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What is Transmission media?

Transmission media is acommunication channel that carries the
information from the sender to the receiver. Data is transmitted
through the electromagnetic signals.
The main functionality of the transmission media is to carry the
information in the. form of bits through LAN (Local Area
Network), MAN, WAN.
o it is aphysical path between transmitter and receiver in data
Communication.

o In a copper-based network,. the bits in the form of electrical

signals.
o In afiber based network, the bits in theform of light pulses.
In OSI (Open System Interconnection) phase, transmission media
supports the Layer 1. Therefore, it is considered to be as a Layer
1component.
" The electrical signals can be sent through the copper wire, fiber
optics, atmosphere, water, and vacuum.
The characteristics and quality of data transmission are
determined by the characteristics of medium and signal.
Transmission media is of twotypes are wired media and wireless
media. In wired media, medium characteristics are more
important whereas, in wireless media, signal characteristics are
more important.

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Different transmission media have different properties such as

bandwidth, delay, cost and ease of installation and maintenance.
o The transmission media is available in the
lowest layer of the OSI
reference model, i.e., Physical layer.
Some factors need to be considered for
transmission media: designing the
o Bandwidth: AIl the factors are remaining constant, the greater
the bandwidth of a medium, the higher the data
rate of a signal. transmission
Transmission impairment: When the received signal is not
identical to the transmitted one due to the
transmission
impairment. The quality of the signals willget destroyed due to
transmission impairment.
Interference: Interference is defined as the process of disrupting
a signal when it travels over a
communication medium on the
addition of some unwanted signal.
Causes of Transmission Impairment:
Transmission Impairment

Attenuation: Distortion Noise

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Attenuation: Attenuation means the loss of energy, i.e., the

strength of the signal decreases with increasing the distance
which causes the loss of energy.
Distortion: Distortion occurs when there is a change in the
shape of the signal. This type of distortion is examined from
different signals having different frequencies. Each frequency
component has its own propagation speed, so they reach at a
different time which leads to the delay distortion.
o Noise: When data is travelled over a transmission medium,some
unwanted signal is added to it whichcreates the noise.
Classification of Transmission Media:
Transmission;
nedia

Guided Unguided
mediai media.i

Fbre Tristed
Coaxial Radiowaves Microwaves infrared
Optics

Baseband' Broadband:Unshielded ^hielded

& Guided Transmission Media (Wired Media, Bounded Media)

Un-Guided Transmission Media (Wireless Media, Un-Bounded
Media)

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Guided Media
It is defined as the physical medium through which the signals are
transmitted. It is also known as Bounded media.

Types of Guided media:

Twisted Pair:
Twisted pair is aphysical media made up of a pair of cables twisted
with each other. A twisted pair cable is cheap as compared to other
transmission media. Installation of the twisted pair cable is easy, and it
is a lightweight cable. The frequency range for twisted pair cable is
from 0to 3.5 kHz.

Atwisted pair consists of two insulated copper wires arranged in a

regular spiral pattern.
The degree of reduction in noise interference is determined by the
number of turns per foot. Increasing the number of turns per foot
decreases noise interference.
Jacket Twisted Pair Bare Wire

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Types of Twisted pair:

Twisted Pair

Unshielded Twisted Pair ShieldedTwisted Pair

Unshielded Twisted Pair:

An unshielded twisted pair is widely used in telecommunication.
Following are the categories of the unshielded twisted pair cable:
Category 1: Category 1is used for telephone lines that have
low-speed data.
Category 2: lt can support up to 4Mbps.
Category 3: It can support up to 16Mbps.
Category 4: It can support up to 20Mbps. Therefore, it can be
used for long-distance communication.
Category 5: It can support up to 200Mbps.
Advantages of Unshielded TwistedPair:
o lt is cheap.
Installation of the unshielded twisted pair is, easy.
wo Itcan be used for high-speed LAN.

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Disadvantage:
This cable can only be used for shorter
distances because of
attenuation.

Shielded Twisted Pair

A
shielded twisted pair is a cable that contains the mesh
the wire that allows the higher surrounding
transmission rate.
Characteristics of Shielded Twisted Pair:
The cost of the shielded twisted pair
cable is not very high and
not very low.
oAn installation of STP is easy.
o
It has higher capacity as compared to unshielded twisted pair
cable.

t has a higher attenuation v attorngghon

o It is shielded that
provides the higher data transmission rate.
Disadvantages
It is more expensive as compared to UTP and coaxial cable.
It has a higher attenuation rate.

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Coaxial Cable
Coaxial cable is very commonly used transmission medi, for
example,TV wire is usually a coaxialcable.
The name of the cable is coaxial as it contains two conductors
parallel to each other.
It has a higher frequency as compared to twisted pair cable.
The inner conductor of the coaxial cable is made up of copper,
and the outer conductor is made up of copper mesh. The middle
core is made up of non-conductive cover that separates the inner
conductor from the outer conductor.
The middle core is responsible for the data transferring whereas
the copper mesh prevents from the EMI (Electromagnetic
interference).
Jacket Shield Insulator Centre Conductor

Coaxial cable is of two types:

1, Baseband transmission: It is defined as the process of

transmiting asingle signalat high speed.
2. Broadband transmission: It is defined as the process of
transmitting multiple signals simultaneously.

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Advantages of Coaxial cable:

o The datacan be transmitted at high speed.
It has better shieldingas compared to twisted pair cable.
e It provides higher bandwidth.
Disadvantages of Coaxial cable:
11t is more expensive as compared to twisted pair cable.
lf any fault occurs in the cable causes the failure in the entire
network.

Fiber Optic
Fiber optic cable is a cable that_uses electrical signals for
communication.

Fiber optic is a cable that holds the optical fibers coated in

plastic that are used to send the data by pulses of light.
The plastic coating protects the optical fibers from heat, cold,
electro-magnetic interference from other types of wiring.
" Fiber optics provides faster data transmission than copper wires.
Diagrammatic representation of fiber optic cable:

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Cladding Core

Side Vier

EndVien

Basic elements of Fiber opticcable:

Core: The optical fiber consists of a narroW strand of glasS or
plastic known as a core. A core is a light transmission area of the
fiber. The more the area of the core, the more light will be
transmitted into the fiber.
Cladding: The concentric layer of glass is known as cladding. The
main functionality of the cladding is to provide the lower
refractive index at the core interface as to cause the reflection
within the core so that the light waves are transmitted
through
the fiber.
Jacket: The protective coating consisting of plastic is known as a
jacket. The main purpose of a jacket is to preserve the fiber
strength, absorb shock and extra fiber protection.
Followingare the advantages of fiber optic cable over copper:
Greater Bandwidth: The fiber optic cable próvides
more
bandwidth as compared copper. Therefore, the fiber optic carries
more dataas compared to copper cable.

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Faster speed: Fiber optic cable carries the data in the form of
light. This allows the fiber optic cable to carry the signals at a
higher speed.
Longer distances: The fiber optic cable carries the data at a
longer distance as compared tocopper cable.
Better reliability: The fiber optic cable is more reliable than the
copper cable as it is immune to any temperature changes while it
can cause obstruct in the connectivity of copper cable.
Thinner and Sturdier: Fiber optic cable is thinner and lighter in
weight so it can withstand more pull pressure than copper cable.

Un-Guided Transmission
o}An unguided transmission transmits the electromagnetic waves
without using any physical medium. Therefore it is also known.
as wireless transmission.

o In unguided media, air is the .media through which the

electromagnetic energy can flow easily.
Unguided transmission is broadly classified into three categories:
Radiowaves
oRadio waves are the electromagnetic waves that are transmitted
inall the directions of free space.
o Radio waves are Omni-directional, i.e., the signals are
propagated in allthe directions.
" The range in frequencies of radio waves is from 3 kHz to 1 kHz.
MHz.
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.' In thecase of radio waves,the sending and receiving antenna are

not aligned, ie., the wave sent by the sending antenna can be
received by any receiving antenna.
c An example of the radio wave is FM radio.

lonosphere
Ground wave

Earth's suiace Earth's surface

ia) (b)

Applications of Radio waves:

ARadio wave is useful for multicasting when there is one sender.
and many receivers.
: An FM radio, television, cordless phones are examples of a radio
wave.

Advantages of Radio transmission:

Radio transmission is mainly used for wide area networks and

mobile cellular phones.
Radio waves cover a large area, and they can penetrate the walls.
. Radio transmission provides a higher transmission rate.

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Trivedi
Microwaves

Teerrtrial aicrg21 Sat+fite aicro ate

fraasmisisn

Microwaves are of two types:

Terrestrial microwave
: Satellite microwave communication.

Terrestrial Microwave Transmission

. Terrestriat ic lave transmission is a technology that transmits
the focused beam of a radio signal from one
microwave transmission antenna to another. ground-based
. Microvwaves are the
electromagnetic waves having the frequency
in the range from 1GHz to 1000 GHZ.
. Microwaves are unidirectional as the sending and receiving
antenna is to be aligned, i.e., the waves sent by the sending
antenna are narrowly focused.
9 In this case, antennas are mounted on the
towers to send a beam
to another antenna which is km away.
o It works on the line of sight
transmission, i.e.,, the antennas
mounted on the towers are the direct sight of each other.
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Characteristics of Microwave:
Frequency range: The frequency range of terrestrial microwave
is from 4-6GHz to 21-23 GHz.
" Bandwidth: It supports the bandwidth from 1to 10 Mbps.
o Short distance: It is inexpensive for short distance.
" Long istance: It is expensive as it requires a higher tower for a
longer distance.
Attenuation: Attenuation means loss of signal. It is affected by.
environmental conditions and antehna size.

Advantages of Microwave:
Microwave transmission is cheaper than using cables.
It is free from land acquisition as it does not require any land for
the instalation of cables.
Microwave transmission provides an easy communication in
terrains as the installation of cable in terrain is quite adifficult
task.
Communication over Oceans can be achieved by using
microwave transmission.

Disadvantages of Microwave transmission:

Eavesdropping: An eavesdropping creates insecure
communication.: Any malicious user can catch the signal in the air
by using its own antenna.
Out of phase signal: Asignal can be moved out of phase by
using microwave transmission.

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Susceptible to weather condition: A microwave transmission is

susceptible to weather condition. This means that any
environmental change such as rain, wind can distort the signal.
Bandwidth limited: Allocation of bandwidth is limited in the
case of microwave
transmission.
Satellite Microwave Communication
o Asatellite is aphysical object that revolves
around the earth at a
known height.
Satellite communication is more reliable nowadays as it offers
more flexibility than cable and fibre opticsystems.
o We can communicate with any point on the
globe by using
satellite communication.

How Does Satellitework?

The satellite accepts the signal that is transmitted from the
earth
station, and it amplifies the signal. The amplified signal is
retransmitted to another earth station.

Advantages of Satellite Microwave Communication:

The coverage area of a satellite microwave is more than the
terrestrial microwave.
o The transmission cost of the satellite is
independent of the
distance from the centre of the coverage area.
Satellite communication is used in mobile and wireless
communication applications.
It is easy to install.

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. It is used in awide variety of applicatíons such a9 weather

forecasting, radio/TV signal broadcasting, mobile
communication, etc.

Disadvantages of Satellite Microwave Communication:

Satellite designing and developrnent requires more tirne and
higher cost.
The Satellite needs to be nonitored and controlled on regular
periods so that it rernains in ortbit.
The life of the satellite is about 12-15 years. Due to thís reason,
another launch of the satellite has to be planned before it
becomes non-functional.

Infrared

An infrared transmission is a wireless technology used for

communication over short ranges.
The frequency of the infrared in the range from 300 GHz to 400
THz.
It is used for short-range communication such as data transfer
between two cell phones, TV remote operation, data transfer
between a computer and cell phone resides in the same closed
area.

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Characteristics of lnfrared:

o Itsupports high bandwidth, and hence the data rate will be very
high.
Infrared waves cannot penetrate the walls. Therefore, the infrared
communication in one room cannot be interrupted by the
nearby rooms.
An infrared communication provides better security ith
minimum interference.
Infrared communication is unreliable outside the building
because the sun rays will interfere with the infrared waves.

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