Data Communications and

Networking

Chapter 2

Computer Networks.
Transmission Media

Data and Computer Communications, 8th edition

By William Stallings

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Network
• Network is the interconnection of devices
• Purpose of network:
—Resources sharing (hardware & software)
—Transmission of information

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Physical Topology
• The way in which the nodes are arranged
and interconnected each other.
• Geometrical representation of nodes and
links
• There are 4 basic topologies
—Mesh: direct communication between nodes
• Eliminates traffic problem
• pros: security, performance, absence collision,
reliability troubleshooting is easily
• cons: no links & ports, installation and reconnection,
complex wiring, connector requirement

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• Star: each node has point point link to
centeral controller/hub.
—No direct traffic b/n nodes
—Controller/hub acts as exchange/relay
—Nodes needs one link and IO port
—Easy to install & reconfigure
—Less cable
—Easy to troubleshoot
—Single point of failure/bottle neck

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• Bus topology : multipoint connections
— One cable as a backbone
— Nodes are connected to the back bone using taps/drop
lines
— The signal weaken as it travels
— There is limit on the no of taps and d/ce between tap in
bus
— Easy to install and cheap.
— Difficult reconnection & fault isolation, add new node
— Signal reflection at the taps may cause degradation in
quality

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Ring Topology
—Each device has direct connection to two other
devices
—Signal pass along the ring in one direction
—Each device incorporate repeater
—Easy to install and reconfigure
—There is limit on the maximum ring length and
no of nodes
—Fault isolation is simple/ device not receiving
issue alert

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Types of Network

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Wide Area Networks
• Cover a large geographical area
—Consists of a set of interconnected switching
nodes
• Alternative technologies
—I. Circuit switching
• Telephone network
—II. Packet switching
• X.25: popular in 1980s
• Frame relay: to replace X.25
• Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM): an evolution
from frame relay
• Internet: the dominant global network today

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(I) Circuit Switching
• Dedicated communications path
established for the duration of the
conversation
• Three steps:
1. Setup the circuit: allocate dedicated
resources.
2. Transmit the data: utilize resources.
3. Terminate the circuit: release resources.
• E.g. telephone network

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(II) Packet Switching
• Data are sent out in a sequence of small
chunks, called packets.
• Each Packet is passed through the
network from node to node along some
path leading from source to destination
• At each node, the entire packet is
received, stored, and then transmitted to
the next node
—Store-and-forward: buffering
• What’s the impact?

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Local Area Networks
• Smaller scope
—Office, Building, Campus
• Usually owned by the same organization
that owns the attached devices
• Internal data rates are high
—10Mbps  100Mbps  1Gbps  10Gbps
• Wireless LANs become more and more
popular
—Data rates of wireless LANs are increasing:
11Mbps  54Mbps  hundreds of Mbps

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The Internet

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Internet Elements
• The purpose of the Internet is to interconnect end systems,
called hosts
— Such as PCs, servers, notebooks, PDAs, smart phones, etc.
• Most hosts that use the Internet are connected to a
network, such as a LAN or a WAN
• Networks are in turn connected by routers. Each router
attaches to two or more networks.
• A host may send data to another host anywhere on the
Internet:
— The source host breaks the data into a sequence of packets,
called IP packets, or IP datagrams.
— Each packet includes the unique numeric addresses of the
source host and destination host, called IP addresses.
— Based on the destination IP address, each packet travels
through a series of routers and networks from source to
destination.
• Each router, upon receiving an IP packet, makes a routing decision
and forwards the packet along its way to the destination.
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Internet Elements

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Internet Architecture
• Today’s Internet is made up of thousands of
overlapping hierarchical networks.
• Individual hosts and LANs are connected to an
Internet Service Provider (ISP) through a Point of
Presence (POP).
— Customer Premises Equipment (CPE): the
communications equipment located onsite with the
host, such as the modem.
• Different levels of ISPs
— Local ISP, Regional ISP, Backbone ISP
• Backbone ISPs may be connected through the
Network Access Point (NAP).

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Internet Architecture

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Transmission Media
• In a data transmission system, the transmission medium is the physical
path between transmitter and receiver.
• Guided medium
— Electromagnetic waves are guided along a solid medium.
• Unguided media
— Wireless transmission occurs through the atmosphere, outer space, or water.
• The characteristics and quality of a data transmission are determined both
by the medium and the signal.
— For guided media, the medium itself is more important in determining the
limitations of transmission.
— For unguided media, the bandwidth of the signal produced by the transmitting
antenna is more important. One key property of signals transmitted by antenna
is directionality.
• Key concerns are data rate and distance: the greater the data rate and
distance, the better.

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Electromagnetic Spectrum

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Guided Transmission Media
• Twisted Pair
• Coaxial cable
• Optical fiber

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Twisted Pair

A wire pair acts as a single communication link. Typically, a

number of these pairs are bundled together into a cable.
The twisting tends to decrease the crosstalk interference
between adjacent pairs in a cable, which usually contain
hundreds of pairs.
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Twisted Pair - Applications
• Most common medium
• Telephone network
— Individual residential telephone sets are connected to the local telephone
exchange (or “end office”) by twisted-pair wire. These are referred to as
subscriber loop.
• Within an office building
— Each telephone is connected to a twisted pair, which goes to the in-house
private branch exchange (PBX) system.
• These twisted-pair installations were designed to support voice traffic
using analog signaling. However, by means of a modem, these facilities
can handle digital data traffic at modest data rates.
• For digital signaling: connections to a digital data switch or a digital PBX
• For local area networks (LAN)
— Data rates can be around 10Mbps, 100Mbps, or even 1Gbps.

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Twisted Pair - Pros and Cons
• Pros
—Twisted pair is much less expensive than other commonly
used guided transmission media.
—Twisted pair is easier to work with.
• Cons: limited in distance, bandwidth, and data rate
—Short range: not good for long-distance
—E.g., the data rate of ADSL depends on the distance
• 1.5Mbps for 18,000ft
• 2.0Mbps for 16,000ft
• 6.0Mbps for 12,000ft
• 9.0Mbps for 9000ft

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Unshielded and Shielded TP
• Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)
— Ordinary telephone wire
— Cheapest
— Easiest to install
— Suffers from external electromagnetic interference
• UTP categories
— EIA-568-A: Commercial Building Telecommunications Cabling Standard
— Category 3
• The transmission characteristics are specified up to 16MHz
– E.g., the attenuation at 16MHz is about 13db per 100m
• Voice grade found in most offices
• Twist length: 7.5 cm to 10 cm
— Category 5
• The transmission characteristics are specified up to 100MHz
– E.g., the attenuation at 16MHz is about 8db per 100m, the attenuation at 100MHz is about 22db per 100m
• Commonly pre-installed in new office buildings
• Twist length: 0.6 cm to 0.85 cm
— Remark: Category 3 & Category 5 cables are widely used in LAN.
• Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)
— Metal braid or sheathing that reduces interference
— More expensive
— Harder to handle (thick, heavy)

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STP
• includes metal shielding over each
individual pair of copper wires.
• Shielding protects cable from external
Electromagnetic Interferences (EMI)  can
be used in noisy area.
• Standard for IBM Token Ring networks and
for Apple's LocalTalk.
• UTP:
—contains no shielding
—includes four pairs of wires enclosed in a
common sheath
—is a very flexible, low cost media, and can be
used for either voice or data communications
—is widely used for cabling LANs
—uses RJ connectors
• UTP cables are divided into different categories (Cat 1-
7):
—Each vary in the number of twists per foot and
quality.
• Cat 3 cables have 2 twists per foot whereas
Category 5 has 12.
• Higher categories allow transmitting data at
higher speeds.
—Cat 1 has two pairs and is used for voice; cat2-7
have 4 pairs
—Cat 2 is used for Local Talk at 4 Mbps Local Talk
—Cat 3 is used for 10 Mbps Ethernet and 4 Mbps
Token Ring
—Cat 4 is used for 10 Mbps Ethernet and 16 Mbps
Token Ring
—Cat 5 is used for 100 Mbps Ethernet (Fast Ethernet)
• Ethernet/IEEE 802.3 standards on UTP
include:
—10Base-T - 10Mbps, 100m, RJ-45

—100Base-TX (Fast Ethernet) - 100Mbps, 100m,

RJ-45

—1000Base-T (Gigabit Ethernet) - 1000Mbps,

100m, RJ-45

—10GBase-T (10 Gigabit Ethernet) –

10000Mbps, 100m, RJ-45
• Advantages of TPs
—Telephone cable standards are mature
—Possible to use in-place telephone wiring if it is
of sufficiently high quality.
—UTP represents the lowest cost cabling.
• Disadvantages of TPs
—STP can be expensive and difficult to work
with.
—UTP may be unsuitable for use in high-EMI
environments.
Coaxial Cable

Two conductors: outer conductor & inner conductor

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Coaxial Cable - Transmission
Characteristics
• Transmission Characteristics
— Analog signal
• Amplifiers every few km
• Closer if higher frequency
• Up to 500MHz (about 4MHz for each TV channel)
— Digital signal
• Repeater every 1km or so
• Closer for higher data rates
• Applications
— Television distribution
• Cable TV
— Long distance telephone transmission
• Can carry 10,000 voice calls simultaneously
• Being replaced by fiber optic
— Local area networks
— Short-range connections between devices such as high-speed I/O channels on
computer systems

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Coaxial Cable For LAN

• ThickNet coaxial cable

also called 10Base-5
– 50-ohm RG-8 and RG-
11 cable
– vampire taps and
transceiver cable
10Base-5 Ethernet (Cont’d)
• 10Base-5 Ethernet is characterized by:
—5/4/3 rule
—Max. segment length = 500 m
—Min. distance b/n receivers = 2.5 m
—Max. number of nodes / segment = 100
—Max. transceiver cable length = 50 m
—50 ohm terminator at each end, one end
grounded
—Awkward to handle and install
10Base-2 (ThinEthernet)
• Thinnet uses 50-ohm RG-58A/U coaxial
cable
• BNC Connector
10Base-2 Ethernet (Cont’d)
• 10Base-2 Ethernet is characterized by:
—5/4/3 rule applies
—Max segment length = 185m
—Max devices per segment = 30
—Min.distance between connections = 0.5 m
— 50 ohm terminator at each end, one end
grounded
—Lighter and easier to install
• Advantages of coaxial cables:
– Highly insensitive to EMI
– Supports high bandwidths
– Heavier types of coax are sturdy and can withstand
harsh environments
– Mature technology

• Disadvantages of coaxial cables

– They are still vulnerable to EMI in harsh
conditions such as factories.
– Coax can be bulky
Optical Fiber

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Fiber-Optic Cables
• Fiber-optic cables consist of:
—a fine cylinder of glass (core)
—surrounded by another glass cylinder
(cladding). Cladding has lower index of
refraction than core.
—layers of protective materials
• Snell’s Law: n1 sin 1 n2 sin  2

• Angle of incidence > critical angle 

Total internal refraction
• Two types:
– SMF – single ray from a laser beam
– MMF – multiple rays from LEDs
• SMF
—Small core, about 9 m in diameter
—Less dispersion
—Suited for long distance applications (up to 100
km)
• MMF
—Larger core than single-mode cable (50/62.5
m)
—Allows greater dispersion and therefore, loss of
signal
—Used for long distance application, but shorter
than single-mode (up to ~2km)
• For both MMF and SMF: Cladding is 125 m
• Pros and Cones of Optical Fiber
Cables
—Are lighter and occupy smaller spaces
—Offer very high bandwidth
—Longer cable run
—Are immune to EMI  suitable in noisy areas
—Not possible to intercept  extremely secure
—Require greater skill
—Is expensive compared to the other media
Optical Fiber - Benefits
• Benefits
— Greater capacity
• Available bandwidth: about 50THz
• Data rates of hundreds of Gbps
— Smaller size & weight
— Lower attenuation
— Electromagnetic isolation
— Greater repeater (or amplifier) spacing
• 10s of km at least
• Applications
— Long-haul trunks
• thousands of km
— Metropolitan trunks
• tens of km
— Rural exchange trunks
• hundreds of km
— Subscriber loops
• To replace twisted pair and coaxial cable
— LANs: very high data rate, 100Mbps to 10Gbps,40Gbps

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Wireless Transmission Frequencies
• Radio is a general term for frequencies in the range of 3kHz to 300GHz. The
properties of radio waves are frequency dependent.
• 30MHz to 1GHz
— Suitable for omnidirectional applications
— E.g., broadcast radio
• 1GHz to 40GHz
— Referred to as microwave frequencies
— Can be highly directional
— Suitable for point-to-point transmission
— Microwave is also used for satellite communications
• 3 x 1011 Hz to 2 x 1014 Hz
— Infrared
— Local applications, such as in a single room
• There are national and international agreements about who gets to use which
frequencies.
— AM & FM radio, television, mobile phones, telephone companies, police, maritime,
navigation, military, government, etc.
— ISM band (Industrial, Scientific, Medical): unlicensed usage
• E.g., Cordless phone, radio-controlled toys, bluetooth, wireless LAN

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Antennas
• For unguided media, transmission and reception are achieved
by means of an antenna.
• An antenna is an electrical conductor or system of conductors
used either for radiating electromagnetic energy or for
collecting electromagnetic energy.
• An antenna will radiate power in all directions but does not
perform equally well in all directions.
— isotropic antenna: an idealized antenna that radiates power in all
directions equally
— antenna gain: a measure of the directionality of an antenna, which is
defined as the power output in a particular direction, compared to that
produced in any direction by a perfect isotropic antenna.
— Usually, the increased power radiated in a given direction is at the
expense of other directions.

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Wireless Propagation
• Signal radiated from an antenna travels along one of three
routes:
— Ground wave
• Follows contour of earth
• Up to about 2MHz
• E.g., AM radio
— Sky wave
• 2 to 30 MHz
• Signal reflected from ionosphere layer of upper atmosphere
• Signals can travel thousands of km
• E.g. BBC world service, Voice of America
— Line of sight
• Above 30MHz
• The transmitting and receiving antennas must be within an effective line
of sight of each other

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Frequency Bands

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Ground Wave Propagation

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Sky Wave Propagation

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Line of Sight Propagation

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KEY POINTS
• The transmission media that are used to convey
information can be classified as guided or
unguided. Guided media provide a physical path
along which the signals are propagated; these
includes twisted pair, coaxial cable, and optical
fiber. Unguided media employ an antenna for
transmitting through air, vacuum, or water.
• Traditionally, twisted pair has been the workhorse
for communications of all sorts. Higher data rates
over longer distances can be achieved with
coaxial cable. Today, optical fiber has taken over
much of the market for high-speed LANs and for
long-distance applications.
• Unguided transmission techniques commonly
used for information communications include
broadcast radio, terrestrial microwave, and
satellite.
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