COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

MODULE 1
CHAPTER 2
PHYSICAL LAYER
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA
The purpose of the physical layer is to transport bits from one machine to another. Various
physical media can be used for the actual transmission.
Each one has its own niche in terms of bandwidth, delay, cost, and ease of installation and
maintenance.
Media are roughly grouped into guided media, such as copper wire and fiber optics, and unguided
media, such as terrestrial wireless, satellite, and lasers through the air.

1. Magnetic Media
One of the most common ways to transport data from one computer to another is to write them
onto magnetic tape or removable media (e.g., recordable DVDs), physically transport the tape or
disks to the destination machine, and read them back in again.
This method is not as sophisticated as using a communication satellite, it is cost effective,
especially for applications in which high bandwidth or cost per bit transported is the key factor.
A simple calculation will make this point clear.
An Ultrium tape can hold 800 gigabytes. A box 60 × 60 × 60 cm can hold about 1000 of these
tapes, for a total capacity of 800 terabytes, or 6400 terabits (6.4 petabits). A box of tapes can be
delivered anywhere in the United States in 24 hours by Federal Express and other companies.
The effective bandwidth of this transmission is 6400 terabits/86,400 sec, or a bit over 70 Gbps. If
the destination is only an hour away by road, the bandwidth is increased to over 1700 Gbps.
No computer network can even approach this. Of course, networks are getting faster, but tape
densities are increasing, too.

2. Twisted Pairs
The bandwidth characteristics of magnetic tape are excellent, the delay characteristics are poor.
A twisted pair consists of two insulated copper wires, typically about 1 mm thick. The wires are
twisted together in a helical form, just like a DNA molecule. Twisting is done because two parallel
wires constitute a fine antenna. When the wires are twisted, the waves from different twists
cancel out, so the wire radiates less effectively. A signal is usually carried as the difference in
voltage between the two wires in the pair. This provides better immunity to external noise
because the noise tends to affect both wires the same, leaving the differential unchanged.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

The most common application of the twisted pair is the telephone system. Nearly all telephones
are connected to the telephone company office by a twisted pair.
Both telephone calls and ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) Internet access run over
these lines. Twisted pairs can run several kilometers without amplification, but for longer
distances the signal becomes too attenuated and repeaters are needed. When many twisted
pairs run in parallel for a substantial distance, such as all the wires coming from an apartment
building to the telephone company office, they are bundled together and encased in a protective
sheath. The pairs in these bundles would interfere with one another if there was no twisting
done. Twisted pairs can be used for transmitting either analog or digital information. The
bandwidth depends on the thickness of the wire and the distance traveled, but several
megabits/sec can be achieved for a few kilometers in many cases. Due to their adequate
performance and low cost, twisted pairs are widely used.

Twisted-pair cabling comes in several varieties. The garden variety deployed in many office
buildings is called Category 5 cabling, or ‘‘Cat 5’’ which consists of two insulated wires gently
twisted together.
Four such pairs are grouped in a plastic sheath to protect the wires and keep them together. This
arrangement is shown in Fig. above.
Different LAN standards may use the twisted pairs differently. For example, 100-Mbps Ethernet
uses two (out of the four) pairs, one pair for each direction. To reach higher speeds, 1-Gbps
Ethernet uses all four pairs in both directions simultaneously.
Links that can be used in both directions at the same time, like a two-lane road, are called full-
duplex links.
In contrast, links that can be used in either direction, but only one way at a time, like a single-
track railroad line are called half-duplex links.
A third category consists of links that allow traffic in only one direction, like a one-way street.
They are called simplex links.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

Cat 5 replaced earlier Cat 3 cables with a similar cable that uses the same connector, but has
more twists per meter. More twists result in less crosstalk and a better-quality signal over longer
distances, making the cables more suitable for high-speed computer communication. New wiring
is more to be Cat 6 or even Cat 7.
Category 6, these wiring types are referred to as UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) as they consist
simply of wires and insulators.
Category 7 cables have shielding on the individual twisted pairs, as well as around the entire cable
(but inside the plastic protective sheath). Shielding reduces the susceptibility to external
interference and crosstalk with other nearby cables.

3. Coaxial Cable

Another common transmission medium is the coaxial cable. It has better shielding and greater
bandwidth than unshielded twisted pairs, so it can span longer distances at higher speeds. Two
kinds of coaxial cable are widely used.

● 50-ohm cable, is commonly used for digital transmission.

● 75-ohm cable, is commonly used for analog transmission and cable television.

Starting in the mid1990s, cable TV operators began to provide Internet access over cable,
which has made 75-ohm cable more important for data communication. A coaxial cable
consists of a stiff copper wire as the core, surrounded by an insulating material. The insulator
is encased by a cylindrical conductor, often as a closely woven braided mesh. The outer
conductor is covered in a protective plastic sheath. A cutaway view of a coaxial cable is shown
in Fig. below.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

4. Power Lines

The telephone and cable television networks are not the only sources of wiring that can be reused
for data communication. There is a yet more common kind of wiring: electrical power lines.
Power lines deliver electrical power to houses, and electrical wiring within houses distributes the
power to electrical outlets.

The use of power lines for data communication is an old idea. Power lines have been used by
electricity companies for low-rate communication such as remote metering for many years, as
well in the home to control devices. In recent years there has been renewed interest in high-rate
communication over these lines, both inside the home as a LAN and outside the home for
broadband Internet access. The convenience of using power lines for networking is an important
factor to be considered. Simply plug a TV and a receiver into the wall, which you must do anyway
because they need power and they can send and receive movies over the electrical wiring. This
configuration is shown in Fig. below.

A NETWORK THAT USES HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICAL WIRING

The data signal is superimposed on the low-frequency power signal as both signals use the wiring
at the same time. The difficulty with using household electrical wiring for a network is that it was
designed to distribute power signals. This task is quite different than distributing data signals, at
which household wiring does a horrible job. Electrical signals are sent at 50–60 Hz and the wiring
attenuates the much higher frequency (MHz) signals needed for high-rate data communication.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

The electrical properties of the wiring vary from one house to the next and change as appliances
are turned on and off, which causes data signals to bounce around the wiring.

5. Fiber Optics

Fiber optics are used for long-haul transmission in network backbones, high speed LANs and high-
speed Internet access such as FttH (Fiber to the Home).

An optical transmission system has three key components: the light source, the transmission
medium, and the detector. Conventionally, a pulse of light indicates a 1 bit and the absence of
light indicates a 0 bit. The transmission medium is an ultra-thin fiber of glass. The detector
generates an electrical pulse when light falls on it. By attaching a light source to one end of an
optical fiber and a detector to the other, we have a unidirectional data transmission system that
accepts an electrical signal, converts and transmits it by light pulses, and then reconverts the
output to an electrical signal at the receiving end. This transmission system would leak light and
be useless in practice. When a light ray passes from one medium to another—for example, from
fused silica to air—the ray is refracted (bent) at the silica/air boundary, as shown in Fig. below.

Here we see a light ray incident on the boundary at an angle α1 emerging at an angle β1. The
amount of refraction depends on the properties of the two media (in particular, their indices of
refraction). For angles of incidence above a certain critical value, the light is refracted back into
the silica; none of it escapes into the air. Thus, a light ray incident at or above the critical angle is
trapped inside the fiber, as shown in Fig. above and can propagate for many kilometers with
virtually no loss. Hence it works under the principle of total internal reflection as shown in fig
below.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

Fiber optic cables are similar to coax, except without the braid. Fig (a) shows a single fiber viewed
from the side. At the center is the glass core through which the light propagates. In multimode
fibers, the core is typically 50 microns in diameter, about the thickness of a human hair. In single-
mode fibers, the core is 8 to 10 microns. The core is surrounded by a glass cladding with a lower
index of refraction than the core, to keep all the light in the core. Next comes a thin plastic jacket
to protect the cladding. Fibers are typically grouped in bundles, protected by an outer sheath. Fig
(b) shows a sheath with three fibers.

WIRELESS TRANSMISSION
People who need to be online all the time. For these mobile users, twisted pair, coax, and fiber
optics are of no use. They need to get their ‘‘hits’’ of data for their laptop, notebook, shirt pocket,
palmtop, or wristwatch computers without being tethered to the terrestrial communication
infrastructure. For these users, wireless communication is used.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

1. The Electromagnetic Spectrum

When electrons move, they create electromagnetic waves that can propagate through space
even in a vacuum. These waves were predicted by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell in
1865 and first observed by the German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1887.
The number of oscillations per second of a wave is called its frequency, f, and is measured in Hz.
The distance between two consecutive maxima (or minima) is called the wavelength, which is
designated by the Greek letter λ (lambda).
When an antenna is attached to an electrical circuit, the electromagnetic waves can be broadcast
efficiently and received by a receiver some distance away. All wireless communication is based
on this principle. In a vacuum, all electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed, no matter
what their frequency. This speed called the speed of light, c, is approximately 3 × 108 m/sec. In
copper or fiber the speed slows to about 2/3 of this value and becomes slightly frequency
dependent.
The fundamental relation between f, λ, and c (in a vacuum) is λf = c
The electromagnetic spectrum is shown in Fig. below.

The radio, microwave, infrared, and visible light portions of the spectrum can all be used for
transmitting information by modulating the amplitude, frequency, or phase of the waves.
Ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays would be even better, due to their higher frequencies,
but they are hard to produce and modulate, do not propagate well through buildings, and are
dangerous to living things. Most transmissions use a relatively narrow frequency band (i.e., Δf/f
<< 1). They concentrate their signals in this narrow band to use the spectrum efficiently and
obtain reasonable data rates by transmitting with enough power. However, in some cases, a
wider band is used, with three variations.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

● In frequency hopping spread spectrum, the transmitter hops from frequency to

frequency hundreds of times per second. It is popular for military communication because
it makes transmissions hard to detect and next to impossible to jam. It also offers good
resistance to multipath fading and narrowband interference because the receiver will not
be stuck on an impaired frequency for long enough to shut down communication. This
robustness makes it useful for crowded parts of the spectrum, such as the ISM bands. This
technique is used commercially, for example, in Bluetooth and older versions of 802.11

● A second form of spread spectrum, direct sequence spread spectrum, uses a code
sequence to spread the data signal over a wider frequency band. It is widely used
commercially as a spectrally efficient way to let multiple signals share the same frequency
band. These signals can be given different codes, a method called CDMA (Code Division
Multiple Access).

● Third method of communication with a wider band is UWB (UltraWideBand)

communication. UWB sends a series of rapid pulses, varying their positions to
communicate information. The rapid transitions lead to a signal that is spread thinly over
a very wide frequency band. UWB is defined as signals that have a bandwidth of at least
500 MHz or at least 20% of the center frequency of their frequency band.

SPREAD SPECTRUM AND UWB COMMUNICATION

2. Radio Transmission

Radio frequency (RF) waves are easy to generate, can travel long distances, and can penetrate
buildings easily, so they are widely used for communication, both indoors and outdoors. Radio
waves also are omnidirectional, meaning that they travel in all directions from the source, so the
transmitter and receiver do not have to be carefully aligned physically.
The properties of radio waves are frequency dependent. At low frequencies, radio waves pass
through obstacles well, but the power falls off sharply with distance from the source—at least as
fast as 1/r 2 in air—as the signal energy is spread more thinly over a larger surface. This
attenuation is called path loss.

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

At high frequencies, radio waves tend to travel in straight lines and bounce off obstacles. Path
loss still reduces power, though the received signal can depend strongly on reflections as well.
High-frequency radio waves are also absorbed by rain and other obstacles to a larger extent than
are low-frequency ones. At all frequencies, radio waves are subject to interference from motors
and other electrical equipment

3. Microwave Transmission
Above 100 MHz, the waves travel in nearly straight lines and can therefore be narrowly focused.
Concentrating all the energy into a small beam by means of a parabolic antenna gives a much
higher signal to-noise ratio, but the transmitting and receiving antennas must be accurately
aligned with each other.
This directionality allows multiple transmitters lined up in a row to communicate with multiple
receivers in a row without interference. Microwave communication is used for long-distance
telephone communication, mobile phones, television distribution, and other purposes that a
severe shortage of spectrum has developed.
It has several key advantages over fiber
The main one is that no right of way is needed to lay down cables. By buying a small plot of
ground every 50 km and putting a microwave tower on it, one can bypass the telephone system
entirely.
Microwave is relatively inexpensive. Putting up two simple towers which can be just big poles
with four guy wires and putting antennas on each one may be cheaper than burying 50 km of
fiber through a congested urban area.

4. Infrared Transmission
Unguided infrared waves are widely used for short-range communication.
The remote controls used for televisions, VCRs, and stereos all use infrared communication.
They are relatively directional, cheap, and easy to build but have a major drawback:
They do not pass through solid objects. Eg: standing between your remote control and your
television makes the system inoperative.
The infrared waves do not pass through solid walls this is one of the advantage:
It means that an infrared system in one room of a building will not interfere with a similar system
in adjacent rooms or buildings: you cannot control your neighbor’s television with your remote
control. Security of infrared systems against eavesdropping is better than that of radio systems.
Therefore, no government license is needed to operate an infrared system.

5. Light Transmission
Unguided optical signaling or free-space optics has been in use for centuries. A more modern
application is to connect the LANs in two buildings via lasers mounted on their rooftops. Optical
signaling using lasers is inherently bidirectional, so each end needs its own laser and its own

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE

COMPUTER NETWORKS 21CS52 AIML

photodetector. This scheme offers very high bandwidth at very low cost and is relatively secure
because it is difficult to tap a narrow laser beam. Wind and temperature changes can distort the
beam and laser beams also cannot penetrate rain or thick fog, although they normally work well
on sunny days. But on sunny days there arises a problem causing convection currents to rise up
from the roof of the building, as shown in Fig. below. This turbulent air diverted the beam and
made it dance around the detector, much like a shimmering road on a hot day.

A BIDIRECTIONAL SYSTEM WITH TWO LASERS. CONVECTION CURRENTS BEING SETUP

PROF. NISHITHA KR, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF AIML, PACE, MANGALORE