Transmission Media

• Guided
– Twisted Pair
– Cable
– Fiber
– Medium more important than the signal
• Unguided
– Atmosphere
– Outer Space
– Signal more important than the medium
Spectrum for telecommunications
 Twisted Pair

• Two insulated copper wires in a spiral

• Number of pairs are bundled together
• Twisting decreases crosstalk
• Most common form for analog and digital
• Used in telephone system
• Subscriber loops
– From a person’s home to the local office of the phone company
• LANS
– 10Mbps with newer at 100Mbps
 Twisted pair
• Long Distance
– 4 Mbps
– ISDN – Integrated Services Digital Network
• Digital
– Repeaters required every 2 –3 kilometers

• Analog
– Amplifiers required every 5-6 kilometers
– Bandwidth of 250KHz, carry a few voice channels
• Susceptible to noise, shielded and unshielded
• Compared to optical and coax twisted pair is limited in bandwidth,
distance, and data rate
 Coaxial Cable

• Hollow outer cylindrical conductor surrounding a single

view
• Most versatile of mediums, used for TV, long distance
telephone,and LAN’S
 Coaxial Cable

• Part of long distance telephone network

• With FDM can carry over 10,000 voice channels
• Transmits both analog and digital signals
• Frequency characteristics superior to twisted pair
– Less susceptible to noise
• For long distance
– Amplifiers needed every few kilometers
– Repeaters needed every kilometer or so
 Optical fiber

• Thin, flexible light passing material made from glass or

plastic
• Grouped into cables
 Optical fiber
• Better than coaxial cable or twisted pair
• Data rates of 2Gbps over 10’s of Km
• Light weight – good for buildings
• Lower attenuation than coax or twisted
• Not effected by extreme electromagnetic fields
– Crosstalk and impulse
• Very difficult to tap – good security
• Applications
– Long Haul trunks, metro trunks, rural exchange trunks, more
recently beginning to displace twisted pair in subscriber loops and
in LANS
 Optical Fiber
• Operates in range 10**14 to 10**15 Hz
– Infrared and visible spectrum
• Multimode
– Variety of angles of light will reflect and propogate
• Single Mode
– Radius of the core = order of a wavelength
– Only single angle passes
– Superior performance
• Two different light sources – both emit light when voltage applied
– LED – Light Emitting Diode – less costly, longer life
– ILD - Injection Laser Diode – greater data rate
 Wireless

• Antennae
– Directional
• Focused EM beam
• The higher frequency the more focused
– Omnidirectional
• Lower frequency
• Spreads out to multiple receivers

• Three ranges of frequencies

– 26GHz – 40GHz --- microwave
– 30 MHz – 1GHz --- broadcast radio
– 3x10**11 to 2x10**14 Hz --- infrared
 Terrestrial Microwave
• Parabolic dish
• Narrow beam – line of sight on towers to avoid obstacles
• Series of towers for long distance
• Applications:
– Long haul telephone
– Voice and TV
– Short point to point between buildings
• Main Source of loss
– Attentuation – especially with rainful
– Repeaters or amplifiers 10 to 100km
– Interference with overlapping bands
 Satellite Microwave
• It is essentially a microwave relay station
• Uplink
– Receives transmission on one frequency
• Downlink
– Transmits on a second frequency
• Operates on a number of frequency bands known as
transponders
• Point to Point
– Ground station to satellite to ground station
• Multipoint
– Ground station to satellite to multiple receiving stations
 Satellite Microwave
• Satellite orbit
– 35,784 Km, to match earth rotation
– Stays fixed above the transmitter/receiver station as earth rotates
• Satellites need to be separated by distance
– Avoid interference
• Applications
– TV, long distance telephone, private business networks

• Optimum frequency range

– 1 – 10 GHz
– Below 1GHz results in noise, above 10GHz results in severe attenuation
 Broadcast Radio

• Omnidirectional unlike satellite

• Does not require dish like antennae
• Frequency range
– Radio - 3kHz to 300Ghz
– Broadcast radio – 30MHz to 1GHz
• Broadcast radio
– Transmission limited to line of sight
– Less sensitive to attenuation from rainfall than microwave
– Prime source of interference is multipath
 Infrared

• Tranceivers must be within line of sight of each other or

via reflection
• Does not penetrate walls like microwave
• No frequency allocation or licensing
ATM Introduction to
ATM
• Introduction
• ATM Cells
• ATM Architecture
• ATM Connections
• Addressing and Signaling
• IP over ATM
 Introduction
• ATM-Asynchronous Transfer Mode
• A transfer mode in which the information is organized
into cells
• It is asynchronous in the sense that the recurrence of
cells containing information from a particular user is not
necessarily periodic
• Asynchronous transfer mode (= Statistical multiplexing)
– Sources packetize data. Packets are sent
only if there is data
• ATM requires connections to be established before
any communication takes place

• A connection is called a virtual circuit which

could be permanent or switched

• Information to be transmitted is divided into cells

consisting 5 bytes header and 48 bytes user data

• Fixed sized cells enable hardwire switching

• Typical speeds of ATM are 155 and 622 Mbps
 ATM’s Key Concepts
• ATM uses Virtual-Circuit Packet Switching

– ATM can reserve capacity for a virtual

circuit. This is useful for voice and video,
which require a minimum level of service

– Overhead for setting up a connection is

expensive if data transmission is short
(e.g., web browsing)
 ATM’s Key Concepts
• ATM packets are small and have a fixed size
– Packets in ATM are called cells
– Small packets are good for voice and video
transmissions
 ATM Cells
• Why 53 Bytes?
A 48 byte payload was the result of a compromise
between a 32 byte payload and a 64 byte payload
• Advantages
– Low packetization delay for continuous bit
rate applications (video, audio)
– Processing at switches is easier
• Disadvantages
– High overhead (5 Bytes per 48)
– Poor utilization at lower line rates links
ATM Cells
ATM Cells
 ATM Architecture
• The ATM Reference Model
ATM technology has its own protocol architecture
ATM Reference Model
 ATM Layers and Planes
• ATM is a three dimensional model consisting of layers and
planes
• Physical layer deals with physical media issues,further
divided into
-PMD and TC sub layers
• ATM layer defines cell format and connection setup
 ATM Layers and Planes

• ATM Adaptation Layer segments and reassembles

upper layer into and from cells,divided into
-SAR and CS sub layers
• User planes deals with data transport,flow and
error control
• Control plane deals with connection management
• The Layer and Plane management deals with
resource management and interlayer coordination
 ATM Adaptation Layer (AAL)
• AAL encapsulates user-level data
• Performs segmentation and reassembly of user-
level messages
Layers of ATM
Functions of Layers
 ATM Layer
• The ATM Layer is responsible for the transport
of 53 byte cells across an ATM network
• Multiplex logical channels within a physical channel
• The ATM Layer can provide a variety of services
for cells from an ATM virtual connection:
-Constant Bit Rate (CBR)
-Variable Bit Rate(VBR)
- Available Bit Rate(ABR)
-Unspecified Bit Rate(UBR)
-Guarantees Frame Rate(GFR)
Correspondence between ATM and
OSI Reference Models
 ATM Connections
• A Packet Switch
Forwarding with VCs
 Addressing and Signaling
ATM End system Addresses (AESA)
• ALL ATM addresses are 20 bytes long
• Source and destination address are supplied when
setting up a connection
• ATM endpoints use the NSAP (Network Service
Access Point) format from ISO OSI
• Three different types of addresses
-NSAP encoding for E.164: ISDN telephone
numbers (e.g., 001-434-9822200)
-DCC format: for public networks
-ICD format: for private networks
ATM End system Addresses (AESA)
Formats of an ATM address
 ATM UNI Signaling

• Significant Signaling Protocols

• ATM Forum:
-UNI 3.0. UNI signaling protocol for point-to-
point connections.
-UNI 3.1. Supports point-to-multipoint
connections.
-UNI 4.0. Supports Leaf initiated join
multipoint connections
-PNNI. for network node signaling
 Which Address Format To Use?

• Currently each service provider makes its own

choice
– This introduces problems (SVC compatibility)
• Most ATM switches support multiple formats
• ATM Forum prepares standards to translate
addresses at network boundaries (NNI interfaces)
– Interworking of ATM Networks (IAN)
 IP over ATM
Issues with sending IP traffic over ATM
• Address resolution:
– IP address VPI/VCI
– IP address ATM address

• Emulation of broadcast operation on IP sub

networks

• Routing
 What is ISDN?

ISDN allows digital signals to be transmitted over existing

telephone wiring.

This became possible when the telephone company switches

were upgraded to handle digital signals.

ISDN is generally viewed as an alternative to leased lines,

which can be used for telecommuting and networking small
and remote offices into LANs.
 What Can ISDN Do?

ISDN's ability to bring digital connectivity to local sites has many benefits,
including the following:

• ISDN can carry a variety of user traffic signals including:

– digital video, packet-switched data, and telephone network services.
• ISDN offers much faster call setup than modem connections
because it uses out-of-band (D, or delta, channel) signaling.
– For example, some ISDN calls can be setup in less than one second.
• ISDN provides a faster data transfer rate than modems by using the
bearer channel (B channel of 64kbps).
– With multiple B channels, ISDN offers users more bandwidth on WANs
than some leased lines.
– For example, if you were to use two B channels, the bandwidth capability
is 128Kbps because each B channel handles 64Kbps.

ISDN can provide a clear data path over which to negotiate PPP links.
 Narrowband ISDN & Broadband ISDN
• The narrowband ISDN is based on the use of a 64 kbps channel as
the basic unit of switching and has a circuit switching orientation.

• The major technical contribution of the narrowband ISDN effort

has been frame relay.

• The B-ISDN supports very high data rates (100s of Mbps) and
has a packet switching orientation.

• The major technical contribution of the B-ISDN effort has been

asynchronous transfer mode, also known as cell relay.