UNIT 2

Physical Layer
Bandwidth

 The maximum amount of data

transmitted over an internet connection
in a given amount of time.
 Bandwidth is often mistaken for internet
speed when it's actually the volume of
information that can be sent over a
connection in a measured amount of time
– calculated in megabits per second
(Mbps).
Bandwidth

 Bandwidth is how much information you

receive every second, while speed is how
fast that information is received or
downloaded.
Bandwidth

 The bandwidth of a transmission

medium is the frequency width of the
medium and is dependent upon its
physical characteristics like thickness,
material, length etc.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth Limited Signals
 The range of frequencies that are used for
transmitting a signal without being substantially
attenuated is called the bandwidth. It is calculated
as the difference between the highest and the
lowest frequencies. It is expressed in Hertz (Hz).
 For example, if the minimum frequency is 100 Hz
and the maximum frequency is 1000 Hz, the
bandwidth will be 900 Hz.
Maximum Data Rate of a Channel

 Data rate refers to the speed of data transfer

through a channel. It is generally computed in bits
per second (bps). Higher data rates are expressed as
Kbps ("Kilo" bits per second, i.e.1000 bps), Mbps
("Mega" bits per second, i.e.1000 Kbps), Gbps
("Giga" bits per second, i.e. 1000 Mbps) and Tbps
("Tera" bits per second, i.e. 1000 Gbps).
Maximum Data Rate of a Channel

 One of the main objectives of data communications

is to increase the data rate. There are three factors
that determine the data rate of a channel:
 Bandwidth of the channel
 Number of levels of signals that are used
 Noise present in the channel
Transmission Media

 A communication channel that is used to carry the

data from the transmitter to the receiver through
the electromagnetic signals. The main function of
this is to carry the data in the bits form through the
Local Area Network (LAN). In data communication,
it works like a physical path between the sender &
the receiver.
Transmission Media

 Factors to be considered while choosing

Transmission Medium
 1. Transmission Rate

 2. Cost and Ease of Installation

 3. Resistance to Environmental Conditions

 4. Distances
Transmission Media
Magnetic Media

 One of the most convenient way to transfer data

from one computer to another, even before the
birth of networking, was to save it on some storage
media and transfer physical from one station to
another. Though it may seem old-fashion way in
today’s world of high speed internet, but when the
size of data is huge, the magnetic media comes into
play.
Magnetic Media
 For example, a bank has to handle and transfer huge
data of its customer, which stores a backup of it at
some geographically far-away place for security
reasons and to keep it from uncertain calamities. If
the bank needs to store its huge backup data then
its, transfer through internet is not feasible. The
WAN links may not support such high speed. Even if
they do; the cost too high to afford.
 In these cases, data backup is stored onto magnetic
tapes or magnetic discs, and then shifted physically
at remote places.
Twisted Pair Cable
 A twisted pair cable is made of two plastic insulated
copper wires twisted together to form a single
media. Out of these two wires, only one carries
actual signal and another is used for ground
reference. The twists between wires are helpful in
reducing noise (electro-magnetic interference) and
crosstalk.
 There are two types of twisted pair cables:
 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cable
 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cable
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable
 It is the most common type of telecommunication
when compared with Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
which consists of two conductors usually copper,
each with its own colour plastic insulator.
Identification is the reason behind coloured plastic
insulation. UTP cables consist of 2 or 4 pairs of
twisted cable. Cable with 2 pair use RJ-11 connector
and 4 pair cable useRJ-45 connector.
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable
 Advantages :
 Installation is easy
 Flexible
 Cheap
 It has high speed capacity,
 100 meter limit Higher grades of UTP are used in
LAN technologies like Ethernet.
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable
 Disadvantages :
 Bandwidth is low when compared with Coaxial
Cable
 Provides less protection from interference
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
 This cable has a metal foil or braided-mesh
covering which encases each pair of insulated
conductors.
 Electromagnetic noise penetration is prevented by
metal casing.
 Shielding also eliminates crosstalk
 It has same attenuation as unshielded twisted pair.
 It is faster the unshielded and coaxial cable. It is
more expensive than coaxial and unshielded
twisted pair.
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
 Advantages :
 Easy to install
 Performance is adequate
 Can be used for Analog or Digital transmission
 Increases the signaling rate
 Higher capacity than unshielded twisted pair
 Eliminates crosstalk
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
 Disadvantages :
 Difficult to manufacture
 Heavy
Coaxial Cable
 Coaxial is called by this name because it contains two
conductors that are parallel to each other.
 Copper is used in this as center conductor which can be a
solid wire or a standard one.
 It is surrounded by PVC installation, a sheath which is
encased in an outer conductor of metal foil.
 Outer metallic wrapping is used as a shield against noise
and as the second conductor which completes the circuit.
 The outer conductor is also encased in an insulating
sheath. The outermost part is the plastic cover which
protects the whole cable.
Coaxial Cable
Types of Coaxial Cable
 Base Band
 This is a 50 ohm (Ω) coaxial cable which is used for
digital transmission.
 It is mostly used for LAN’s.
 Baseband transmits a single signal at a time with
very high speed.
 The major drawback is that it needs amplification
after every 1000 feet.
Types of Coaxial Cable
 Broad Band
 This uses analog transmission on standard cable
television cabling.
 It transmits several simultaneous signal using
different frequencies.
 It covers large area when compared with
Baseband Coaxial Cable.
Coaxial Cable
 Advantages :
 Bandwidth is high
 Used in long distance telephone lines.
 Transmits digital signals at a very high rate of
10Mbps.
 Much higher noise immunity Data transmission
without distortion.
 The can span to longer distance at higher speeds as
they have better shielding when compared to
twisted pair cable
Coaxial Cable
 Disadvantages :
 Single cable failure can fail the entire network.
 Difficult to install and expensive when compared
with twisted pair.
 If the shield is imperfect, it can lead to grounded
loop.
Fibre Optic Cable
 These are similar to coaxial cable.
 It uses electric signals to transmit data.
 At the center is the glass core through which
light propagates.
Fibre Optic Cable
 The core in fiber optic cable is surrounded by
glass cladding with lower index of refraction as
compared to core to keep all the light in core.
 This is covered with a thin plastic jacket to
protect the cladding.
 The fibers are grouped together in bundles
protected by an outer shield.
 Fiber optic cable has bandwidth more than 2
gbps
Fibre Optic Cable
 Advantages :
 Provides high quality transmission of signals at
very high speed.
 These are not affected by electromagnetic
interference, so noise and distortion is very less.
 Used for both analog and digital signals.
Unguided Media
 It is also known as unbounded otherwise
wireless transmission media.
 It doesn’t require any physical medium to
transmit electromagnetic signals.
 The main features of this media are less
secure, the signal can be transmitted through
air, and applicable for large distances.
Radio waves
 Radio waves are the electromagnetic waves that are
transmitted in all the directions of free space.
 Radio waves are omnidirectional, i.e., the signals are
propagated in all the directions.
 The range in frequencies of radio waves is from 3Khz
to 1 khz.
 In the case of radio waves, the sending and receiving
antenna are not aligned, i.e., the wave sent by the
sending antenna can be received by any receiving
antenna.
 An example of the radio wave is FM radio.
Radio waves
Radio waves
 Applications Of Radio waves:
 A Radio wave is useful for multicasting when there is
one sender and many receivers.
 An FM radio, television, cordless phones are examples
of a radio wave.
 Advantages Of Radio transmission:
 Radio transmission is mainly used for wide area
networks and mobile cellular phones.
 Radio waves cover a large area, and they can penetrate
the walls.
 Radio transmission provides a higher transmission rate.
Microwaves
 They are of two types
 Terrestrial microwave
 Satellite microwave communication.
Terrestrial Microwaves
 Terrestrial Microwave transmission is a
technology that transmits the focused beam
of a radio signal from one ground-based
microwave transmission antenna to another.
 Microwaves are the electromagnetic waves
having the frequency in the range from 1GHz
to 1000 GHz.
Terrestrial Microwaves
 Microwaves are unidirectional as the sending
and receiving antenna is to be aligned, i.e., the
waves sent by the sending antenna are narrowly
focused.
 In this case, antennas are mounted on the
towers to send a beam to another antenna
which is km away.
 It works on the line of sight transmission, i.e.,
the antennas mounted on the towers are the
direct sight of each other.
Satellite Microwaves
A satellite is a physical object that revolves
around the earth at a known height.
 Satellite communication is more reliable now
a days as it offers more flexibility than cable
and fiber optic systems.
 We can communicate with any point on the
globe by using satellite communication.
Satellite Microwaves
 How Does Satellite work?
 The satellite accepts the signal that is
transmitted from the earth station, and it
amplifies the signal. The amplified signal is
retransmitted to another earth station.
Infrared
 An infrared transmission is a wireless
technology used for communication over short
ranges.
 The frequency of the infrared in the range from
300 GHz to 400 THz.
 It is used for short-range communication such
as data transfer between two cell phones, TV
remote operation, data transfer between a
computer and cell phone resides in the same
closed area.
Infrared
 It supports high bandwidth, and hence the data rate will
be very high.
 Infrared waves cannot penetrate the walls. Therefore, the
infrared communication in one room cannot be
interrupted by the nearby rooms.
 An infrared communication provides better security with
minimum interference.
 Infrared communication is unreliable outside the building
because the sun rays will interfere with the infrared
waves.
Multiplexing
 What is Multiplexing?
 Multiplexingis a technique used to combine
and send the multiple data streams over a
single medium. The process of combining the
data streams is known as multiplexing and
hardware used for multiplexing is known as a
multiplexer.
Multiplexing
 The transmission medium is used to send the signal
from sender to receiver. The medium can only have
one signal at a time.
 If there are multiple signals to share one medium,
then the medium must be divided in such a way
that each signal is given some portion of the
available bandwidth.
 When multiple signals share the common medium,
there is a possibility of collision.
 Multiplexing concept is used to avoid such collision.
Multiplexing Techniques
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

FDM
 It is an analog technique.
 Frequency Division Multiplexing is a
technique in which the available bandwidth
of a single transmission medium is subdivided
into several channels.
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

FDM
 In the above diagram, a single transmission
medium is subdivided into several frequency
channels, and each frequency channel is given to
different devices. Device 1 has a frequency
channel of range from 1 to 5.
 The main aim of the FDM is to subdivide the
available bandwidth into different frequency
channels and allocate them to different devices.
 FDM is mainly used in radio broadcasts and TV
networks.
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

WDM
 Wavelength Division Multiplexing is same as
FDM except that the optical signals are
transmitted through the fibre optic cable.
 WDM is used on fibre optics to increase the
capacity of a single fibre.
 It is used to utilize the high data rate
capability of fibre optic cable.
 It is an analog multiplexing technique.
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

TDM
 It is a digital technique.
 In Time Division Multiplexing technique,
the total time available in the channel is
distributed among different users. Therefore,
each user is allocated with different time
interval known as a Time slot at which data is
to be transmitted by the sender.
 A user takes control of the channel for a fixed
amount of time.
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

TDM
 In Frequency Division Multiplexing
Technique, all signals operate at the same
time with different frequency, but in case of
Time Division Multiplexing technique, all
signals operate at the same frequency with
different time.
 In Time Division Multiplexing technique, data
is not transmitted simultaneously rather the
data is transmitted one-by-one.
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

TDM
 There are two types of TDM:
 Synchronous TDM
 Asynchronous TDM
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

Synchronous TDM
A Synchronous TDM is a technique in which
time slot is preassigned to every device.
 In Synchronous TDM, each device is given
some time slot irrespective of the fact that
the device contains the data or not.
 If the device does not have any data, then the
slot will remain empty.
 If there are n devices, then there are n slots.
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

Synchronous TDM
exing is a technique in which the available bandwidth of a single transmission medium is subdivided into several channels.
transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is given to different devices. Device 1 has a frequency

Asynchronous TDM
 An asynchronous TDM is a technique in which time slots are
not fixed.
 Time slots are allocated to only those devices which have the
data to send. Therefore, we can say that Asynchronous Time
Division multiplexor transmits only the data from active
workstations.
 An asynchronous TDM technique dynamically allocates the
time slots to the devices.
 In Asynchronous TDM, total speed of the input lines can be
greater than the capacity of the channel.
 Asynchronous Time Division multiplexor accepts the incoming
data streams and creates a frame that contains only data with
no empty slots.
Asynchronous TDM
Difference
 The difference between Asynchronous TDM and
Synchronous TDM is that many slots in Synchronous
TDM are unutilized, but in Asynchronous TDM, slots are
fully utilized. This leads to the smaller transmission time
and efficient utilization of the capacity of the channel.
 In Synchronous TDM, if there are n sending devices,
then there are n time slots. In Asynchronous TDM, if
there are n sending devices, then there are m time slots
where m is less than n (m<n).
 The number of slots in a frame depends on the
statistical analysis of the number of input lines.
Switching
 When a user accesses the internet or another computer
network outside their immediate location, messages are
sent through the network of transmission media. This
technique of transferring the information from one
computer network to another network is known
as switching.
 Switching in a computer network is achieved by using
switches. A switch is a small hardware device which is
used to join multiple computers together with one local
area network (LAN).
 Network switches operate at layer 2 (Data link layer) in
the OSI model.
Switching Techniques
 Circuit switching
 Message Switching
 Packet Switching
Circuit switching
 Circuit switching is a switching technique that
establishes a dedicated path between sender and
receiver.
 In the Circuit Switching Technique, once the
connection is established then the dedicated path
will remain to exist until the connection is
terminated.
 Circuit switching in a network operates in a similar
way as the telephone works.
 A complete end-to-end path must exist before the
communication takes place.
Circuit switching
 In case of circuit switching technique, when any user
wants to send the data, voice, video, a request signal
is sent to the receiver then the receiver sends back
the acknowledgment to ensure the availability of the
dedicated path. After receiving the
acknowledgment, dedicated path transfers the data.
 Circuit switching is used in public telephone network.
It is used for voice transmission.
 Fixed data can be transferred at a time in circuit
switching technology.
Circuit switching
 Communication through circuit switching
has 3 phases:
 Circuit establishment
 Data transfer
 Circuit Disconnect
Circuit switching
 Advantages Of Circuit Switching:
 In the case of Circuit Switching technique, the
communication channel is dedicated.
 It has fixed bandwidth.
Message switching
 Message Switching is a switching technique in which a
message is transferred as a complete unit and routed
through intermediate nodes at which it is stored and
forwarded.
 In Message Switching technique, there is no
establishment of a dedicated path between the sender
and receiver.
 The destination address is appended to the message.
Message Switching provides a dynamic routing as the
message is routed through the intermediate nodes
based on the information available in the message.
Message switching
 Message switches are programmed in such a
way so that they can provide the most
efficient routes.
 Each and every node stores the entire
message and then forward it to the next
node. This type of network is known as store
and forward network.
 Message switching treats each message as an
independent entity.
Message switching
Advantages of Message switching

 Data channels are shared among the

communicating devices that improve the
efficiency of using available bandwidth.
 Traffic congestion can be reduced because the
message is temporarily stored in the nodes.
 Message priority can be used to manage the
network.
 The size of the message which is sent over the
network can be varied. Therefore, it supports the
data of unlimited size.
Packet switching
 The packet switching is a switching technique in
which the message is sent in one go, but it is
divided into smaller pieces, and they are sent
individually.
 The message splits into smaller pieces known as
packets and packets are given a unique number
to identify their order at the receiving end.
 Every packet contains some information in its
headers such as source address, destination
address and sequence number.
Packet switching
 Packets will travel across the network, taking
the shortest path as possible.
 All the packets are reassembled at the
receiving end in correct order.
 If any packet is missing or corrupted, then the
message will be sent to resend the message.
 If the correct order of the packets is reached,
then the acknowledgment message will be
sent.
Packet switching
Advantages of Packet switching

 Cost-effective: In packet switching technique, switching

devices do not require massive secondary storage to store the
packets, so cost is minimized to some extent. Therefore, we can
say that the packet switching technique is a cost-effective
technique.
 Reliable: If any node is busy, then the packets can be rerouted.
This ensures that the Packet Switching technique provides
reliable communication.
 Efficient: Packet Switching is an efficient technique. It does not
require any established path prior to the transmission, and
many users can use the same communication channel
simultaneously, hence makes use of available bandwidth very
efficiently.