Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 1-1 DATA COMMUNICATIONS
The term telecommunication means communication at a
distance. The word data refers to information presented
in whatever form is agreed upon by the parties creating
and using the data. Data communications are the
exchange of data between two devices via some form of
transmission medium such as a wire cable.

Topics discussed in this section:

 Components of a data communications system
 Data Flow

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 Figure 1.1 Components of a data communication system

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 Figure 1.2 Data flow (simplex, half-duplex, and full-duplex)

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 1-2 NETWORKS

A network is a set of devices (often referred to as nodes)

connected by communication links. A node can be a
computer, printer, or any other device capable of sending
and/or receiving data generated by other nodes on the
network. A link can be a cable, air, optical fiber, or any
medium which can transport a signal carrying
information.
Topics discussed in this section:
 Network Criteria
 Physical Structures
 Categories of Networks

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 Network Criteria

 Performance
 Depends on Network Elements
 Measured in terms of Delay and Throughput
 Reliability
 Failure rate of network components
 Measured in terms of availability/robustness
 Security
 Data protection against corruption/loss of data due to:
 Errors
 Malicious users

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 Physical Structures

 Type of Connection
 Point to Point - single transmitter and receiver
 Multipoint - multiple recipients of single transmission
 Physical Topology
 Connection of devices
 Type of transmission - unicast, mulitcast, broadcast

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 Figure 1.3 Types of connections: point-to-point and multipoint

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 Figure 1.4 Categories of topology

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 Figure 1.5 A fully connected mesh topology (five devices)

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 Figure 1.6 A star topology connecting four stations

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 Figure 1.7 A bus topology connecting three stations

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 Figure 1.8 A ring topology connecting six stations

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 Figure 1.9 A hybrid topology: a star backbone with three bus networks

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 Categories of Networks

 Local Area Networks (LANs)

 Short distances
 Designed to provide local interconnectivity
 Wide Area Networks (WANs)
 Long distances
 Provide connectivity over large areas
 Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs)
 Provide connectivity over areas such as a city, a campus

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 Figure 1.10 An isolated LAN connecting 12 computers to a hub in a closet

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 Figure 1.11 WANs: a switched WAN and a point-to-point WAN

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 Figure 1.12 A heterogeneous network made of four WANs and two LANs

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Transmission medium

A transmission medium can be broadly defined as anything that can carry

information from a source to a destination.

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Transmission medium

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Transmission medium
Guided Media: Guided media, which are those that provide a medium from
one device to another, include twisted-pair cable, coaxial cable, and fiber-optic
cable.

Twisted-Pair Cable

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Transmission medium
Unshielded Versus Shielded Twisted-Pair Cable

Applications

•Twisted-pair cables are used in telephone lines to provide voice and data
channels.
•Local-area networks, such as l0Base-T and l00Base-T, also use twisted-pair
cables.

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Transmission medium
Coaxial Cable

Applications
•Coaxial cable was widely used in analog telephone networks, digital telephone
networks
•Cable TV networks also use coaxial cables.
•Another common application of coaxial cable is in traditional Ethernet LANs

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Transmission medium
Fiber-Optic Cable

•A fiber-optic cable is made of glass or plastic and transmits signals in the form
of light.

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Transmission medium
Fiber-Optic Cable

Optical fibers use reflection to guide light through a channel. A glass or plastic
core is surrounded by a cladding of less dense glass or plastic.

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Transmission medium
Fiber-Optic Cable

Application

•Fiber-optic cable is often found in backbone networks because its wide

bandwidth is cost-effective.
•Some cable TV companies use a combination of optical fiber and coaxial
cable, thus creating a hybrid network.
•Local-area networks such as 100Base-FX network (Fast Ethernet) and
1000Base-X also use fiber-optic cable

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Transmission medium
Unguided Media: Unguided media transport electromagnetic waves without
using a physical conductor. This type of communication is often referred to as
wireless communication.
•Radio Waves
•Microwaves
•Infrared

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Transmission medium
Unguided signals can travel from the source to destination in several ways:
ground propagation, sky propagation, and line-of-sight propagation, as shown
in Figure

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Transmission medium
Radio Waves
•Electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies between 3 kHz and 1 GHz are
normally called radio waves.
•Radio waves are Omni directional.

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Transmission medium
Microwaves
•Electromagnetic waves having frequencies between 1 and 300 GHz are called
microwaves.
•Microwaves are unidirectional.

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Transmission medium
Infrared
•Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300 GHz to 400 THz, can be used for
short-range communication.
•Infrared waves, having high frequencies, cannot penetrate walls.
•When we use our infrared remote control, we do not interfere with the use of
the remote by our neighbors.

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Switching
• In network, we have multiple devices, we have the problem of how to
connect them to make one-to-one communication possible.
• One solution is to make a point-to-point connection between each pair of
devices (a mesh topology) or between a central device and every other
device (a star topology).
• These methods, however, are impractical and wasteful when applied to very
large networks.
• A better solution is switching.
• A switched network consists of a series of interlinked nodes, called switches.
Switches are devices capable of creating temporary connections between
two or more devices linked to the switch.
• In a switched network, some of these nodes are connected to the end
systems (computers or telephones, for example). Others are used only for
routing.

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Switching

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Switching
CIRCUIT-SWITCHED NETWORKS
•A circuit-switched network consists of a set of switches connected by physical
links.
•A connection between two stations is a dedicated path made of one or more
links.

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Switching
The actual communication in a circuit-switched network requires three phases:
connection setup, data transfer, and connection teardown.
Setup Phase
•Before the two parties can communicate, a dedicated circuit needs to be
established.
•Connection setup means creating dedicated channels between the switches.
Data Transfer Phase
•After the establishment of the dedicated circuit (channels), the two parties can
transfer data.
Teardown Phase
•When one of the parties needs to disconnect, a signal is sent to each switch to
release the resources.

Switching at the physical layer in the traditional telephone network uses

the circuit-switching approach.

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Switching
DATAGRAM NETWORKS
•In a packet-switched network, there is no resource reservation; resources are
allocated on demand.
•The allocation is done on a first come, first-served basis. When a switch
receives a packet, no matter what is the source or destination, the packet must
wait if there are other packets being processed.
•Packets in this approach are referred to as datagrams. Datagram switching is
normally done at the network layer.

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Switching
• Figure shows how the datagram approach is used to deliver four packets
from station A to station X. The switches in a datagram network are
traditionally referred to as routers.
• The datagram networks are sometimes referred to as connectionless
networks.
• The term connectionless here means that the switch (packet switch) does
not keep information about the connection state. There are no setup or
teardown phases.
• A switch in a datagram network uses a routing table that is based on the
destination address.
• The destination address in the header of a packet in a datagram network
remains the same during the entire journey of the packet.

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Switching
VIRTUAL-CIRCUIT NETWORKS
•A virtual-circuit network is a cross between a circuit-switched network and a
datagram network. It has some characteristics of both.
•As in a circuit-switched network, there are setup and teardown phases in
addition to the data transfer phase.

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Switching
• Resources can be allocated during the setup phase, as in a circuit-switched
network, or on demand, as in a datagram network.
• As in a datagram network, data are packetized and each packet carries an
address in the header.
• However, the address in the header has local jurisdiction (it defines what
should be the next switch and the channel on which the packet is being
carried), not end-to-end jurisdiction.
• As in a circuit-switched network, all packets follow the same path established
during the connection.
• Virtual-circuit network is normally implemented in the data link layer, while a
circuit-switched network is implemented in the physical layer and a datagram
network in the network layer.

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Switching
Addressing
In a virtual-circuit network, two types of addressing are involved: global and
local (virtual-circuit identifier).
Global Addressing:
•A source or a destination needs to have a global address-an address that can
be unique in the scope of the network.
Virtual-Circuit Identifier:
•The virtual-circuit identifier (VCI), unlike a global address, is a small number
that has only switch scope; it is used by a frame between two switches.
•When a frame arrives at a switch, it has a VCI; when it leaves, it has a different
VCl.
•Figure shows how the VCI in a data frame changes from one switch to
another.

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Switching
Three phases in a virtual-circuit network: setup, data transfer, and teardown.
We first discuss the data transfer phase, which is more straightforward; we then
talk about the setup and teardown phases.
Data Transfer Phase
•To transfer a frame from a source to its destination, all switches need to have
a table entry for this virtual circuit. The table, in its simplest form, has four
columns.
•We assume that each switch has a table with entries for all active virtual
circuits.

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Switching
Figure shows how a frame from source A reaches destination B
and how its VCI changes during the trip.

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Switching
Setup Phase
•In the setup phase, a switch creates an entry for a virtual circuit.
•Two steps are required: the setup request and the acknowledgment.
•Setup Request A setup request frame is sent from the source to the
destination. Figure shows the process.

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Switching
Setup Phase
•Acknowledgment A special frame, called the acknowledgment frame,
completes the entries in the switching tables.

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Switching
Teardown Phase
•In this phase, source A, after sending all frames to B, sends a special frame
called a teardown request. Destination B responds with a teardown
confirmation frame. All switches delete the corresponding entry from their
tables.
Switching at the data link layer in a switched WAN is normally
implemented by using virtual-circuit techniques.

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 1-3 THE INTERNET

The Internet has revolutionized many aspects of our daily

lives. It has affected the way we do business as well as the
way we spend our leisure time. The Internet is a
communication system that has brought a wealth of
information to our fingertips and organized it for our use.

Topics discussed in this section:

Organization of the Internet
Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

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 Figure 1.13 Hierarchical organization of the Internet

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 1-4 PROTOCOLS

A protocol is synonymous with rule. It consists of a set of

rules that govern data communications. It determines
what is communicated, how it is communicated and when
it is communicated. The key elements of a protocol are
syntax, semantics and timing

Topics discussed in this section:

 Syntax
 Semantics
 Timing

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 Elements of a Protocol

 Syntax
 Structure or format of the data
 Indicates how to read the bits - field delineation
 Semantics
 Interprets the meaning of the bits
 Knows which fields define what action
 Timing
 When data should be sent and what
 Speed at which data should be sent or speed at which it is
being received.

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