Module-1

Introduction to Data Communication, Network Models,

Physical Layer-1 and Digital Transmission

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 Introduction

1. Data communications
2. Networks
3. The Internet
4. Protocols and standards

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 Data Communications
Sharing of information
 Local: Between individual ,face to face
 Remote: Takes place over distance
Telecommunication-(tele far): communication at distance

• Data
 Information presented in whatever form is agreed upon by the
parties creating and using the data

• Data communication
 Exchange of data between two devices
 Via some form of transmission medium

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 Fundamental characteristics
Delivery: Data must be correctly delivered, must be
received correctly by intended party.
Accuracy: System must deliver the data accurately
 Data that have been altered in transmission and Uncorrected
data are unusable
Timeliness: System must deliver the data in a timely
manner.
 Late delivered data are useless
 Video and audio data must be delivered in real-time.
Jitter: It is the variation in the packet arrival time
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 Five Components of Data Communication
• Message
• Sender
• Receiver
• Transmission medium
• Protocol

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Message: Information to be communicated
 Text, number, pictures, audio, video
Sender: The device that sends the data message.
 Computer, workstation, telephone handset, video camera.
Receiver: The device that receives the message from sender.
 Computer, workstation, telephone handset, television.
Transmission medium: It is the physical path by which a
message travels from sender to receiver.
 Twisted pair, coaxial cable, fiber optic cable ,radio waves.
Protocol: It is the set of rules that govern data
communication.
It represents agreement between the communicating devices

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 Data Representation
 Text: Represented as a bit pattern(0’s and 1’s)
 Different sets of bit patterns have been designed to represent text
 Code-each set of pattern; Coding-Process of representing symbols
 Unicode-coding system; uses 32 bits to represent a symbol or character.
 ASCII-to represent 127 character
 Numbers: Represented by bit pattern
 Numbers are directly converted to a binary.
 Images: Represented by bit pattern
 Pixel : smallest unit of image
 Resolution: Number of pixels in unit area
 Methods: RGB, Black and white, gray scale system
 Audio: Recording and broadcasting of sound or music
 It is continuous in nature
 Video: Recording and broadcasting of picture or movie
 It can be continuous, combination of images.
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 Data Flow
 Simplex: Communication is unidirectional
 Only one of the two devices can transmit other can only receive
 Examples: Keyboard, Monitors
 Entire capacity of the channel is to send data in one direction

 Half duplex: Each station can both transmit and receive, but not at the
same time.
 When one device is sending , the other can only receive.
 Example: Walkie-Talkies and (Citizen Band) radios
 Entire capacity of the channel is utilized for each direction.

 Full duplex: Both stations can transmit and receive simultaneous

 Example: Telephone network
 Entire capacity of the channel is divided between the two directions.
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 Networks
A network is a set devices(node) 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

Distributed Processing
• Task is divided among multiple computers.
• Separate machine handle subset of the task

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 Network Criteria
Performance: Measured in terms of response and transmit time.
 Transmit time: Time required for a message to travel from one device to
another.
 Response time: Time between an inquiry and a response
 Performance of a network depends:
 Number of users
 Type of transmission medium
 Capabilities of the connected hardware
 Efficiency of the software
 Throughput: Number of bits transmitted in per second
 Delay: time taken to transmit data
Reliability: Frequency of failure
Security: Protecting data from unauthorized access, protecting data from
damage, development.
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 Physical Structures
Types of connection
• Point-to-point
– Dedicated link between two devices
– The entire capacity of the channel is reserved
– Ex) Microwave link, TV remote control

• Multipoint
– More than two devices share a single link
– Capacity of the channel is either
• Spatially shared: Devices can use the link simultaneously
• Timeshare: Users must take turns

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 Physical Topology
Physical topology is the way in which a network is laid out
physically
Two or more devices connect to a link
Two or more links form a topology
Different Topologies are :Mesh, Star, Bus, Ring

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 Mesh Topology
• Dedicated point-to-point link to every other nodes. The
term dedicated means that the link carries traffic only b/w
the two devices it connects
• Consider that each node must be connected to every other
node.
• Node1 must be connected to n-1 nodes, node2 must be
connected to n-1 node and finally node n must be
connected to n-1 nodes.
• We need n(n-1) physical links. If link allows
communication in both directions, we can divide number
of links by 2. in a mesh topology, we need n(n-1)/2

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Advantages
 Eliminating the traffic problem
 Robust
 Privacy
 Fault identification and fault isolation

Disadvantages
 Installation and reconnection
 Wiring space is more
 Hardware required to connect each link can be expensive

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 Star Topology
• Dedicated point-to-point link only to a central controller,
called a hub

• The devices are not directly linked to one another

• Hub acts as an exchange: No direct traffic between devices

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Advantages
 Less expensive, easy to install and reconfigure
 Robust
Fault detection and fault isolation is also easy

Disadvantages
 Dependency of the whole on one single point, the
hub

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 Bus Topology
• One long cable acts as a backbone to links all nodes

• Nodes are connected to bus cable by tap and drop line

• A drop line is a connection b/w the device and the main

cable

• A tap is a connector that splices into the main cable or

punctures the sheathing of a cable to create a contact with
the metallic core

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Advantages
 Easy installation
 Cheap

Disadvantages
 Difficult reconfiguration and fault isolation,
A fault or break in the bus stops all transmission
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 Ring Topology
• Dedicated point-to-point link only with the two nodes on
each sides

• A signal is passed along the ring in one direction

• Each device in the ring incorporates a repeater. When a

device receives a signal intended for another device, its
repeater regenerates the bits and passes them along

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Advantages
•Easy reconfiguration
•Fault isolation

Disadvantage
• Unidirectional traffic
•A break in the ring can disable the entire network

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 Hybrid Topology
• Example: Main star topology with each branch connecting several stations in a bus
topology
• To share the advantages from various topologies

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Categories of Networks

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 LAN
• Usually privately owned

• A network for a single office, building, or campus , size is limited to

a few a few Km

• LAN’s are designed to allow resources to be shared b/w PC or

workstations

• The resources to be shared can include h/w, s/w or data

• Common LAN topologies: bus, ring, star

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

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 MAN
• Designed to extend to an entire city

• Designed for a customer who need a high speed connectivity

• Cable TV network, a company’s connected LANs

• Owned by a private or a public company

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 WAN

• Long distance transmission, e.g., a country, a continent, the world

• Enterprise network: A WAN that is owned and used by one company
• point-to-point WANs and switched WANs

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 Internetwork
• Internetwork (internet) : two or more networks are
connected by internetworking devices
• Internetworking devices: router, gateway, etc.
• The Internet: a specific worldwide network

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 Internetwork Example
• A heterogeneous network : four WANs and two LANs

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• Switching
• An internet is a switched network in which a switch connects
at least two links together. A switch needs to forward data from
a network to another network when required.
• The two most common types of switched networks are
circuit-switched and packet-switched networks.

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• Circuit-Switched Network
• In a circuit-switched network, a dedicated connection, called
a
circuit, is always available between the two end systems;
the switch can only make it active or inactive.

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• Packet-Switched Network
• In a computer network, the communication between the two ends
is done in blocks of data called packets.
• we see the exchange of individual data packets between the two
computers.
• This allows us to make the switches function for both storing and
forwarding because a packet is an independent entity that can be
stored and sent later

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 The Internet
• an internet (note the lowercase i) is two or more networks that
can communicate with each other.
• The most notable internet is called the Internet (uppercase I ),
and is composed of thousands of interconnected networks.

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 Accessing the Internet
• The Internet today is an internetwork that allows any user to become part
of it. The user, however, needs to be physically connected to an ISP. The
physical connection is normally done through a
point-to-point WAN.
Using Telephone Networks
Dial-up service
• The first solution is to add to the telephone line a modem that converts
data to voice. The software installed on the computer dials the ISP and
imitates making a telephone connection.
• DSL Service
• Since the advent of the Internet, some telephone companies have
upgraded their telephone lines to provide higher speed Internet services to
residences or small businesses.

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Using Cable Networks
• The cable companies have been upgrading their cable networks and
connecting to the Internet. A residence or a small business can be
connected to the Internet by using this service.
• It provides a higher speed connection, but the speed varies
depending on the number of neighbors that use the same cable

Using Wireless Networks

With the growing wireless WAN access, a household or a small

business can be connected to the Internet through a wireless WAN

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• Direct Connection to the Internet
• A large organization or a large corporation can itself
become a local ISP and be connected to the Internet.
• This can be done if the organization or the corporation
leases a high-speed WAN from a carrier provider and
connects itself to a regional ISP.
• For example, a large university with several campuses
can create an internetwork and then connect the
internetwork to the Internet

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• INTERNET HISTORY
• Early History
• There were some communication networks, such as telegraph and telephone networks, before
1960.
• These networks were suitable for constant-rate communication at that time.
• A computer network, on the other hand, should be able to handle bursty data, which means data
received at variable rates at different times.
• Packet switched Networks
• In 1960 Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
• In 1967 ARPANET Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
a small network of connected computers.
• The idea was that each host computer would be attached to a specialized
computer, called an interface message processor (IMP).
• Each IMP had to be able to communicate with other IMPs as well as with its own attached host.

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Birth of the Internet
• In 1972, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, both of whom were part of the core ARPANET
group, collaborated on what they called the Internetting Project.
• They wanted to link dissimilar networks so that a host on one network could
communicate with a host on another.
• There were many problems to overcome: diverse packet sizes, diverse interfaces, and
diverse transmission rates, as well as differing reliability requirements.
• the idea of a device called a gateway to serve as the intermediary hardware to transfer
data from one network to another.
• In 1973 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). IP
would handle datagram routing while TCP would be responsible for higher level
functions such as segmentation, reassembly, and error detection. The new
combination became known as TCP/IP.
• MILNET: for military (Military Network)
• CSNET: Computer Science Network
• NSFNET: National Science Foundation Network
• ANSNET: Advanced Network services Network

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• Internet Today
• World Wide Web
• Multimedia
• Recent developments in the multimedia applications such as voice over IP (telephony),
video over IP (Skype), view sharing (YouTube), and television over IP (PPLive) has
increased the number of users and the amount of time each user spends on the network.
• Peer-to-Peer Applications
• Peer-to-peer networking is also a new area of communication with a lot of potential

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 STANDARDS AND ADMINISTRATION
• Internet Standards
• An Internet standard is a thoroughly tested design that is useful to and adhered to by
those who work with the Internet. It is a formalized regulation that must be followed.
• There is a strict procedure by which a plan attains Internet standard status.

• An Internet draft is a working document (a work in progress) with no official

status and a six-month lifetime.
• Upon recommendation from the Internet authorities, a draft may be published as a
Request for Comment (RFC). Each RFC is edited, assigned a number, and made
available to all interested parties.

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• ISOC
• The Internet Society (ISOC) is an international, nonprofit organization
formed in 1992 to provide support for the Internet standards process.
• ISOC accomplishes this through maintaining and supporting other Internet
administrative bodies such as IAB, IETF, IRTF, and IANA .
• ISOC also promotes research and other scholarly activities relating to
the Internet.

• IAB
• The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is the technical advisor to the
ISOC. The main purposes of the IAB are to oversee the continuing
development of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite and to serve in a technical
advisory capacity to research members of the Internet community.

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• IETF
• The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a forum of working
groups managed by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG ).
• IETF is responsible for identifying operational problems and proposing
solutions to these problems.
• IRTF
• The Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) is a forum of working groups
managed by the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG). IRTF focuses on
long-term research topics related to Internet protocols, applications,
architecture, and technology

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 Standards: agreed-upon rules
• Standards is essential in
– Creating/maintaining open and competitive markets
– Guaranteeing national/international interoperability
• Two categories
– De jure (“by law” or “by regulation’) standards
– De facto (“by fact” or ‘by convention’) standards
• Proprietary standards: closed standards
• Nonproprietary standards: open standards

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 Standards Organizations
• Standards are developed by
– Standards creation committees
 International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
 International Telecommunication Union-
Telecommunication Standard Sector (ITU-T)
 American National Standards Institute(ANSI)
 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE)
 Electronic Industries Association (EIA)

– Forums
– Regulatory agencies

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Network Models

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 Overview
• Network is a combination of hardware and software that
sends data from one location to another.
• Hardware consist of the physical equipment that carries
signals.
• Software consist of instruction sets that make possible
to use services.

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 PROTOCOL LAYERING
• protocol defines the rules that both the sender and
receiver and all intermediate devices need to follow to be
able to communicate effectively.
• When communication is simple, we may need only one
simple protocol;
• when the communication is complex, we may need to
divide the task between different layers, in which case
we need a protocol at each layer, or protocol layering

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Second Scenario

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Layered Tasks
Sender, Receiver, and Carrier
At the sender site
Higher layer: the sender writes the letter, inserts the letter in
an envelope, writes the sender and receiver address, and
drops the letter in a mailbox
Middle layer: the letter is picked up by a letter carrier and
delivered to the post office
Lower layer: the letter is stored at the post office; a carrier
transports the letter

On the way: the letter is then on its way to the recipient. It

may be transported by truck, train, airplane, boat

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At the receiver site
Lower layer: the carrier transports the letter to the post office
Middle layer: the letter is stored and delivered to the recipient’s
mailbox
Higher layer: the receiver picks up the letter, opens the envelope
and reads it

Hierarchy
According to our analysis, there are three different activities at the
sender site and another three activities at the receiver site. The task
of transporting the letter b/w the sender and receiver is done by the
carrier

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Sending a letter

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• Advantages:
• Protocol layering enables us to divide a complex task into
several smaller and simpler tasks.
• Modularity in this case means independent layers. A layer
(module) can be defined as a black box with inputs and outputs,
without concern about how inputs are changed to outputs.
• It allows us to separate the services from the implementation. A
layer needs to be able to receive a set of services from the lower
layer and to give the services to the upper layer; we don’t care
about how the layer is implemented.
• Internet, is that communication does not always use only two
end systems; there are intermediate systems that need only some
layers, but not all layers.

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 Principles of Protocol Layering
• First Principle
• The first principle dictates that if we want bidirectional
communication, we need to make each layer so that it is able
to perform two opposite tasks, one in each direction.
• For example, the third layer task is to listen (in one direction)
and talk (in the other direction).
• The second layer needs to be able to encrypt and decrypt.
• The first layer needs to send and receive mail

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• Second Principle
• The second principle that we need to follow in protocol layering
is that the two objects under each layer at both sites should be
identical.
• For example, the object under layer 3 at both sites should be a
plaintext letter.
• The object under layer 2 at both sites should be a cipher text
letter.
• The object under layer 1 at both sites should be a piece of mail.

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Logical Connections

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 TCP/IP PROTOCOL SUITE
• TCP/IP is a protocol suite (a set of protocols organized in
different layers) used in the Internet today.
• It is a hierarchical protocol made up of interactive modules,
each of which provides a specific functionality.
• The term hierarchical means that each upper level protocol is
supported by the services provided by one or more lower level
protocols.
• The original TCP/IP protocol suite was defined as four software
layers built upon the hardware.

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Layered Architecture

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 Physical layer

The physical layer is responsible for transmitting individual bits in

a frame across the link.
 communication between two devices at the physical layer is still a
logical communication because there is another, hidden layer, the
transmission media, under the physical layer.
Two devices are connected by a transmission medium (cable or
air).
Such that the transmission medium does not carry bits; it carries
electrical or optical signals.
So the bits received in a frame from the data-link layer are
transformed
and sent through the transmission media,
but we can think that the logical unit between two physical layers
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in two devices is a bit.
 Responsibilities
• Physical characteristics of interfaces and medium: defines the
physical characteristics of the interface b/w the devices and
transmission medium. It also defines the type of transmission
medium
• Representation of bits: the physical layer data consists of a stream
of bits with no interpretation. To be transmitted, bits must be
encoded into signals
• Data rate: the transmission rate- the number of bits sent each
second
• Line configuration: point to point and multipoint
• Physical topology: Mesh, star, ring ,bus
• Transmission mode: Half- duplex, Simplex, full duplex

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 Data link layer

The data link layer is responsible for transmitting frames

from one node to the next.
This layer transforms the physical layer, raw transmission
facility, to reliable link.

It makes physical layer appear error free to the upper layer

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 Responsibilities
• Framing: the data link layer divides the stream of bits received
from the network layer into manageable data units called frames
• Physical addressing: if frames are to be distributed to different
system on the network, the data link layer adds a header to the frame
to define the sender and/or receiver of the frame
• Flow control: if the rate at which the data are absorbed by the
receiver is less than the rate at which data are produced in the sender
• Error control: the data link layer adds reliability to the physical
layer by adding mechanism to detect and retransmit damaged data
• Access control: when two or more devices are connected to the
same link, data link layer protocols are necessary to determine
which device has the control over the link

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Node-to-node delivery

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 Network layer

The network layer is responsible for creating a connection between the

source computer and the destination computer. The communication at
the network layer is host-to-host.
The network layer is responsible for the delivery of packets from the original
source to the final destination.
network layer is responsible for host-to-host communication and
routing the packet through possible routes.
The network layer in the Internet includes the main protocol, Internet
Protocol
(IP), that defines the format of the packet, called a datagram at the
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• IP also defines the format and the structure of addresses used in
this layer.
• IP is also responsible for routing a packet from its source to its
destination, which is achieved by each router forwarding the
datagram to the next router in its path.
• IP is a connectionless protocol that provides no flow control, no
error control, and no congestion control services.
• The network layer also includes unicast (one-to-one) and
multicast (one-to-many) routing protocols.
• The network layer also has some auxiliary protocols that help IP
in its delivery and routing tasks.

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• The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) helps IP to
report some problems when routing a packet.
• The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is another
protocol that helps IP in multitasking.
• The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) helps IP to
get the network-layer address for a host.
• The Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) is a protocol that
helps IP to find the link-layer address of a host or a router
when its network-layer address is given.

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Source-to-destination delivery

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Transport layer
• The transport layer is responsible for delivery of a message from one process to another.
• The transport layer at the source host gets the message from the application layer, encapsulates it in a
transport layer packet (called a segment or a user datagram in different protocols) and sends it, through
the logical (imaginary) connection, to the transport layer at the destination host.
• the transport layer is responsible for giving services to the application layer: to get a
message from an application program running on the source host and deliver it to the
corresponding application program on the destination host.

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• we have more than one protocol in the transport layer, which means
that each application program can use the protocol that best matches
its requirement.
• The main protocol, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), is a
connection-oriented protocol that first establishes a logical connection
between transport layers at two hosts before transferring data.
• It creates a logical pipe between two TCPs for transferring a stream of
bytes.
• TCP provides flow control (matching the sending data rate of the
source host with the receiving data rate of the destination host to
prevent overwhelming the destination)
• error control (to guarantee that the segments arrive at the destination
without error and resending the corrupted ones).
• Congestion control to reduce the loss of segments due to congestion
in the network.

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• User Datagram Protocol (UDP), is a connectionless protocol
that transmits user datagrams without first creating a logical
connection.
• In UDP, each user datagram is an independent entity without
being related to the previous or the next on.
• UDP is a simple protocol that does not provide flow, error, or
congestion control.
• Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is designed to
respond to new applications that are emerging in the
multimedia.

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Reliable process-to-process delivery of a message

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 Application layer

The application layer is responsible for providing services to the user.

The two application layers exchange messages between each other.

Communication at the application layer is between two processes (two

programs running at this layer)

To communicate, a process sends a request to the other process and

receives a response. Process-to-process communication is the duty of
the application layer.
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The application layer in the Internet includes many predefined protocols,
but a user can also create a pair of processes to be run at the two hosts.

Ex: The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a vehicle for accessing

the World Wide Web (WWW).
The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the main protocol used in
electronic mail (e-mail) service.
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used for transferring files from one
host to another.
The Terminal Network (TELNET) and Secure Shell (SSH) are used for
accessing a site remotely.
The Domain Name System (DNS) is used by other protocols to find the
network-layer address of a computer.
The Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) is used by an
administrator to manage the Internet at global and local levels
The Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) is used to collect
membership in a group

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Encapsulation and Decapsulation

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• Encapsulation at the Source Host
At the source, we have only encapsulation.
1. At the application layer, the data to be exchanged is
referred to as a message. A message normally does not contain
any header or trailer, we refer to the whole as the message. The
message is passed to the transport layer.
2. The transport layer takes the message as the payload, the load
that the transport layer should take care of.
• It adds the transport layer header to the payload, which
contains the identifiers of the source and destination application
programs that want to communicate plus some more
information that is needed for the end-to end delivery of the
message, such as information needed for flow, error control, or
congestion control.
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3.The network layer takes the transport-layer packet as data or
payload and adds its own header to the payload.
The header contains the addresses of the source and
destination hosts and some more information used for
error checking of the header, fragmentation
information, and so on.
4. The data-link layer takes the network-layer packet as data
or payload and adds its own header, which contains the link-
layer addresses of the host or the next hop (the router).

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 Decapsulation and Encapsulation at the Router
1. After the set of bits are delivered to the data-link layer, this
layer decapsulates the datagram from the frame and passes it to
the network layer.
2.The network layer only inspects the source and destination
addresses in the datagram header and consults its forwarding
table to find the next hop to which the datagram is to be
delivered.
• The datagram is then passed to the data-link layer of the next link
3. The data-link layer of the next link encapsulates the datagram in a
frame and passes it to the physical layer for transmission.

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 Decapsulation at the Destination Host
• At the destination host, each layer only decapsulates the
packet received, removes the payload, and delivers the
payload to the next-higher layer protocol until the message
reaches the application layer.
• It is necessary to say that decapsulation in the host
involves error checking

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 ADDRESSING
• 4 Levels of addressing:
-Physical addresses
- Logical addresses
-Port addresses
-Specific addresses

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• Each address belongs to specific layer.
• Physical(Data link layer and Physical)
• Known as link address, it is the address of a node
defined by LAN/WAN.
• It is included in the frame used by the data link layer
• It is lowest level address
• Size and format depend on network(Ethernet uses 6
byte address)
• Example: 07-01-02-01-0C-4B (6 byte with 12
hexadecimal digit)

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• Logical address (IP address): (Network layer)
– Necessary for universal communication –independent of
network
– Each host is identified uniquely
– Internet address is 32-bit long.
– Example: 162.192.2.2

• Port address(Transport layer)

– Necessary for process to communicate with another process in
destination
– Because a system can communicate multiple process at the
same time
– 16 bit port address represented as one single number
– Example: port 13 for day time service
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 Multiplexing and Demultiplexing
• Multiplexing in this case means that a protocol at a
layer can encapsulate a packet from several next-
higher layer protocols (one at a time);
• demultiplexing means that a protocol can decapsulate
and deliver a packet to several next-higher layer
protocols (one at a time).
• To be able to multiplex and demultiplex, a protocol needs to
have a field in its header to identify to which protocol the
encapsulated packets belongs to.

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1-97
• THE OSI MODEL
• Established in 1947, the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) is a multinational body dedicated to
worldwide agreement on international standards.
• An ISO standard that covers all aspects of network
communications is the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI)
model. It was first introduced in the late 1970s.
• An open system is a set of protocols that allows any two different systems
to communicate regardless of their underlying architecture.
• The purpose of the OSI model is to show how to facilitate communication
between different systems without requiring changes to the logic of the
underlying hardware and software.
• The OSI model is not a protocol; it is a model for understanding and
designing a network architecture that is flexible, robust, and interoperable.

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The OSI model is a layered framework for the design of
network systems that
allows communication between all types of computer
systems

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OSI versus TCP/IP

1-100
• First, TCP/IP has more than one transport-layer protocol.
Some of the functionalities of the session layer are available in
some of the transport-layer protocols.
• Second, the application layer is not only one piece of software.
Many applications can be developed at this layer.
• If some of the functionalities mentioned in the session and
presentation layers are needed for a particular application,
they can be included in the development of that piece of
software

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 Lack of OSI Model’s Success
• First, OSI was completed when TCP/IP was fully in place and a lot of time
and money had been spent on the suite; changing it would cost a lot.
• Second, some layers in the OSI model were never fully defined.
• EX: although the services provided by the presentation and the session
layers were listed in the document, actual protocols for these two layers
were not fully defined, nor were they fully described, and the
corresponding software was not fully developed.
• Third, when OSI was implemented by an organization in a different
application, it did not show a high enough level of performance to entice
the Internet authority to switch from the TCP/IP protocol suite to the OSI
model

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TCP/IP

1-103
Example 1
In Figure, a node with physical address 10 sends a frame to a node with
physical address 87.
The two nodes are connected by a link.
At the data link level this frame contains physical addresses in the header.
These are the only addresses needed.
The rest of the header contains other information needed at this level.
The trailer usually contains extra bits needed for error detection

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Example 2
In we want to send data from a node with
network address A and physical address 10,
located on one LAN, to a node with a network
address P and physical address 95, located on
another LAN.
Because the two devices are located on
different networks, we cannot use physical
addresses only; the physical addresses only
have local jurisdiction. What we need here
are universal addresses that can pass through
the LAN boundaries.
The network (logical) addresses have this
characteristic.

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Example 3
Figure shows an example of transport layer communication.
Data coming from the upper layers have port addresses j and k
(j is the address of the sending process, and k is the address of
the receiving process).
Since the data size is larger than the network layer can handle,
the data are split into two packets, each packet retaining the
port addresses (j and k).
Then in the network layer, network addresses (A and P) are
added to each packet.

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Figure 2.14 Example 3

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 Physical Layer:

• the major functions of the physical layer is to move data in the

form of electromagnetic signals across a transmission
medium.
• Whether you are collecting numerical statistics from another
computer, sending animated pictures from a design
workstation, or causing a bell to ring at a distant control
center, you are working with the transmission of data across
network connections.
• EX: a photograph must first be changed to a form that
transmission media can accept. Transmission media work by
conducting energy along a physical path. For transmission,
data needs to be changed to signals
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1-109
 DATA AND SIGNALS
• Analog and Digital Data
• Data can be analog or digital. The term analog data refers to information
that is continuous; digital data refers to information that has discrete
states.
• For example, an analog clock that has hour, minute, and second hands
gives information in a continuous form; the movements of the hands are
continuous.
• On the other hand, a digital clock that reports the hours and the minutes
will change suddenly from 8:05 to 8:06.
• Analog data, such as the sounds made by a human voice, take on
continuous values. When someone speaks, an analog wave is created in the
air.
• Digital data take on discrete values. For example, data are stored in
computer memory in the form of 0s and 1s.

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 Analog and Digital Signals
• Signals can be analog or digital. Analog signals can have an infinite
number of values in a range; digital signals can have only a limited
number of values.

Figure 3.1 Comparison of analog and digital signals

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 Periodic and Nonperiodic
• A periodic signal completes a pattern within a measurable
time frame, called a period, and repeats that pattern over
subsequent identical periods.
• The completion of one full pattern is called a cycle.
• A nonperiodic signal changes without exhibiting a pattern
or cycle that repeats over time.

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 DIGITAL SIGNALS
• In addition to being represented by an analog signal,
information can also be represented by a digital signal. For
example, a 1 can be encoded as a positive voltage and a 0 as
zero voltage. A digital signal can have more than two levels.
In this case, we can send more than 1 bit for each level.

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Two digital signals: one with two signal levels and the other
with four signal levels

3.114
• In general, if a signal has L levels, each level needs log2 L bits.
For this reason, we can send log24 = 2 bits in part b.

EX:A digital signal has eight levels. How many

bits are needed per level? We calculate the
number of bits from the formula

Each signal level is represented by 3 bits

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 Example 3.17

A digital signal has nine levels. How many bits are needed
per level? We calculate the number of bits by using the
formula. Each signal level is represented by 3.17 bits.
However, this answer is not realistic. The number of bits
sent per level needs to be an integer as well as a power
of 2. For this example, 4 bits can represent one level.

3.116
• Bit Rate
• bit rate (instead of frequency)—is used to describe digital
signals. The bit rate is the number of bits sent in 1s,
expressed in bits per second (bps).
• Assume we need to download text documents at the rate of
100 pages per minute. What is the required bit rate of the
channel?
Solution
A page is an average of 24 lines with 80 characters in each line.
If we assume that one character requires 8 bits, the bit rate is

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• A digitized voice channel is made by digitizing a 4-kHz
bandwidth analog voice signal. We need to sample the signal at
twice the highest frequency (two samples per hertz). We assume
that each sample requires 8 bits.
• What is the require bitrate?

• Solution
• The bit rate can be calculated as

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Bit Length
•The bit length is the distance one bit occupies on the
transmission medium.
•Bit length =propagation speed * bit duration
Digital Signal as a Composite Analog Signal
•a digital signal is a composite analog signal. The bandwidth is
infinite
•A digital signal, in the time domain, comprises connected
vertical and horizontal line segments. A vertical line in the time
domain means a frequency of infinity (sudden change in time); a
horizontal line in the time domain means a frequency of zero (no
change in time).

1-119
Figure 3.17
The time and frequency domains of periodic and nonperiodic
digital signals

3.120
 Transmission of Digital Signals
• Baseband Transmission
• Baseband transmission means sending a digital signal over a
channel without changing the digital signal to an analog signal.

Baseband transmission requires that we have a low-pass channel,

a channel with a bandwidth that starts from zero. This is the case if
we have a dedicated medium with a bandwidth constituting only
one channel.

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• For example, the entire bandwidth of a cable connecting two computers is
one single channel. As another example, we may connect several
computers to a bus, but not allow more than two stations to communicate
at a time. Again we have a low-pass channel, and we can use it for
baseband communication.

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• Case 1: Low-Pass Channel with Wide Bandwidth
• If we want to preserve the exact form of a nonperiodic digital
signal with vertical segments vertical and horizontal segments
horizontal, we need to send the entire spectrum, the
continuous range of frequencies between zero and infinity.
• This is possible if we have a dedicated medium with an
infinite bandwidth between the sender and receiver that
preserves the exact amplitude of each component of the
composite signal.
• Although this may be possible inside a computer (e.g., between CPU and
memory), it is not possible between two devices.
• such as a coaxial or fiber optic cable, with a very wide bandwidth, two
stations can communicate by using digital signals with very good accuracy

1-123
 Figure 3.20 Baseband transmission using a dedicated medium

Although the output signal is not an exact replica of the

original signal, the data can still be deduced from the
received signal
Baseband transmission of a digital signal that
preserves the shape of the digital signal is possible
only if we have a low-pass channel with an infinite
3.124 wide bandwidth.
or very
• Low-Pass Channel with Limited Bandwidth
• In a low-pass channel with limited bandwidth, we approximate
the digital signal with an analog signal. The level of
approximation depends on the bandwidth available.
• Rough Approximation
• Let us assume that we have a digital signal of bit rate N. If we
want to send analog signals to roughly simulate this signal, we
need to consider the worst case, a maximum number of
changes in the digital signal. This happens when the signal
carries the sequence 01010101 . . . or the sequence
10101010. . . . To simulate these two cases, we need an analog
signal of frequency f = N/2.

1-125
Figure 3.21 Rough approximation of a digital signal using the
first harmonic for worst case

3.126
• Better Approximation
• To make the shape of the analog signal look more like that of
a digital signal, we need to add more harmonics of the
frequencies. We need to increase the bandwidth. We can
increase the bandwidth to 3N/2, 5N/2, 7N/2, and so on.

In baseband transmission, the required

bandwidth is proportional to the bit rate;
if we need to send bits faster, we need
more bandwidth.

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Figure 3.22 Simulating a digital signal with first three harmonics

3.128
 Table 3.2 Bandwidth requirements

3.129
 Example 3.22

What is the required bandwidth of a low-pass channel if we

need to send 1 Mbps by using baseband transmission?

Solution
The answer depends on the accuracy desired.
a. The minimum bandwidth, is B = bit rate /2, or 500 kHz.

b. A better solution is to use the first and the third

harmonics with B = 3 × 500 kHz = 1.5 MHz.

c. Still a better solution is to use the first, third, and fifth

harmonics with B = 5 × 500 kHz = 2.5 MHz.

3.130
• Broadband Transmission (Using Modulation)
• Broadband transmission or modulation means changing
the digital signal to an analog signal for transmission.
Modulation allows us to use a bandpass channel—a channel
with a bandwidth that does not start from zero. This type of
channel is more available than a low-pass channel.

Figure 3.23 Bandwidth of a bandpass channel

1-131
Figure 3.24 Modulation of a digital signal for transmission on a bandpass
channel

3.132
• TRANSMISSION IMPAIRMENT
• Signals travel through transmission media, which are not
perfect. The imperfection causes signal impairment.
• This means that the signal at the beginning of the medium is
not the same as the signal at the end of the medium. What is
sent is not what is received.
• Three causes of impairment are attenuation, distortion, and
noise

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• Attenuation
• Attenuation means a loss of energy. When a signal, simple
or composite, travels through a medium, it loses some of its
energy in overcoming the resistance of the medium.
• That is why a wire carrying electric signals gets warm, if not
hot, after a while. Some of the electrical energy in the signal is
converted to heat. To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are
used to amplify the signal.

1-134
Figure 3.26 Attenuation

3.135
• Decibel
• To show that a signal has lost or gained strength, engineers use
the unit of the decibel.
• The decibel (dB) measures the relative strengths of two
signals or one signal at two different points.
• Note that the decibel is negative if a signal is attenuated and
positive if a signal is amplified.

• Variables P1 and P2 are the powers of a signal at points 1 and

2, respectively.

1-136
• Distortion
• Distortion means that the signal changes its form or shape.
• Distortion can occur in a composite signal made of different
frequencies. Each signal component has its own propagation
speed through a medium and, therefore, its own delay in
arriving at the final destination.
• Signal components at the receiver have phases different from
what they had at the sender. The shape of the composite signal
is therefore not the same.

1-137
Figure 3.28 Distortion

3.138
• Noise: Noise is another cause of impairment. Several
types of noise, such as thermal noise, induced noise,
crosstalk, and impulse noise, may corrupt the signal.
• Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire,
which creates an extra signal not originally sent by the
transmitter.
• Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and
appliances. These devices act as a sending antenna, and the
transmission medium acts as the receiving antenna.
• Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other. One wire acts
as a sending antenna and the other as the receiving antenna.
• Impulse noise is a spike (a signal with high energy in a very
short time) that comes from power lines, lightning, and so on.

1-139
Figure 3.29 Noise

3.140
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR)
• The signal-to-noise ratio is defined as

1-141
Figure 3.30 Two cases of SNR: a high SNR and a low SNR

3.142
• SNR is actually the ratio of what is wanted (signal) to what is
not wanted (noise).
• A high SNR means the signal is less corrupted by noise; a low
SNR means the signal is more corrupted by noise.
• Because SNR is the ratio of two powers, it is often described
in decibel units,
• SNRdB, defined as

1-143
 Example 3.31

The power of a signal is 10 mW and the power of the

noise is 1 μW; what are the values of SNR and SNRdB ?

Solution
The values of SNR and SNRdB can be calculated as
follows:

3.144
 DATA RATE LIMITS
A very important consideration in data communications is how
fast we can send data, in bits per second, over a channel. Data
rate depends on three factors:
1. The bandwidth available
2. The level of the signals we use
3. The quality of the channel (the level of noise)

Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate

Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
Using Both Limits

1-145
• Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
• For a noiseless channel, the Nyquist bit rate formula defines
the theoretical maximum bit rate
BitRate = 2 * bandwidth * log2L

• In this formula, bandwidth is the bandwidth of the

channel, L is the number of signal levels used to
represent data, and BitRate is the bit rate in bits per
second.

1-146
• Consider a noiseless channel with a bandwidth of 3000 Hz
transmitting a signal with two signal levels. The maximum bit
rate can be calculated as

1-147
 Example 3.36

We need to send 265 kbps over a noiseless channel with

a bandwidth of 20 kHz. How many signal levels do we
need?
Solution
We can use the Nyquist formula as shown:

Since this result is not a power of 2, we need to either

increase the number of levels or reduce the bit rate. If we
have 128 levels, the bit rate is 280 kbps. If we have 64
levels, the bit rate is 240 kbps.
3.148
 Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity
In reality, we cannot have a noiseless channel; the
channel is always noisy. In 1944,Claude Shannon
introduced a formula, called the Shannon capacity, to
determine the theoretical highest data rate for a noisy
channel:

In this formula, bandwidth is the bandwidth of the

channel, SNR is the signal-to noise ratio, and
capacity is the capacity of the channel in bits per
second

1-149
 Example 3.37

Consider an extremely noisy channel in which the value of

the signal-to-noise ratio is almost zero. In other words,
the noise is so strong that the signal is faint. For this
channel the capacity C is calculated as

This means that the capacity of this channel is zero

regardless of the bandwidth. In other words, we cannot
receive any data through this channel.

3.150
 Example 3.38

We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a

regular telephone line. A telephone line normally has a
bandwidth of 3000. The signal-to-noise ratio is usually
3162. For this channel the capacity is calculated as

This means that the highest bit rate for a telephone line is
34.860 kbps. If we want to send data faster than this, we
can either increase the bandwidth of the line or improve
the signal-to-noise ratio.
3.151
 Example 3.39

The signal-to-noise ratio is often given in decibels.

Assume that SNRdB = 36 and the channel bandwidth is 2
MHz. The theoretical channel capacity can be calculated
as

3.152
 Example 3.41

We have a channel with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The SNR for

this channel is 63. What are the appropriate bit rate and
signal level?

Solution
First, we use the Shannon formula to find the upper limit.

3.153
 Example 3.41 (continued)

The Shannon formula gives us 6 Mbps, the upper limit.

For better performance we choose something lower, 4
Mbps, for example. Then we use the Nyquist formula to
find the number of signal levels.

The Shannon capacity gives us the

upper limit; the Nyquist formula tells us
how many signal levels we need.

3.154
 PERFORMANCE
• Bandwidth
• In networking, we use the term bandwidth in two contexts.
❑ The first, bandwidth in hertz, refers to the range of
frequencies in a composite signal or the range of frequencies
that a channel can pass.
we can say the bandwidth of a subscriber telephone line is 4 kHz

❑ The second, bandwidth in bits per second, refers to the speed

of bit transmission in a channel or link.
• the bandwidth of a Fast Ethernet network is a maximum of 100
Mbps. This means that this network can send 100 Mbps

1-155
 Example 3.42

The bandwidth of a subscriber line is 4 kHz for voice or

data. The bandwidth of this line for data transmission can
be up to 56,000 bps using a sophisticated modem to
change the digital signal to analog.

If the telephone company improves the quality of the line

and increases the bandwidth to 8 kHz, we can send
112,000 bps by using the same technology.

3.156
• Throughput
• The throughput is a measure of how fast we can actually
send data through a network. Although, at first glance,
bandwidth in bits per second and throughput seem the same,
they are different.

1-157
 Example 3.44

A network with bandwidth of 10 Mbps can pass only an

average of 12,000 frames per minute with each frame
carrying an average of 10,000 bits. What is the throughput
of this network?

Solution
We can calculate the throughput as

The throughput is almost one-fifth of the bandwidth in

this case.
3.158
• Latency (Delay)
• The latency or delay defines how long it takes for
an entire message to completely arrive at the
destination from the time the first bit is sent out from
the source.
• Latency = propagation time + transmission time +
queuing time + processing delay
• Propagation time measures the time required for a
bit to travel from the source to the destination.
• Propagation time = Distance / (Propagation
Speed)

1-159
 Example 3.45

What is the propagation time if the distance between the

two points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed
to be 2.4 × 108 m/s in cable.

Solution
We can calculate the propagation time as

The example shows that a bit can go over the Atlantic

Ocean in only 50 ms if there is a direct cable between the
source and the destination.
3.160
• The transmission time of a message depends on the
size of the message and the bandwidth of the channel.
• Transmission time = (Message size) / Bandwidth
• What are the propagation time and the transmission
time for a 2.5-kbyte message (an e-mail) if the
bandwidth of the network is 1 Gbps? Assume that the
distance between the sender and the receiver is
12,000 km and that light travels at 2.4 × 10^8 m/s.

1-161
 Example 3.46 (continued)

Note that in this case, because the message is short and

the bandwidth is high, the dominant factor is the
propagation time, not the transmission time. The
transmission time can be ignored.

3.162
• Queuing Time
• the time needed for each intermediate or end device to hold
the message before it can be processed. The queuing time is
not a fixed factor; it changes with the load imposed on the
network.
• When there is heavy traffic on the network, the queuing time
increases. An intermediate device, such as a router, queues the
arrived messages and processes them one by one. If there are
many messages, each message will have to wait

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• Bandwidth-Delay Product
• The bandwidth-delay product defines the number of bits that
can fill the link.

1-164
Figure 3.31 Filling the link with bits for case 1

3.165
Figure 3.32 Filling the link with bits in case 2

3.166
• Jitter
• Jitter is a problem if different packets of data
encounter different delays and the application using
the data at the receiver site is time-sensitive (audio
and video data).
• If the delay for the first packet is 20 ms, for the second is 45
ms, and for the third is 40 ms, then the real-time application
that uses the packets endures jitter

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 Model Questions

1.What is data communication? What are its four fundamental characteristics? With a
neat diagram, explain the components of data communication system.

2. List out the functionalities of physical layer, data link layer and network layer?
3. Explain the different levels of addressing used in an internet with a suitable example
for each level of addressing in TCP/IP?
4. With a neat diagram, explain the interaction between layers in the OSI model?
5. Define network topology, explain ring topology with advantages and disadvantages?
6.Explain Encapsulation and Decapsulation
7.Explain Multiplexing and demultiplexing
8. Explain the layered architecture of TCP/IP protocol suite
9. Explain in detail the concept of protocol layering along with its principles.
10. With a neat diag, explain the functionalities of each layer of OSI reference model
11. Explain with the block diagram, the causes for transmission impairement
12. What is line coding? Represent the sequence “101000110” using Biphase and
Bipolar schemes N(RZ-L, NRZ-I and Manchester, differtential Manchester, RZ
and AMI coding )schemes 1-168