Intelligent Systems Engineering Department

The National School of Artificial Intelligence

3rd Year, Semester 1 — 2024/2025

NETWORKS AND PROTOCOLS

Exercises Sheet 1
Exercise 1
An image has a size of 4080x1830 pixels with true color, which means that 3 Bytes per pixel are
used for the color information.
How long does it take to transmit the uncompressed image via a:

(a) 56 kbps Modem connection?

(b) 64 kbps ISDN connection?

(c) 16 Mbps DSL connection?

(d) 100 Mbps Ethernet connection?

(e) 1 Gbps Ethernet connection?

Assume the image is compressed with a compression algorithm that reduces the image size by
85%. How long does it take to transmit the image via a :

(a) 1 Mbps DSL connection?

(b) 10 Mbps Ethernet connection?

(c) 10 Gbps Optical connection?

A MP3 file with a size of 30 · 106 bits must be transferred from terminal device A to terminal
device B. The signal propagation speed is 200,000 km/s. A and B are directly connected by a
link with a length of 5,000 km. The file is transferred as a single message that has a size of
30 · 106 bits. No network protocol headers or trailers exist.
Calculate the transfer time (latency) of the file, when the data rate of the computer network
between both terminal devices is:

(a) 56 kbps Modem connection?

(b) 64 kbps ISDN connection?

(c) 100 Mbps Ethernet connection?

(d) 1 Gbps Ethernet connection?

Calculate for each one of the above alternatives what the volume of the network connection is.
What is the maximum number of bits that can reside inside the line between the sender and
receiver?

Exercise 2
Assume there is one router and two links between the file server (S) and client (C), as shown
in the figure below. The first link has transmission rate R1 and the second link has transmission
rate R2. Assume the file gets broken into three packets, each of size L. Ignore all propagation
and processing delays. Answer the following three questions:

(a) How long does it take from when the server starts sending the file until the client has
received the whole file if R1 ≤ R2?

(b) How long does it take from when the server starts sending the file until the client has
received the whole file if R1 > R2?

(c) In case (b), how long does the second packet spend in the router’s queue?

R1[bps] R2[bps]
S R C

Exercise 3
Consider a single link with bandwidth B and propagation delay L. It takes 1 ms for an entire
500 bytes packet to arrive at the other end of the link (that is, it takes 1 ms from the time the
first bit starts being transmitted until the last bit arrives at the other end of the link). It takes
2 ms for an entire 1500 bytes packet to arrive at the other end of the link.

(a) What is the bandwidth B of the link? (in Mbps)

(b) What is the propagation delay L of the link? (in ms)

Exercise 4
Consider the diagram below. Link 1 has length L1 m (where m stands for meters) and allows
packets to be propagated at speed S1 (m/s) , while Link 2 has length L2 m but it only al-
lows packets to be propagated at speed S2 (m/s) (because the two links are made of different
materials). Link 1 has transmission rate T1 (bit/s) and Link 2 has transmission rate T2 (bit/s).

Link 1 Link 2
A B C

Assuming nodes can send and receive bits at full rate and ignoring processing delay, consider
the following scenarios:

(a) How long would it take to send a packet of 500 Bytes from Node A to Node B given T1 =
10000 bit/s, L1 = 100000 m, and S1 = 2.5 · 108 m/s?
 (b) Compute RTT (round trip time) for a packet of B Bytes sent from Node A to Node C
(packet gets transmitted back from Node C immediately after Node C receives it).

(c) At time 0, Node A sends packet P1 with D1 Bytes and then it sends another packet P2
with D2 Bytes immediately after it pushes all bits of P1 onto Link 1. When will Node C
receive the last bit of P2 ?

Exercise 5
Unlike store-and-forward, cut-through switching or forwarding allows a node inside a network
to start forwarding a packet before it has been received in its entirety. Consider a path in a
network that connects a host A to a host B via n links (1..n) through n-1 intermediate routers,
each employing cut-through forwarding.

...
A R1 R2 Rn B

Ignore processing delay and assume that there is no queuing delay. Assume that all links have
the same length d and that the speed of light in the link medium is s. Also, assume that each
link has bandwidth R and that packets of length L bits are sent through the network. Each
switch can start forwarding the packet after Lc bits have been received.

(a) What is the total latency for a single packet (counted from first bit sent at A until last bit
received at B)?

(b) How much did cut-through switching reduce the latency for sending a single packet end-
to-end, compared to store-and-forward?