Computer Networks (UCS06B15)

Lecture - 3

Prepared By

Dr. Smita Das

[Link]@[Link]

National Institute of Technology, Agartala

Computer Science & Engineering Department
Physical Layer - Functions

• Cables and Connectors

• Topology
• Encoding
• Hardware
• Transmission Mode
• Switching

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Cables
• Shielded or Unshielded twisted pair
10 Base T, 100 Base T etc.
• Fiber Optics
10 mbps 100 mt 100 Base Fx
(bandwidth) (distance)
Approx. 400 m - 2 km
• Coaxial Cable
10 Base 2, 10 Base 5 etc.

200 mt or 500 mt
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Twisted pair cable connectors

• RJ45 (Registered Jack 45)

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Coaxial cable connectors

• BNC (Bayone-Neill-Concelman) Connector

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Fiber optic connectors
• SC (Subscriber Connector)
• ST (Straight Tip Connector)
• LC (Lucent Connector)
• FC (Ferrule Core Connector)
• MT-RJ (Mechanical Transfer Registered Jack Connector)
• MTP/MPO (Multi-Fiber Push On Connector)

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Network Topologies

• Mesh
• Star
• Bus
• Ring
• Tree
• Hybrid

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Mesh Topology Properties:
No. of Cables: n* (n – 1) / 2
No. of ports: (n – 1)
Supports point-to-point connection.
Used Protocols: AHCP (Ad Hoc Configuration Protocols),
DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) etc

Advantages:
•Communication is very fast between the nodes.
•It is highly reliable.
•The fault can be diagnosed easily.
•Provides high security and privacy.

Disadvantages:
•Installation and configuration are difficult.
•The cost of implementation is very high,
•Suitable for less number of devices.
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Star/Hub Topology
Properties:
No. of Cables: n
No. of ports: 1
Used protocols: CD(Collision Detection), CSMA (Carrier
Sense Multiple Access) etc.

Advantages:
•If one link fails only that link will be affected and not the
other nodes.
•Easy for fault identification and fault isolation.
•Star topology is cost-effective as it uses inexpensive coaxial
cable.

Disadvantages:
•If the hub fails, the whole system will crash down.

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Bus Topology
Properties:
No. of Cables: 1 backbone and n drop cables
No. of ports: 1
Used Protocols: TDMA, Pure Aloha, CDMA, Slotted Aloha etc.

Advantages:
•Bidirectional Coaxial or twisted pair cables are mainly used in
bus-based networks that support up to 10 Mbps.
•The cost of the cable is less compared to other topologies.
•Installation and troubleshooting techniques are well known in
Bus topology.

Disadvantages:
•If the backbone cable fails, then the whole system will crash
down.
•If the network traffic is heavy, it increases collisions in the
network.
•Security is very low.
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Ring Topology Properties:
No. of Cables: 1 backbone and n drop cables
No. of ports: 1
•Token: It is a frame that circulates around the network.
•Token passing: It is a network access method in which a token
is passed from one node to another node.

Advantages of this topology:

•The data transmission is high-speed.
•It is less costly than a star topology.

Problems with this topology:

•The failure of a single node in the network can cause the entire
network to fail.
•The addition of stations in between or the removal of stations
can disturb the whole topology.
•Less secure.
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Tree Topology Properties:
It is the variation of the Star/hub topology where flow of
data is hierarchical.
Used Protocols: DHCP, SAC (Standard Automatic
Configuration) etc.

Advantages:
•It allows more devices to be attached to a single central hub
thus it decreases the distance that is traveled by the signal to
come to the devices.
•We can add new devices to the existing network.
•Error detection and error correction are very easy in a
tree topology.

Disadvantages:
•If the central hub gets failed, the entire system fails.
•The cost is high because of the cabling.
•If new devices are added, it becomes difficult to
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Hybrid Topology Properties:
This topology is the combination of all other types of
topologies. Each individual topology part can use the
protocol that has been assigned to it.

Advantages:
•This topology is very flexible.
•The size of the network can be easily expanded
by adding new devices.

Disadvantages:
•It is challenging to design the architecture of the
Hybrid Network.
•Hubs used in this topology are very expensive.
•The infrastructure cost is very high as a hybrid
network requires a lot of cabling and network
devices.
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Manchester Encoding
Signal encoding is the conversion from analog/digital data to analog/ digital signal. Bi-
Phase encoding is the best solution for data synchronization.

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Manchester Encoding
There are two types of conventions in Manchester encoding:
1. Dr. Thomas: In this Manchester encoding 0 is represented as low-to-high and 1 is
represented as high-to-low.

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Manchester Encoding
2. IEEE802.3: In this Manchester encoding, 0 is represented as high-to-low and 1 is represented
as low-to-high.

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Differential Manchester Encoding

•It is also known as the Bi-phase mark code, etc.

•The presence and absence of the transition indicate the value.

•In Differential Manchester Encoding 0 should contain an edge but 1

should not contain any edge it should be continuous.

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Differential Manchester Encoding

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Manchester Encoding vs Differential Manchester Encoding
Manchester Encoding Differential Manchester Encoding
Its a synchronous clock-encoding technique Its a line code in which data and clock signals
used by the physical layer to encode the clock are combined to form a single 2-level self-
and data of a synchronous bit stream. synchronizing data stream
Low to High represents 1 and High to Low No transition at the start of a bit period
represents 0. represents 1 and transition at the start of a bit
period represents 0.
It provides better signal synchronization. It provides less signal synchronization as
compared to Manchester encoding.
Used by IEEE 802.3 specification for Ethernet Used by IEEE 802.5 specification for Token
LAN Ring LAN
Signal rate is the drawback of Manchester It maps at least one transition per bit time and
encoding as there is always one transition at possibly two bits. Its modulation or signal rate
the middle of the bit and maybe one transition is two times that of NRZ. Hence it requires
at the end of each bit. more bandwidth.
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Transmission Mode

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Transmission Mode

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Half Duplex Transmission Mode

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Full Duplex Transmission Mode

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 Unicast vs Broadcast vs Multicast

Feature Unicast Broadcast Multicast

A communication where a message is sent from A communication where a message is sent from A communication where a message is sent
Definition
one sender to one receiver. one sender to all receivers. from one sender to a group of receivers

Transmission Data is sent to a single recipient Data is sent to all recipients in a network Data is sent to a group of recipients

Addressing Uses a unique destination address Uses a special broadcast address Uses a special multicast address

Delivery Guaranteed delivery Not all devices may be interested in the data Not all devices may be interested in the data

Network Traffic Generates the least amount of network traffic Generates the most amount of network traffic Generates moderate network traffic

More secure because data is sent to a specific Less secure because data is sent to all devices in Moderately secure because data is sent to a
Security
recipient the network specific group of devices

Examples Email, file transfer DHCP requests, ARP requests Video streaming, online gaming

Destination Single receiver All receivers Grop of receivers

Bandwidth usage Moderate High Moderate

Latency Low High Moderate

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Switching
In large networks, there can be multiple paths from sender
to receiver. The switching technique will decide the best
route for data transmission.

Three types of switching techniques are:

▪ Circuit Switching
▪ Message Switching
▪ Packet Switching

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Circuit Switching
•Circuit switching is when a dedicated channel or circuit needs to be established before
users can speak to each other on a call. A channel used in circuit switching is kept reserved
at all times and is used once the two users communicate.

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Circuit Switching

•Used in Physical Layer.

•Data flow is continuous.
•Used in public telephone network for voice transmission.
•No header information is required.
•Reservation of resources.
•Less efficient.
•Less delay.
•Fixed data can be transferred at a time in circuit switching technology.

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Circuit Switching
•Advantages:
[Link] main advantage of circuit switching is that a committed transmission
channel is established between the computers which give a guaranteed data
rate.
[Link]-circuit switching, there is no delay in data flow because of the dedicated
transmission path.

•Disadvantages:
[Link] takes a long time to establish a connection.
[Link] bandwidth is required in setting up dedicated channels.
[Link] cannot be used to transmit any other data even if the channel is free as
the connection is dedicated to circuit switching.

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Circuit Switching

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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.

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Message Switching
• Store and Forward

• Hop by hop delivery

• As compared with circuit switching

❖ Efficiency is better
❖ High delay
❖ Higher efficiency

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Message Switching
Advantages:
•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.

Disadvantages:
•The message switches must be equipped with sufficient storage to enable them to
store the messages until the message is forwarded.
•The Long delay can occur due to the storing and forwarding facility provided by
the message switching technique.

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Packet Switching
Packet switching is different from circuit switching because there is no requirement to
establish a channel. The channel is available to users throughout the data network. Long
messages are broken down into packets and sent individually to the network.

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Packet Switching

•Used in Data Link and Network Layer.

•Store and forward transmission.
•Header information is required.
•Pipelining is used.
•Much efficient.
•Delay is higher.

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Packet Switching
Advantages:
•More efficient in terms of bandwidth, since the concept of reserving circuit is not
there.
•More reliable as a destination can detect the missing packet.
•More fault tolerant because packets may follow a different path in case any link is
down.
•Cost-effective and comparatively cheaper to implement.

Disadvantages:
•Since the packets are unordered, we need to provide sequence numbers for each
packet.
•Complexity is more at each node because of the facility to follow multiple paths.
•Transmission delay is more because of rerouting.
•Packet Switching is beneficial only for small messages.

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Types of Packet Switching
Connectionless packet switching (Datagram):
•Used in Network layer
•Channel establishment is not required
•No reservation, service is on-demand
•Packets may be out of order
•High overhead
•High packet loss
•Cheaper than connection-oriented
•More efficient than connection-oriented
regarding bandwidth
•High delay
•Used in Internet

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Types of Packet Switching
Connection-oriented packet switching (Virtual Circuit) :

•Global packet is sent

•Connection-oriented
•Reservation is required
•Same order
•Less overhead
•Less packet loss
•Costly than connectionless
•Less efficient than connectionless
•Less delay
•Used in frame relays

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