Chapter 4

The Medium Access Control

Sublayer
Figure 12-2
Project 802

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 IEEE 802.3 and Ethernet
Xerox started the Project to
Connect 2.94 Mbps CSMA/CD systems to connect over 100 PC’s
on a 1Km cable called Ethernet

Later joined by Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel corporation

And made a standard for 10Mbps Ethernet

Adopted by IEEE
Now called IEEE 802.3
 – 802.3 was backed by Xerox, 802.4 by General Motors
and 802.5 by IBM.
a) IEEE 802.3 Ethernet LANs
– The MAC layer uses CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple
Access with Collision Detection) technology.
– When a computer wants to transmit a frame it:
• Listens for a frame on the cable, if busy, the computer waits for a
random time and attempts transmission again. This is known as
Carrier Sense.
• If the cable is quiet, the computer begins to transmit.
• Two computers could transmit at the same time. To prevent this
happening, the transmitting computer listens to what it is
sending.
• If what it hears is different to what it is sending, then a collision
has occurred. This is known as Collision Detection.
a) IEEE 802.3 Ethernet LANs
– When a computer wants to receive a frame it:
• Listens to all frames traveling on the cable.
• If the frame address is the same as the computer’s address or the
same as the group address of the computers of which it is a
member, it copies the frame from the cable.
• Otherwise it just ignores the frame.
• Note: Ethernet LAN is a broadcast network. It is possible to
– Unicast a frame from one computer to any other computer
connected to the same cable.
– Broadcast a frame from one computer to all other computers
connected to the same cable.
– Multicast a frame from one computer to a subset of the computers
connected to the same cable.
 10 F

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a) IEEE 802.3 Frame Format

Bytes 7 1 2 or 6 2 or 6 2 0 – 1500 0 – 46 4

Preamble Start of
Destination Source Length of
7 bytes Frame Data Pad Checksum
Address Address Data Field
10101010 Delimiter

Used to synchronise Tell receiver how many

Packets have to be at least 64 bytes long,
data bytes are being sent.
sender with receiver this makes it easier to distinguish between
valid frames and garbage frames. If the
payload is less than this then we need to
pad it with extra dummy bytes.

– Preamble is used to synchronise the sender with the

receiver.
– Start of Frame Delimiter follows the Preamble and
consists of the bit sequence 10101011. It denotes the
start of the Ethernet frame.
a) IEEE 802.3 Frame Format
– Each manufacturer of Ethernet Network cards assigns
each card it manufactures a unique 48 bit Ethernet
Address
– Destination Address:
• If all the bits are 1 in the destination address, the
message is received by all computers connected to the
cable (i.e. Broadcast).
• If the first bit is 1, then the rest of the bits indicate a
multicast group address that can target more than one
computer.
• If the first bit is 0, the rest of the bits make up a
normal address, which is unique to a single computer
connected to the LAN.
– Source Address is the Ethernet address of the sending
computer.
a) IEEE 802.3 Frame Format
– Length field tells how many bytes are present in the data
field from a minimum of 0 to a maximum of 1500.
– A data field of 0 bytes is legal, it causes a problem.
– When a computer detects a collision, it stops transmitting
its frame which means that corrupted frames appear on
the cable.
– To make it easier to distinguish valid frames from
corrupted frames (due to collisions), 802.3 requires valid
frames to be at least 64 bytes long from destination to
checksum.
– If the data portion is less than 46 bytes, the pad field is
used to check out the frame to the minimum size of 64
bytes.
– The Checksum is used to detect if any data bits have
been corrupted during transmission.
Figure 12-9

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Figure 12-9-continued
10BASE5

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Figure 12-10
Transceiver

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Figure 12-11

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Figure 12-11-continued
10BASE2

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 Comparison (Thick/Thin Ethernet)

Advantages of Thinnet
b) Cheap
c) Easy to install
d) Flexible
e) Light weight

Disadvantages
i) Shorter range (185 meters)
j) Smaller capacity (few stations/Segments)
Figure 12-12

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Figure 12-12-continued
10BASET

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 10 Base T
Advantages

c) Easy to add and remove the station

d) Easy to configure and maintain
e) Cable breaks can be detected easily

Disadvantages
j) Shorter range (100 meters)
k) Extra cost of Hub
 Ethernet Cabling

The most common kinds of Ethernet cabling.

 Ethernet Cabling (3)

Cable topologies. (a) Linear, (b) Spine, (c) Tree, (d) Segmented.
Figure 12-14

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 Fast Ethernet

T4-
b) 4 pairs of Cat-3 (2-pairs bidirectional, 2 unidirectional)
c) 33.66 Mbps on each
d) Encoding 8B/6T
e) Length <100ms
TX-
g) 2 pairs of Cat 5 (1- S to H 2 -H to S)
h) Encoding 4B/5B
i) Signaling NRZ-I
j) Length <100ms
FX-
l) 2 fibers are used
m) Encoding 4B/5B
n) Signaling NRZ-I
o) Length <2000ms
 Gigabit Ethernet

(a) A two-station Ethernet. (b) A multistation Ethernet.

Gigabit Ethernet (2)

Gigabit Ethernet cabling.

IEEE 802.2: Logical Link Control

(a) Position of LLC. (b) Protocol formats.

IEEE 802.4

Token Bus
IEEE 802.4
 IEEE 802.4
a) Physical Bus and logical ring
b) Application in factory automation
* Real time (no collision)
* Minimum delay
5. Each station knowing the address of station on left and right
6. When initialized, the highest no station may send first frame and after
sending, it passes the special frame called token to neighbor
7. No collisions
8. Physical order/location of the station does not matter
9. All stations will receive frame and if does not belong to them, discard it
10. Four priority classes are maintained internally (0,2,4,6)
11. MAC protocol is more complex (more timers and internal state variables
need to be maintained)
Physical layer
1. 75 ohm broadband coaxial cable
2. Modulation used: Phase continuous FSK
Phase Coherent FSK
Multilevel duobinary AM-PSK
3. Speed: 1,5 and 10 Mbps

No control MAC Sub Layer

in 802.3

Five times
than 802.3
 IEEE 802.4

Frame control
To distinguish between data and control frames
For data frames it carries:
Frame priority and Indicator (telling the receiver to ACK
correct or incorrect receipt)
For control frames it carries:
Frame Type:
• Token passing
• Various Ring Maintenance Frame
• Mechanisms for letting new stations to enter/leave the ring
IEEE 802.5

Token Ring
a) 802.5 Token Ring LANs
– A Token Ring LAN consists of a collection of ring
interfaces connected by point-to-point lines.

Ring
interface

Unidirectional
Ring – One Way

Computers
a) IEEE 802.5 Token Ring LANs
– The MAC sub layer uses Token Ring Technology.
– In a Token Ring LAN, a special bit pattern called the
token circulates around the ring whenever all computers
are idle.
– When a computer wants to transmit:
• It waits for the token to arrive.
• When it arrives, it removes the token from the ring. There is only
one token so only one computer can transmit at any one time.
• The computer can now transmit its frame on its output link for
token holding time.
• This frame will now propagate around the ring until it arrives
back at the sender who removes the frame from the ring.
• The sender then regenerates the token and passes it to the next
computer (restarting the above steps).
a) IEEE 802.5 Token Ring LANs
–A computer removing the token, eliminates the
possibility of collisions.
– Removal of the token is done by inverting a bit in the 3
byte token. Inverting this bit converts the token into the
first 3 bytes of a normal data frame.
b) Interface power
– From ring
– From external source
c) Priorities are maintained
d) Monitor station will manage the ring
Wire Centre (star shaped ring)
Figure 12-16
Token Ring Frame
Physical Layer:
Encoding: Differential Manchester Encoding
Data rate: 1,4 and 16 Mbps
Addressing : 6 byte NIC

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Access Control
Priority Token Monitor Reservation bit

Frame Control
Claim_token: To become monitor when ring initialized
Orphan frame: If monitor bit is set
Beacon: To check if neighbor is dead
Purge: Reinitialize the ring

ED: 1 bit is used to mark last frame in logical sequence

Frame status: A and C bits are used

 Comparison of 802.x
802.3 Ethernet – Advantages
• Widely used at present. People are experienced in using this
technology.
• Simple Protocol. New computers can be added with having to
bring the network down.
• Almost zero delay at low load, there is no need to wait for a
token, you can transmit when ready.
802.3 Ethernet – Disadvantages
• The electronics is more complicated for carrier sense and
collision detection.
• The smallest frame must hold 64 bytes, this means there is a
substantial overhead if you are only transmitting a single
character from your machine.
• Ethernet is non-deterministic system (possibility of repeated
collisions). This means that Ethernet is not suitable for
network applications that require guaranteed delivery times.
• Poor performance at high loads as there can be lots of
collisions reducing the number of messages that are
successfully transmitted
• No provision for priorities
802.4 Token Bus – Advantages
– More reliable
– Deterministic
– Short frames are allowed
– Priorities are allowed
– Excellent throughput and efficiency
802.4 Token Bus – Disadvantages
– Analog circuitry (Modem and Amplifiers)
– Complex protocols
– Poorly suited for fiber optics
802.5 Token Ring – Advantages
• Token Ring uses point-to-point connections between ring
interfaces so that the electronic hardware can be fully digital
and simple. There is no need for collision detection.
• Can use any medium twisted pair is cheap and easy to install
but could equally use fiber optic if available.
• Throughput excellent at high loads since there is no
possibility of collisions unlike 802.3.
• Priorities are possible
• Wire center can detect and eliminate breaks
802.5 Token Ring – Disadvantages
• Computers must wait for the token to arrive, therefore at load, a computer
is delayed before sending.
• Each token ring has a monitor computer, to look after the ring (i.e.
remove damaged frames, handle lost frames and lost tokens). This
introduces a critical point of failure. If the monitor computer failed, the
remaining computers would have to wait until it is replaced before being
able to continue.
Figure 13-1
DQDB Buses and Nodes

Upstream for
A

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 Transmission

a) A station must choose a bus for which a destination station is

considered downstream
b) An empty slot is generated by head and filled up with data by
the station
c) To send data on the bus , a station must make the reservation on
other bus
Figure 13-2
DQDB Data Transmission

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Figure 13-3
Queues

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 Figure 13-4
Distributed Queues

Add a token when a slot with reservation bit set passes

For each empty slot it removes a token from the rear

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Figure 13-5
Reservation Token

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 SMDS (Switched Multimegabit Data Service)

a) Using telephone system for connecting LANs is expensive because

subscriber must lease the line all of the time or not at all
b) SMDS is a packet switched datagram service for high speed MAN
traffic
c) Work as a backbone
d) Pay only when used
e) Data rate 1.544 to 155 Mbps
f) Telephone numbers are used as addresses
g) Multicasting is also possible
Figure 13-9

Switched Multimegabit Data Services

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