Lecture 4

UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA
College of Science and Technology
Module ETE 4163 :

Computer Networks
Lecture # 4: Physical Layer and Access

networks
1
Lecture # 4: Physical Layer
Basic Elements
 The physical layer is concerned with transmitting raw bits
over a communication channel. The design issues have to
do with making sure that when one side sends a 1 bit, it is
received by the other side as a 1 bit, not as a 0 bit.
The physical layer has four important characteristics:

i) Mechanical: relates to the physical properties of the
interface to a transmission medium
Ex: specification is of a pluggable connector that joins one or
more signal conductors, called circuits
ii) Electrical: relates to the representation of bits (e.g., in
terms of voltage levels) and the data transmission rate of
bits 2
Basic Elements
 The physical layer has four important characteristics:
Ex: Electrical defines the voltage, current, modulation, bit
synchronization, connection activation and deactivation,
and various electrical characteristics for the transmission
media (such as unshielded or shielded twisted-pair
cabling, coaxial cabling, and fiber-optic cabling)
iii) Functional: Specifies the functions performed by

individual circuits of the physical interface between a
system and the transmission medium
iv) Procedural: Specifies the sequence of events by
which bit streams are exchanged across the physical
medium. 3
Transmission Medium
 The transmission medium is usually free space or cable (e.g.,

copper and fiber-optic cables)
 The information is usually a signal that is the result of a
conversion of data from another form.
4
Transmission Medium
 Guided and unguided media
5
Transmission Medium
 Guided Media: provides a conduit from one device to

another. Examples of guided medium: twisted-pair cable,
coaxial cable, fiber-optic cable
 Twisted-pair and coaxial cable use metallic (copper)

conductors that accept and transport signals in the form
of electric current
 Optical fiber is a cable that accepts and transports
signals in the form of light
6
Transmission Medium: Guided Media
 Shielded Twisted-Pair (STP) Cable:

 STP uses two pairs of wires that are wrapped in an
overall metallic braid or foil
 STP provides better noise protection than unshielded
twisted-pair (UTP) cabling, however at a significantly
higher price
 STP was the cabling structure specified for use in
Token ring network installations
 The new 10 GB standard for Ethernet has a provision
for the use of STP cabling
7
 Shielded Twisted-Pair (STP) Cable:
8
 Unshielded Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable:

UTP cabling is used in Ethernet LANs
 UTP consists of four pairs of color-coded wires that
have been twisted together and then encased in a
flexible plastic sheath
 The twisting has the effect of canceling unwanted
signals
 This cancellation effect also helps avoid interference
from internal sources called crosstalk
o Crosstalk is the interference caused by the magnetic
field around the adjacent pairs of wires in the cable 9
 Unshielded Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable:
10
 UTP cabling standards:

 The UTP commercial cabling that are commonly found in
workplaces, schools, and homes conform to the standards
established jointly by the Telecommunications Industry
Association (TIA) and the Electronics Industries Alliance
(EIA)
 Some of the elements defined are:
o Cable types
o Cable lengths
o Connectors
o Cable termination
o Methods of testing cable 11
 UTP cabling standards:

 IEEE defines the electrical characteristics of copper
cabling
 Cables are placed into categories according to their
performance, i.e., ability to carry higher bandwidth rates.
 For example:
o Category 5 (Cat5) cable: used in 100BASE-TX Fast
Ethernet installations
o Enhanced Category 5 (Cat5e) and Category 6 (Cat6):
used to support higher data rates. For instance, Cat5e is
the minimally acceptable cable type for GigaEthernet
12
 Coaxial cable:
 Coaxial cable (or coax) carries signals of higher frequency
ranges than those in twisted-pair cable
 Coax has a central core conductor of solid or stranded
wire (usually copper) enclosed in an insulating sheath,
which is, in turn, encased in an outer conductor of metal foil,
braid, or a combination of the two
 The outer metallic wrapping serves both as a shield
against noise and as the second conductor, which completes
the circuit
 This outer conductor is also enclosed in an insulating
sheath, and the whole cable is protected by a plastic cover13
 Coaxial cable:
14
 Coaxial cable:
 Uses of coaxial cable:
o wireless and cable access technologies
o to attach antennas to wireless devices (coaxial cable
carries radio frequency (RF) energy between the
antennas and the radio equipment)
o Traditional cable Television
o In the past, coax cable was used in Ethernet
installations. Today UTP offers lower costs and higher
bandwidth than coaxial and has replaced it as the
standard for all Ethernet installations
15
 Fiber optics:
 Fiber-optic cabling uses either glass or plastic fibers to
guide light impulses from source to destination
 The bits are encoded on the fiber as light impulses
 It is based on the principle of Total internal Reflection
16
 Fiber optics:
 Implementation issues include:
o More expensive (usually) than copper media over the
same distance (but for a higher capacity)
o Different skills and equipment required to terminate and
splice the cable infrastructure
o More careful handling than copper media
 Propagation modes:
Current technology supports two modes:
o multimode
o single mode 17
 Fiber optics:
 Examples of advantages over metallic cable (twisted- pair or
coaxial):
o Higher bandwidth: can support higher data rates
o Less signal attenuation: transmission distance is
significantly greater than that of other guided media. For
example, a signal can run for 50 km without requiring
regeneration. We need repeaters every 5 km for coaxial or
twisted-pair cable
o Immunity to electromagnetic interference
18
 Fiber optics:
 Examples of desadvantages:
o Installation and maintenance
o Unidirectional light propagation: Propagation of light
is unidirectional. If we need bidirectional
communication, two fibers are needed
o Cost: The cable and the interfaces are relatively more
expensive than those of other guided media.
19
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
 Signals are normally broadcast through free space and thus are
available to anyone who has a device capable of receiving them
 Unguided signals can travel from the source to destination
in several ways:
 ground propagation,
 sky propagation,
 line-of-sight propagation
20
Transmission Medium: Wireless Media
21
Transmission Medium: Wireless Media
22
 Radio waves:
o refer to electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies
between 3 kHz and 1 GHz
o Based on behavior of the waves, rather than the
frequencies, radio waves, for the most part, are
omnidirectional
o When an antenna transmits radio waves, they are
propagated in all directions
Applications:
o AM and FM radio, television, and maritime
communications are examples of multicasting
23
 Microwaves:
o Electromagnetic waves having frequencies between 1
and 300 GHz
o Microwaves are unidirectional. Use unidirectional
antenna
o Microwave propagation is line-of-sight
 Repeaters are often needed for long- distance
communication
 Applications
o used in cellular phones, satellite networks, and
wireless LANs
24
 Infrared:
o frequencies from 300 GHz to 400 THz (wavelengths
from 1 mm to 770 nm)
o used for short-range communication, ex: remote
control
Applications
o used for communication between devices such as
keyboards, PCs, and printers
o For example, wireless keyboard to communicate with a
PC (personal computer)
25
Examples of equipments:
 Hub:
o used to connect network stations to form LANs
o10BaseT Ethernet networks:10 Mbps for Ethernet
• How hub works?:
o The hub receives signals from each station and repeats
the signals to all other stations connected to the hub
o In active hubs (which all of today’s hubs are), the
signal received from one port is regenerated (amplified)
and retransmitted to the other ports on the hub
o Since hubs perform the function of a repeater, they are
also called multiport repeaters.
26
 Hub: How hub works?:

o From a logical cabling point of view, stations wired into a
hub form a star topology
o Hubs generally have RJ-45 ports for UTP cabling
o Ports range in size from 4 to 24 or more ports for
connecting stations to the hub, plus one or more uplink ports
for connecting the hub to other hubs in a cascaded star
topology
o Hubs generally have various light-emitting diode (LED)
indicator lights to indicate the status of each port, link status,
collisions, and so on
27
 Repeater:
o a network by boosting the signal so that it can travel
farther along the cabling
• How repeater works?:
o Digital signals traveling on cables weaken with
distance (a phenomenon known as attenuation)
o A repeater is a form of digital amplifier that
regenerates (amplifies) the signal so that it can travel
farther
28
 Repeater: How repeater works?:
o Repeaters also perform other functions such as:

 filtering out noise caused by electromagnetic
interference (EMI),
 reshaping the signal, and
 correcting timing to remove signal jitter so that the
signal can travel farther.
o Repeaters can be used in Ethernet and Token Ring
LANs to extend signal transmission to remote nodes and
over long fiber-optic cabling runs to connect LANs
29
Data and signals:
 Data: entities that convey meaning
o analog data: continuous values within some interval
e.g. sound, video
o digital data: discrete values, e.g. text, integers
Signals (electromagnetic or electric): means by which data are
propagated
o Analog (or continuous) signal is continuously varying
electromagnetic wave that propagates over a medium
odigital (or discrete) signal is a sequence of voltage pulses
that are transmitted over a wire medium. The signal intensity
maintains a constant level for some time and then changes to
another constant level
30
Data and signals:
 Analog signal carrying analog & digital data
31
Data and signals:
 Digital signal carrying analog & digital Data
32
Transmission impairements:
 Signal received may differ from signal transmitted
Analog signal: degradation of signal quality
 Digital signal: bit errors
 Caused by:
 attenuation and attenuation distortion
 delay distortion
 noise: additional signals inserted between transmitter and
receiver: impulse noise, crosstalk, thermal (white) noise or
noise
33
Transmission impairements:
 Attenuation: Signal strength falls off with distance
 In normal, received signal strength: must be enough to
be detected and must be sufficiently higher than noise to
be received without error
Attenuation distortion: attenuation is different for different
frequencies; an increasing function of frequency
Delay distortion (only in guided media): propagation velocity

varies with frequency, thus some components of one bit position
may spill over into another bit position; causing inter-symbol
interference, which is a major limitation to maximum bit rate
34
Interconnection of nodes/devices
• Computing devices: desktop PCs, servers, laptops,

smartphones, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles, webcams,
automobiles, sensors, and home electrical and security are
connected to the Internet and can store and transmit
information (e.g., web pages and email messages)
•In Internet network, all of these devices are called hosts or
end systems
•End systems access the Internet through Internet Service
Providers (ISPs), including national and international ISPs
For example, ISPs that provide WiFi access in airports,
hotels, coffee shops, and other public places 35
36
End-system
interaction
37
Lecture # 4: Access networks
Access networks:
physically connects an
end system
38
Home access: DSL, Cable, FTTH, Dial-Up, and Satellite
• Digital subscriber line (DSL): each customer’s DSL modem
uses the existing telephone line to exchange data with a digital
subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) located in the local
central office (CO) of a telecom company.
• DSL standards define transmission rates of 24 Mbps
downstream and 2.5 Mbps upstream [ITU 2003].
39
• Hybrid fiber-coaxial access network: fiber optics connect
the cable head end to neighborhood-level junctions to reach
individual houses and apartments through coaxial cable. Each
neighborhood junction typically supports 500 to 5,000 homes.
CMTS: cable modem termination system

40
• Fiber to the home (FTTH): fiber gets is split into individual
customer-specific fibers. There are two competing optical-
distribution network architectures that perform this splitting: active
optical networks (AONs) and passive optical networks (PONs).
optical network terminator (ONT),

optical line terminator (OLT)
FTTH Internet access using the PON
41
distribution architecture
• Satellite link can be used to connect a residence to the

Internet at speeds of more than 1 Mbps;
• StarBand and HughesNet are two such satellite access
providers
• Dial-up access over traditional phone lines is based on the

same model as DSL—a home modem connects over a
phone line to a modem in the ISP. Compared with DSL and
other broadband access networks, dial-up access is
excruciatingly slow at 56 kbps
42
Access in the Enterprise (and the Home): Ethernet and
WiFi
• Ethernet ( as LAN technology) is the most prevalent access
technology in corporate, university, and home networks
• Users typically have 10Mbps,100 Mbps and 1 Gbps or even
10 Gbps access to the Ethernet switch
Ethernet Internet access 43

Access in the Enterprise (and the Home): Ethernet and
WiFi
• Below figure shows a typical home network, which consists of
a roaming laptop as well as a wired PC; a base station (the
wireless access point), which communicates with the wireless
PC; a cable modem, providing broadband access to the Internet;
and a router, which interconnects the base station and the
stationary PC with the cable modem.
44
Wireless LAN
45
Wireless LAN
• BSS(Basic Service Set): the presence of a control module

often called “Base Station” or Access Points. BSS provide
an infrastructure that adds services and improves the range
for clients
•Ad-hoc or Peer-to-Peer: no control module (i.e., no AP).

Client stations which are configured to operate in ad hoc
mode configure the wireless parameters between
themselves
46
Cellular networks
47
Cellular network:
GSM network architecture
48
Cellular network:
GSM elements and interfaces
49
Satellite network: components/Architecture

•mission and network management centre (MNMC)
•network management centres (NMC)
•network control centres (NCC)
•gateway earth station (GW)
•user terminals (UT)
•satellite terminals (ST)
•Network access
terminals (NAT)
•customer premises
equipment (CPE)
50
Satellite network
Functional relationships of user terminal, terrestrial network and
satellite network
51
Global information infrastructure
52
Lecture # 4: Switching techniques
Switching Techniques:
 Circuit Switching
– Dedicated resources and fixed path
– used in traditional telephone networks
Packet Switching
– Shared resources
– used in modern data network
53
Circuit Switching: Involves three phases:

1) circuit establishment: before any data is transmitted, an end-
to-end circuit must be established, i.e. network resources on
path/ links between end-devices must be reserved
2) data transfer: data transmission and signaling may each be
digital or analog
3) circuit disconnect: after some period of data transfer, the
connection is terminated, by action of one of two stations,
and dedicated resources are released
• Each session is allocated a fixed fraction of the capacity
on each link along its path
54
Circuit Switching:
Advantages:
– Fixed delays
– Guaranteed continuous delivery
Disadvantages:
– Circuits are not used when session is idle
– Inefficient for bursty traffic
– Circuit switching usually done using a fixed rate stream
(e.g.,
64 Kbps)
–Difficult to support variable data rates
55
Packet switching:
i) message segmentation:
• longer message is broken up into series of packets
• packets contain user’s data + control data
• control data (header) contains information that
network requires to route the packet
ii) data transfer
• intermediate nodes perform following operations:
(a) receive entire packet
(b) determine next node and link on route
(c) queue packet to go out on that link when link is
available, packet is transmitted to next node 56
Packet switching:
Advantages:
• greater line efficiency: node-to-node link dynamically shared by many
packets / connections
• data rate conversion: two stations of different data rates can exchange
packets, because each connects to its node at its proper data rate ⇒ nodes
act as buffers
• no blocked calls – packets are accepted even under heavy traffic, but
delivery delay increases
Disadvantages:
• transmission delay: each time a packet passes through a packet-switching
node, it incurs a delay not present in circuit switching = the time it takes
to absorb the packet into an internal buffer
• variable delay: each node introduces additional variable delay due to
processing and queueing
• Overhead: to route packets through a packet-switching network, overhead
information including the address of destination and/or sequence
information must be added to each packet 57
Lecture # 4: Network performance
ITU quality of service (QoS):
The four viewpoints of QoS (ITU-T-G1000)

58
End-user QoS class and requirements:
Model for user-centric QoS categories (ITU-T-G1010)

59
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)
60
Data rate limits:
Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
For a noiseless channel, the Nyquist bit rate formula defines the
theoretical maximum bit rate:
Bit Rate = 2 B x 10g2M
where B is the bandwidth of the channel, M is the number of

signal levels used to represent data, and Bit Rate is the bit rate
in bits per second. Note that increasing the levels of a signal
reduces the reliability of the system.
61
Data rate limits:
Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate
Example
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
62
Data rate limits:
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:
C =B x log2(1 +SNR)
where SNR is the signal-to- noise ratio, C is the capacity of the
channel in bits per second and B represents the bandwidth of the
channel. Note that, we cannot achieve a data rate higher than the
capacity of the channel
63
Data rate limits:
Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity

• Example
• We can calculate the theoretical highest bit rate of a regular
telephone line. A telephone line normally has a bandwidth of
3000. The SNR 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
bps. If we want to send data faster than this, we can either increase
the bandwidth of the line or improve the SNR.
64
Bandwidth
• Bandwidth can be used in two different contexts with two
different measuring values:
Bandwidth in Hertz: is the range of frequencies
contained in a composite signal or the range of frequencies
a channel can pass.
Bandwidth in Bits per Seconds: refers to the number of

bits per second that a channel, a link, or even a network can
transmit
65
Throughput
• Measures of how fast we can actually send data through
a network. For example, a link may have a bandwidth of B
bps, but we can only send T bps through this link with T
always less than B.
• In other words, the bandwidth is a potential measurement
of a link; the throughput is an actual measurement of how
fast we can send data.
• For example, we may have a link with a bandwidth of 1
Mbps, but the devices connected to the end of the link may
handle only 200 kbps.
66
Throughput
• Example
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
67
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 is made of four components: propagation time,
transmission time, queuing time and processing delay.
Latency = propagation time + transmission time +

queuing time + processing delay
68
Latency (Delay)
•Types of delay
69
Latency (Delay)
 Propagation Time/delay: measures the time required for a bit

to travel from the source to the destination. The propagation
time is calculated by dividing the distance by the propagation
speed.
Propagation time = Distance / Propagation speed
oThe propagation speed of electromagnetic signals depends on

the medium and on the frequency of the signal. For example, in
a vacuum, light is propagated with a speed of 3 x 108 m/s
o Propagation delay is d/s, where d is the distance between
router A and router B and s is the propagation speed of the link.
70
Latency (Delay)
 Propagation Time:
Example: 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
71
Latency (Delay)
 Tranmission time
The time required for transmission of a message depends on the
size of the message and the bandwidth of the channel.
Transmission time =Message size/Bandwidth
 The transmission delay is L/R where L is number of bits and R

is the transmission rate in bits/sec
 For the case of general case of sending one packet from
source to destination over a path consisting of N links each of
rate R, we have transmission time as (NL)/R
72
Latency (Delay)
 Tranmission time
Example: 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 × 108
m/s.
Solution
73
Latency (Delay)
 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
74
Latency (Delay)
 Processing delay
•The time required to examine the packet’s header and

determine where to direct the packet
•The processing delay can also include other factors, such

as the time needed to check for bit-level errors in the packet
that occurred in transmitting the packet’s bits from the
upstream node
75

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UNIVERSITY OF RWANDA

College of Science and Technology

Module ETE 4163 :

Lecture # 4: Physical Layer and Access

The physical layer has four important characteristics:

iii) Functional: Specifies the functions performed by

 The transmission medium is usually free space or cable (e.g.,

 Guided and unguided media

 Guided Media: provides a conduit from one device to

 Twisted-pair and coaxial cable use metallic (copper)

 Shielded Twisted-Pair (STP) Cable:

 Shielded Twisted-Pair (STP) Cable:

 Unshielded Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable:

 Unshielded Twisted-Pair (UTP) Cable:

 UTP cabling standards:

 UTP cabling standards:

Transmission Medium: Unguided Media

 Unguided media transport electromagnetic waves without using

 Hub: How hub works?:

 Repeater: How repeater works?:

o Repeaters also perform other functions such as:

Delay distortion (only in guided media): propagation velocity

• Computing devices: desktop PCs, servers, laptops,

CMTS: cable modem termination system

optical network terminator (ONT),

• Satellite link can be used to connect a residence to the

• Dial-up access over traditional phone lines is based on the

Ethernet Internet access 43

• BSS(Basic Service Set): the presence of a control module

•Ad-hoc or Peer-to-Peer: no control module (i.e., no AP).

Satellite network: components/Architecture

Global information infrastructure

Circuit Switching: Involves three phases:

The four viewpoints of QoS (ITU-T-G1000)

Model for user-centric QoS categories (ITU-T-G1010)

Data rate depends on three factors:

Bit Rate = 2 B x 10g2M

where B is the bandwidth of the channel, M is the number of

Noiseless Channel: Nyquist Bit Rate

Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity

Noisy Channel: Shannon Capacity

Bandwidth in Bits per Seconds: refers to the number of

•The latency or delay defines how long it takes for an entire

Latency = propagation time + transmission time +

 Propagation Time/delay: measures the time required for a bit

oThe propagation speed of electromagnetic signals depends on

 The transmission delay is L/R where L is number of bits and R

•The time required to examine the packet’s header and

•The processing delay can also include other factors, such

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