IoT Networking and

Communication Layer – Part 2

Dr Hanan Hindy
[email protected]

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Course Outline
• IoT Introduction and Building Blocks
• IoT Physical Layer
• IoT Networking and Communication Layer
• IoT Cloud Computing, and Data Analytics
• IoT Case Studies and Real Applications
• IoT Security Introduction
• IoT Threat Modelling
• Targeting the IoT Ecosystem
• Intrusion Detection Systems

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Helpful Resources

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Next Lecture
• SWE & DMM [Monday @ 3:15]
• CSEC & AI [Monday @ 3:40]
• CS (Sec 1 – 3) [Monday @ 5:15]
• CS (Sec 4- 7) [Monday @ 5:40]

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IoT Devices Connectivity
• The IoT devices are typically connected to the Internet
via an Internet Protocol network.

• However, devices such as Bluetooth and RFID allow IoT

devices to connect locally.

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IoT Communication Layer
• The communication layer is considered as the
backbone of the IoT systems. It is the main channel
between the application layer and different
operating activities in the IoT system.
• The whole physical system is loaded with amounts
of data and information that need to be shared with
other nodes. Therefore, it is needed to set up a
suitable connection network among these nodes
through a communication protocol.
• The communication could be wire-connected or
wireless based on the protocol defined by the
designer.
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1- IoT Communication Protocols: Network
• Communication protocols are the set of rules established
between nodes to exchange information in a reliable and safe
manner.
• It is critical to know the limiting factors of each technology.

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1- IoT Communication Protocols: Network
• The main aspects of any communication protocol:
1. Speed or Data Rate
2. Range
3. Power Consumption
4. Interoperability
5. Scalability
6. Cost
7. Network Topology
8. Security

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1- Speed or Data Rate
• The amount of information to be transmitted within
a time duration.
• It is usually expressed in bps (bits per second), kbps,
Mbps, or Gbps.

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2- Range
• The maximum distance between two
intercommunicating nodes.
• It mainly depends upon the transmitting power, the
frequency band used, and the type of modulation.
• It can be also affected by the meteorological
conditions or the physical placement of the nodes

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3- Power Consumption
• The amount of energy that a node needs to work
within its lifetime.
• This parameter defines the need for permanent
power or the use of a battery.
• Since there are many applications using batteries,
thus power consumption is a critical parameter.

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4- Interoperability
• The capability to exchange information between
nodes, even if they are of different types.

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5- Scalability
• The challenge of deploying a higher number of
nodes, increasing the number of end-users, as well as
the amount of data to store and process without the
need of migrating the technology.

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6- Cost
• The price of installing and maintaining a specific
technology.
• Power consumption, maintenance, and scalability
have a big impact on the network cost.

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7- Network Topology
• The way nodes communicate with each other.
• Topologies can be the same as those used in
traditional networks.
• Star, mesh, point-to-point, and point-to-multipoint are
some examples of topologies.

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8- Security
• The way to protect data being sent and received.
• It is necessary to ensure that the communication
transmitted between nodes arrives only at the
intended nodes.
• The IoT technologies are already ubiquitous, and they
can communicate sensitive information to the users;
thus, the communication needs to be protected
against third parties.
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Any IoT hardware can connect to each
other and to the Internet via the following
• Ethernet (built-in or shield)
• Wi-Fi (module)
• 5G (module)
• Bluetooth/BLE (module)
• 4G/Wi-Fi of phone
• ZigBee (module)
• USB (built-in), or via desktop computer
• RFID
• Satellites

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1- Ethernet
• Every Ethernet Network Interface Card (NIC) is given a unique identifier
called a MAC address.
• Ethernet can’t be used for long distance network
• Not all IoT devices need to be wireless devices that are designed to be
stationary.
• For example, sensor units that are installed within a building automation system can use
wired networking technologies like Ethernet.

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1- Ethernet
• Due to its support for high-speed communications, Ethernet is ideal for
applications with huge amounts of data and those requiring high speed. In
addition, it is convenient for high bandwidth applications.
• Furthermore, Ethernet cables are ideal to transport data to very far
destinations.
• However, Ethernet also suffers from disadvantages relative to other
communication protocols.
• Ethernet is a wired protocol, which makes it inconvenient for wireless
applications. Being a wired protocol not only requires direct physical connection
between nodes, but also it makes the connection vulnerable to physical
damage.
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2- Bluetooth
• Bluetooth
is an important short-range (<100 m) IoT
communications Protocol/Technology.
• This protocol works within the frequency of 2.4 GHz.
• It is based on a master-slave configuration; in which
communication is established between a master and up to
seven slaves maximum.
• This type can be beneficial for the transmission of small amounts
of data from sensors or wearables.

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3- Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE)
• The new Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) – or Bluetooth Smart, as it
is now branded – is a significant protocol for IoT applications.
• Importantly, while it offers a similar range to Bluetooth it has
been designed to offer significantly reduced power
consumption.

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4- Zigbee
• ZigBee is similar to Bluetooth and is majorly used in industrial settings.
• It has some significant advantages in complex systems offering low-power
operation, high security, robustness and high and is well positioned to
take advantage of wireless control and sensor networks in IoT applications.
• In addition, it is designed for multi-channel control systems, alarm
systems, and lighting control.
• Furthermore, ZigBee is more economical than Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as it
consumes less power.

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5- Z-Wave
• Z-Wave is a low-power RF communications IoT technology that
primarily design for home automation for products such as
lamp controllers and sensors among many other devices.
• A Z-Wave uses a simpler protocol than some others, which can
enable faster and simpler development, but the only maker of
chips is Sigma Designs compared to multiple sources for other
wireless technologies such as ZigBee and others.
• It supports full mesh networks without the need for a
coordinator node and is very scalable, enabling control of up to
232 devices.
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6 Wi-Fi
• WiFi connectivity is one of the most popular IoT communication
protocol, often an obvious choice for many developers, especially
given the availability of WiFi within the home environment within
LANs.
• There is a wide existing infrastructure as well as offering fast data
transfer and the ability to handle high quantities of data.
• Wi-Fi is an easy and inexpensive communication protocol that
connects electronic devices to the Internet using a wireless router.
• This router receives the signal and sends the information to the Internet
using Ethernet.
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6- Cellular
• Any IoT application that requires operation over longer
distances can take advantage of GSM/3G/4G cellular
communication capabilities.
• While cellular is clearly capable of sending high quantities of
data, especially for 4G, the cost and power consumption will be
too high for many applications.
• But it can be ideal for sensor-based low-bandwidth-data
projects that will send very low amounts of data over the
Internet.
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7- Near-Field Communication (NFC)
• NFC (Near Field Communication) is an IoT technology. It enables simple and safe
communications between electronic devices, and specifically for smartphones,
allowing consumers to perform transactions in which one does not have to be
physically present.
• Near Field Communication (NFC) is a set of short-range wireless technology at
13.56 MHz, typically requiring a distance of 4cm.
• NFC is a very short-range wireless communication technology that enables the
data transmission among devices by touching them together or bringing them
together no more than a few inches.
• NFC uses similar technology principles in RFID. However, it is not only used for
identification but also for more elaborate two-way communication. NFC has a tag
that can contain small amount of data.

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8- Long Range Wide Area Network
(LoRaWAN)
• LoRaWAN is one of popular IoT Technology, targets wide-area network
(WAN) applications. The LoRaWAN design to provide low-power WANs
with features specifically needed to support low-cost mobile secure
communication in IoT, smart city, and industrial applications.

• Smart street lighting is the practical use case of LoRaWan IoT Protocols.

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Communication
Models

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Request-Response Communication Model
• Request-Response is a
communication model in
which the client sends
requests to the server and the
server responds to the
requests.
• When the server receives a
request, it decides how to
respond, fetches the data,
retrieves resource
representations, prepares the
response, and then sends the
response to the client

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REST
• Representational State Transfer (REST) is
a set of architectural principles by which
you can design web services and web
APIs that focus on a system’s resources
and how resource states are addressed
and transferred.
• REST APIs follow the request/response
communication model.
• The REST architectural constraints apply
to the components, connectors, and data
elements, within a distributed
hypermedia system.

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Publish-Subscribe Communication Model
• Publish-Subscribe is a
communication model that
involves publishers, brokers and
consumers.
• Publishers are the source of data.
Publishers send the data to the
topics which are managed by the
broker. Publishers are not aware of
the consumers.
• Consumers subscribe to the topics
which are managed by the broker.
• When the broker receives data for
a topic from the publisher, it sends
the data to all the subscribed
consumers.

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Push-Pull Communication Model
• Push-Pull is a communication
model in which the data producers
ush the data to queues and the
consumers pull the data from the
queues. Producers do not need to
be aware of the consumers.
• Queues help in decoupling the
messaging between the producers
and consumers.
• Queues also act as a buffer which
helps in situations when there is a
mismatch between the rate at
which the producers push data and
the rate at which the consumers
pull data.

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Exclusive Pair Communication Model
• Exclusive Pair is a bidirectional,
fully duplex communication
model that uses a persistent
connection between the client
and server.
• Once the connection is setup it
remains open until the client
sends a request to close the
connection.
• Client and server can send
messages to each other after
connection setup

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WebSocket
• WebSocket APIs allow
bidirectional, full
duplex communication
between clients and
servers.
• WebSocket APIs follow
the exclusive pair
communication model

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IoT Communication Protocols: Data

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1- Message Queue Telemetry Transport
(MQTT)
• Designed to be lightweight, so it can work in very low bandwidth
networks.
• MQTT follows a publish/subscribe architecture, meaning that there are
nodes (brokers) that make the information available, while others (clients)
can read the available information after subscribing by accessing the
corresponding URL.
• MQTT allows communication between nodes in both reliable and
unreliable networks.
• MQTT has three components: a subscriber, a broker, and a publisher.
• It works on top of TCP

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The publisher is responsible for transmitting this information to
interested IoT devices through the broker, which is responsible
for security and providing authentication

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1- Message Queue Telemetry Transport
(MQTT)
• In addition, MQTT defines three levels of quality of service,
depending upon the reliability, from lowest to highest:

• Level 0: there is no guarantee of the message delivery.

• Level 1: the delivery is guaranteed, but it is possible to receive
duplicate messages.
• Level 2: the delivery is guaranteed and there will be no
duplicates.
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2- HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• This protocol has been the origin of data communication for the World
Wide Web (WWW), so logically it is being used in the IoT world. However, it
is not optimized for it because of the following:
• The HTTP is made for two systems communicating to each other at a time, not
more, so it is time and energy-consuming to connect several sensors to get
information.
• The HTTP is unidirectional, made for one system (client) to be sending one
message to another one (server). This makes it quite hard to escalate an IoT
solution.
• Power consumption: HTTP relies on Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which
requires a lot of computing resources, so it is not suitable for battery-powered
applications.
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3- Constrained Application Protocol
(CoAP)
• CoAP is a web transfer protocol to be used with limited networks with low
bandwidth and low availability.
• It follows a client/server (request/response) architecture and is built similarly to
HTTP, supporting the REST model: servers make resources available with an URL,
and clients can make requests of types GET, POST, PUT and DELETE.
• The CoAP communication links are 1:1 and UDP-based, so the delivery is not
guaranteed.
• CoAP is made to work in highly congested networks, where nodes do not have a
lot of intelligence and are not always working.

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True or False
• A LiDAR is the same as RADAR except that LiDAR uses radio
waves instead of laser.

• Any sensor connected to the internet is considered part of an IoT

ecosystem.

• BLE, same as Bluetooth, offer reduced power consumption.

True or False
• A LiDAR is the same as RADAR except that LiDAR uses radio
waves instead of laser. False

• Any sensor connected to the internet is considered part of an IoT

ecosystem. False

• BLE, same as Bluetooth, offer reduced power consumption.

False
Answer each of the following:
• Which communication model would you use when the rate at which the producers
generate data is faster than the rate at which the consumers consume data?

• Which IoT Level is used for systems where data is huge, and the analysis is
computationally intensive?

• Which hardware platform would you choose if your main concern is performance
regardless cost and time?
Answer each of the following:
• Which communication model would you use when the rate at which the
producers generate data is faster than the rate at which the consumers
consume data?
• Push-Pull Communication Model
• Which IoT Level is used for systems where data is huge, and the analysis is
computationally intensive?
• Level 3
• Which hardware platform would you choose if your main concern is
performance regardless cost and time?
• ASIC
IP Subnetting
• Given a network address “163.220.0.0” and the network is required to have 100
host per subnet. Answer the following, show your steps.
• What is the address class of this network?
• What is the default subnet mask of this network?
• What is the custom subnet mask that you would use?
• What is the broadcast and network address of the first subnet?
IP Subnetting
• Given a network address “163.220.0.0” and the network is required to have 100
host per subnet. Answer the following, show your steps.
• What is the address class of this network? B
• What is the default subnet mask of this network? 255.255.0.0
• What is the custom subnet mask that you would use? 255.255.255.128
• What is the broadcast and network address of the first subnet?
• Network: 163.220.0.0
• Broadcast: 163.220.0.127
Complete
Complete

1- People
2- Sensors
3- Electrical Actuators
Match
Match
IP Subnetting
Given a network address “135.100.0.0” and the network is required to have
18 subnets. Answer the following, show your steps.

• What is the address class of this network?

• What is the custom subnet mask to support the required number of
subnets?
• What is the total number of host addresses per subnet?
IP Subnetting
Given a network address “135.100.0.0” and the network is required to have
18 subnets. Answer the following, show your steps.

• What is the address class of this network? B

• What is the custom subnet mask to support the required number of
subnets? 255.255.248.0
• What is the total number of host addresses per subnet? 2048 hosts & 2046
usable hosts
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