UNIT – II

• Physical Layer
• Guided Transmission Media
• Digital Modulation and Multiplexing
• Frequency Division Multiplexing
• Time Division Multiplexing
• Code Division Multiplexing
• Wave Length Division Multiplexing.
Physical Layer
• 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 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.
• Unguided media, such as terrestrial wireless,
satellite, and lasers through the air.
GUIDED TRANSMISSION MEDIA
• 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.
Twisted Pairs
• One of the oldest and still most common
transmission media is twisted pair.
• 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.
Twisted Pairs Continues…
• The most common application of the twisted pair
is the telephone system.
• Nearly all telephones are connected to the
telephone company (telco) office by a twisted
pair.
• Twisted pairs can run several kilometres without
amplification.
• Twisted pairs can be used for transmitting either
analog or digital information.
• The bandwidth depends on the thickness of the
wire and the distance travelled.
• Several megabits/sec can be achieved for a few
kilometres in many cases.
Twisted Pairs Continues…
• Twisted-pair cabling comes in several varieties.
• The garden variety deployed in many office
buildings is called Category 5 cabling, or ‘‘Cat
5.’’
• A category 5 twisted pair consists of two
insulated wires gently twisted together.
• Four such pairs are typically grouped in a plastic
sheath to protect the wires and keep them
together.
• Different LAN standards may use the twisted
pairs differently. 100-Mbps Ethernet uses two (out
of the four) pairs, one pair for each direction.
Twisted Pairs Continues…

• Links that can be used in both directions at the

same time, like a two-lane road, are called
full-duplex links.
• 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.
• Links that allow traffic in only one direction,
like a one-way street called simplex links.
Twisted Pairs Continues…
• Category 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,
especially
100-Mbps and 1-Gbps Ethernet LANs.
Twisted Pairs Continues…
• Category 6 UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair)
or Category 7.
• These categories has more stringent
specifications to handle signals with greater
bandwidths.
• Some cables in Category 6 and above are
rated for signals of 500 MHz and can support
the 10-Gbps links that will soon be deployed.
Coaxial Cable
• Coaxial cable (known to its many friends as just
‘‘coax’’ and pronounced ‘‘co-ax’’).
• It has better shielding and greater bandwidth than
unshielded twisted pairs.
• Two kinds of coaxial cable.
• One kind, 50-ohm cable, is commonly used when it is
intended for digital transmission.
• The other kind, 75-ohm cable, is commonly used for
analog transmission and cable television.
• 1990s, cable TV operators began to provide Internet
access over cable, which has made 75-ohm cable more
important for data communication.
Coaxial Cable continues…
• 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.
Power Lines
• Power lines deliver electrical power to houses,
and electrical wiring within houses distributes the
power to electrical outlets.
• The convenience of using power lines for
networking should be clear.
• Simply plug a TV and a receiver into the wall.
• They can send and receive movies over the
electrical wiring.
• The data signal is superimposed on the
low-frequency power signal
Difficulties
• 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.
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.
• 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.
Fiber Optics continues…
• 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.
Fiber Optics continues…
• When a light ray passes from one medium to
another—for example, from fused silica to air
the ray is bent at the silica/air boundary, as
shown in Figure.
Comparison of Fiber Optics and Copper Wire
• Fiber can handle much higher bandwidths than
copper.
• Due to the low attenuation, repeaters are needed
only about every 50 km on long lines, versus
about every 5 km for copper.
• Fiber is not being affected by power surges,
electromagnetic interference, or power failures.
• Nor is it affected by corrosive chemicals in the air
• Fiber is thin and lightweight.
• copper has excellent resale value to copper
refiners who see it as very high-grade ore.
• Fiber is much lighter than copper.
• One thousand twisted pairs 1 km long weigh 8000
kg.
• Two fibers have more capacity and weigh only
100 kg.
• On the downside, fiber is a less familiar
technology requiring skills not all engineers have
• Fibers can be damaged easily by being bent too
much.
• Fiber interfaces cost more than electrical
interfaces.
Unguided Medium(Wireless)
• Unguided Medium transport electromagnetic
waves without using physical conductor.
• This type of communication is often referred
to as wireless communication.
• Unlike guided transmission medium, in
unguided, signals are normally broadcast
through free space and thus are available to
anyone who has a device capable of receiving
them.
Background
o We can divide wireless transmission into
three broad groups: radio waves,
microwaves, and infrared waves.

o The section of the electromagnetic spectrum

defined as radio waves and microwaves is
divided into eight ranges, called bands, each
regulated by government authorities.
o These bands are rated from very low
frequency (VLF) to extremely high
frequency (EHF).
Radio Waves (3kHz-1GHz)
o Although there is no clear-cut demarcation between radio waves and microwaves,
however, the behavior of the waves, rather than the frequencies, is a better
criterion for classification.
o Adv: Radio waves, for the most part, are omnidirectional. When an antenna
transmits radio waves, they are propagated in all directions.
o Disadv: The radio waves transmitted by one antenna are susceptible to
interference by another antenna that may send signals using the same
frequency or band.
o Radio waves, particularly those waves that propagate in the sky mode, can travel
long distances. This makes radio waves a good candidate for long-distance
broadcasting such as AM radio.
o Radio waves, particularly those of low and medium frequencies, can penetrate
walls.
o The radio wave band is relatively narrow, just under 1 GHz.
Microwaves(1GHz-
300Ghz)
• Microwaves are unidirectional.
• Microwave propagation is line-of-sight.
• Use of certain portions of the band requires
permission from authorities.
• Disadv: Very high-frequency microwaves cannot
penetrate walls.
• Adv: The microwave band is relatively wide,
almost 299 GHz. Therefore wider sub-bands can
be assigned, and a high data rate is possible.
Infrared(300Ghz-400Thz)
o Used for short-range communication, can’t
penetrate through walls.
o Not suitable for outside communication as
the sun’s rays contain infrared waves that can
interfere with the communication
Applications
o Radio Waves:
o The omnidirectional characteristics of radio waves make them useful for multicasting, in
which there is one sender but many receivers.
o Ex: AM and FM radio, television, maritime radio, cordless phones, and paging.

o Microwaves
o Microwaves, due to their unidirectional properties, are very useful when unicast (one-to-one)
communication is needed between the sender and the receiver.
o Ex: Cellular phones, satellite networks, and wireless LANs.

o Infrared
o The infrared band, almost 400 THz, has an excellent potential for data transmission.
o Ex: Communication between devices such as keyboards, mice, PCs, printers, Mobiles using
special ports.
o One widely used application is in Remote Controllers.
Digital Modulation
o Wires and wireless channels carry analog signals such as
continuously varying voltage, light intensity, or sound intensity.
The process of converting between bits and signals that represent
them is called digital modulation.
o Two Schemes:
o Baseband Transmission: Directly convert bits into a signal.
o Passband Transmission: Regulate the amplitude, phase, or frequency of a
carrier signal to convey bits.
Baseband Transmission
• The most straightforward form of digital
modulation is to use a positive voltage to
represent a 1 and a negative voltage to
represent a 0. For an optical fiber, the
presence of light might represent a 1 and the
absence of light might represent a 0. This
scheme is called NRZ (Non-
Return-to-Zero).
o Clock Recovery: For all schemes that encode bits into symbols, the receiver must
know when one symbol ends and the next symbol begins to correctly decode the
bits. With NRZ, in which the symbols are simply voltage levels, a long run of 0s
or 1s leaves the signal unchanged.
o Solution:
o Sending a Separate Clock Signal.
o Using encoding mechanisms that send clock along with data by mixing them together like
Manchester encoding.

o Balanced Signal: Signals that have as much positive voltage as negative

voltage even over short periods of time are called balanced signals.
o Provide transitions for clock recovery.
o Provides a simple way to calibrate receivers.
Passband Transmission
• Often, we want to use a range of frequencies that does not start at
zero to send information across a channel.

• For wireless channels, it is not practical to send very low

frequency signals because the size of the antenna needs to be a
fraction of the signal wavelength, which becomes large.

• That we can take a baseband signal that occupies 0 to B Hz and

shift it up to occupy a passband of S to S +B Hz without
changing the amount of information that it can carry.

• When the receiver gives importance to carrier as major factor for

detection then it is called as coherent detection otherwise non
coherent detection.