EDW 204

Data Communication
and Networking
 CHAPTER 1

Data Communications, Data Networks,

and the Internet
Technological Advancement
Driving Forces
Notable Trends
Changes in Networking
Technology

* Emergence of high-speed LANs

* Corporate WAN needs

* Digital electronics
Emergence of High-Speed LANs
 Personal computers and microcomputer
workstations have become an essential tool for
office workers

 Examples of requirements that call for higher-

speed LANs:
 Centralized server farms
 Power workgroups
 High-speed local backbone
Corporate Wide Area
Networking Needs
 Digital Electronics
 The rapid conversion of consumer electronics
to digital technology is having an impact on
both the Internet and corporate intranets
 Image and video traffic carried by networks is
dramatically increasing
• Because of their huge storage capacity digital versatile
disks (DVDs) are being incorporated into Web sites
• Digital camcorders have made it easier to make digital
video files to be placed on corporate and Internet Web
sites
 Convergence
 The merger of previously
distinct telephony and Layers:
information technologies and
markets
 Involves:
• Moving voice into a
data infrastructure
• Integrating all the voice
and data networks
inside a user
organization into a
single data network
infrastructure
• Then extending that
into the wireless arena
 Foundation is packet-
based transmission
using the Internet
Protocol (IP)
 Increases the function
and scope of both the
infrastructure and the
application base
 Table 1.1
Communications Tasks
Transmission Lines
Capacity
The basic building block of
any communications facility
is the transmission line
Reliability

The business manager is

concerned with a facility Cost
providing the required
capacity, with acceptable Transmission
reliability, at minimum cost
Line
Transmission Mediums
 Transmission Services
 Remain the most costly component of a
communications budget
 Two major approaches to greater efficiency:
 Networks
 It is estimated that by 2016 there will be
over 20 billion fixed and mobile networked
devices
 This affects traffic volume in a number of
ways:
• It enables a user to be continuously consuming
network capacity
• Capacity can be consumed on multiple devices
simultaneously
• Different broadband devices enable different
applications which may have greater traffic
generation capability
 Networking
Advances in technology have led to greatly
increased capacity and the concept of
integration, allowing equipment and
networks to work simultaneously
 Wide Area Networks (WANs)

 Span a large geographical area

 Require the crossing of public right-of-ways

 Rely in part on common carrier circuits

 Typically consist of a number of

interconnected switching nodes
 Wide Area Networks
Alternative technologies used include:
 Circuit switching
 Packet switching
 Frame relay
 Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
 Circuit Switching
 Uses a dedicated communications path
 Connected sequence of physical links
between nodes
 Logical channel dedicated on each link
 Rapid transmission
 The most common example of circuit
switching is the telephone network
 Packet Switching
 Data are sent out in a sequence of small
chunks called packets
 Packets are passed from node to node
along a path leading from source to
destination
 Packet-switching networks are commonly
used for terminal-to-terminal computer and
computer-to-computer communications
 Frame Relay
 Developed to take advantage of high data
rates and low error rates
 Operates at data rates of up to 2 Mbps
 Key to achieving high data rates is to strip
out most of the overhead involved with error
control
Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM)
 Referred to as cell relay
 Culmination of developments in circuit
switching and packet switching
 Uses fixed-length packets called cells
 Works in range of 10s and 100s of Mbps
and in the Gbps range
 Allows multiple channels with the data rate
on each channel dynamically set on
demand
Local Area Networks (LAN)
 The Internet

 Internet evolved from ARPANET

 Developed to solve the dilemma of
communicating across arbitrary, multiple,
packet-switched networks
 Foundation is the TCP/IP protocol suite
 Table 1.2
Internet Terminology
 Central Office (CO)  Network Access Point (NAP)
 The place where telephone  One of several major Internet
companies terminate customer interconnection points that serve
lines and locate switching to tie all the ISPs together
equipment to interconnect those  Network Service Provider
lines with other networks
(NSP)
 Customer Premises  A company that provides
Equipment (CPE) backbone services to an
 Telecommunications equipment Internet service provider (ISP)
that is located on the customer’s  Point of Presence (POP)
premises  A site that has a collection of
 Internet Service Provider (ISP) telecommunications equipment,
 A company that provides other usually refers to ISP or
companies or individuals with telephone company sites
access to, or presence on, the
Internet

(Table can be found on page 27 in textbook)

 Summary

 Transmission mediums  Trends challenging

 Fiber optic data communications:
 Wireless  Traffic growth
 Network categories:  Development of new
services
 Wide Area Networks
 Advances in
 Local Area Networks
technology
 Wireless Networks
 Data Transmission
 Internet and Network Capacity
 Origin Requirements
 Key elements
 Convergence
 Internet architecture