmission media are actually located below the physical layer and are directly
controlled by the physical layer. We could say that transmission media belong to
layer zero. Figure shows the position of transmission media in relation to the
physical layer.

Figure : Transmission media and physical layer

Transmission media

Figure : Classes of transmission media

GUIDED MEDIA

Guided media, which are those that provide a conduit from one device to another,
include twisted-pair cable, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic cable. A signal traveling
along any of these media is directed and contained by the physical limits of the
medium.

A twisted pair consists of two conductors (normally copper), each with its own
plastic insulation, twisted together, as shown in Figure 7.3.

One of the wires is used to carry signals to the receiver, and the other is used only
as a ground reference. The receiver uses the difference between the two.

In addition to the signal sent by the sender on one of the wires, interference (noise)
and crosstalk may affect both wires and create unwanted signals.
Twisted-Pair Cable

Figure 7.3: Twisted-pair cable

Figure 7.4: UTP and STP cables

Twisted-Pair Cable
Table 7.1: Categories of unshielded twisted-pair cables

Figure 7.5: UTP Connectors

Coaxial Cable

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

Figure 7.7: Coaxial cable

Coaxial Cable
Table 7.2: Categories of coaxial cables

Figure 7.8: BNC connectors

Fiber-Optic Cable
A fiber-optic cable is made of glass or plastic and transmits signals in the form of
light. To understand optical fiber, we first need to explore several aspects of the
nature of light.

Figure 7.11: Optical fiber

Table 7.3: Fiber types

Fiber-Optic Cable

Figure 7.14: Fiber connection

Figure 7.15: Fiber-optic cable connector

UNGUIDED MEDIA

Unguided medium transport waves without using a physical conductor. This

type of communication is often referred to as wireless communication.
Signals are normally broadcast through free space and thus are available to
anyone who has a device capable of receiving them.

Figure 7.17: Electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communication

UNGUIDED MEDIA

Figure 7.18: Propagation methods

UNGUIDED MEDIA

Table 7.4: Bands

Radio Waves
Although there is no clear-cut demarcation between radio waves and microwaves,
electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies between 3 kHz and 1 GHz are normally
called radio waves; waves ranging in frequencies between 1 and 300 GHz are called
microwaves. However, the behavior of the waves, rather than the frequencies, is a
better criterion for classification.

Figure 7.19: Omnidirectional antenna

Microwaves

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

Figure 7.20: Unidirectional antenna

Infrared

Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300 GHz to 400 THz (wavelengths from 1
mm to 770 nm), can be used for short-range communication. Infrared waves, having
high frequencies, cannot penetrate walls. This advantageous characteristic prevents
interference between one system and another; a short-range communication system
in one room cannot be affected by another system in the next room. When we use
our infrared remote control, we do not interfere with the use of the remote by our
neighbors.
 Switching Techniques

Figure : Taxonomy of switched networks

Switching and TCP/IP Layers
Switching can happen at several layers of the TCP/IP protocol suite.

Switching at Physical Layer: At the physical layer, we can have only circuit
switching. There are no packets exchanged at the physical layer. The switches at the
physical layer allow signals to travel in one path or another.

Switching at Data-Link Layer At the data-link layer, we can have packet

switching. However, the term packet in this case means frames or cells. Packet
switching at the data-link layer is normally done using a virtual-circuit approach.

Switching at Network Layer At the network layer, we can have packet switching.
In this case, either a virtual-circuit approach or a datagram approach can be used.
Currently the Internet uses a datagram approach, but the tendency is to move to a
virtual-circuit approach.

Switching at Application Layer At the application layer, we can have only

message switching. The communication at the application layer occurs by
exchanging messages. Conceptually, we can say that communication using e-mail is
a kind of message-switched communication, but we do not see any network that
actually can be called a message-switched network.
Circuit Switched Network

Figure: A trivial circuit-switched network

Circuit Switched Network

Figure: Circuit-switched network used in Example

Circuit Switched Network

Figure: Delay in a circuit-switched network

Packet Switching

 Messages are broken into small segments of bit-sequences and they are called
packets. As packets are restricted to a specific size, they can be routed more
rapidly.
 Packets have the following structure:

Header Data

 Header carries control information (e.g., destination id, source id, message
id, packet id, control info)

 Each packet is passed through the network from node to node along some path
(Routing)

 At each node the entire packet is received, stored briefly, and then forwarded to
the next node (Store-and-Forward Networks)

 Typically no storage is required at nodes/switches for packets.

Datagram Packet Switched Network

Figure: A datagram network with four switches (routers)

Datagram Packet Switched Network

 A switch in a datagram network uses a routing

table that is based on the destination address.

 The destination address in the header of a packet

in a datagram network remains the same during
the entire journey of the packet.

Figure: Routing table in a datagram network

Datagram Packet Switched Network

Figure: Delay in a datagram network

Virtual Circuit Packet Switched Network

Figure: Virtual-circuit network

Virtual Circuit Packet Switched Network

Figure: Source-to-destination data transfer in a virtual-circuit network

Virtual Circuit Packet Switched Network

Figure: Delay in a virtual-circuit network

Books

1. Forouzan, B. A. "Data Communication and Networking. Tata McGraw." (2005).

References

1. Prakash C. Gupta, “Data communications”, Prentice Hall India Pvt.

2. William Stallings, "Data and Computer Communications”, Pearson
3. Forouzan, B. A. "Data Communication and Networking. Tata McGraw." (2005).