Lecture Overview
BIT 1305 – Computer Networks
Lecture 4b
Communication Media
- Unguided Media -
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Introduction – Cont’d
• Unguided media transport electromagnetic
waves without using physical conductor. This
type of communication is often referred to as
wireless communication.
• Signals are normally broadcasted through free
space and thus are available to anyone who has
a device capable of receiving them.
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Introduction – Cont’d
• The distances involved may be short (a few
meters as in television remote control) or
very long (thousands or even millions of
kilometers for radio communications).
When the context is clear the term is often
simply shortened to "wireless".
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• Introduction
• Unguided/Unbounded/Wireless
• Examples of the same
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Introduction – Cont’d
• The term wireless is normally used to refer
to any type of electrical or electronic
operation which is accomplished without
the use of a "hard wired" connection.
• Wireless communication is the transfer of
information over a distance without the use
of electrical conductors or "wires".
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Introduction – Cont’d
• The section of the electromagnetic
spectrum defined as radio
communication is divided into eight
ranges, called bands, each regulated by
government authorities.
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 Radio Communication Band
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Unguided Media
• Unguided signals can travel from the source
to destination in several ways: ground
propagation, sky propagation, and line-of-
sight propagation.
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Unguided Media
• In sky propagation, higher-frequency radio
waves radiate upward into the ionosphere (the
layer of atmosphere where particles exist as
ions) where they are reflected back to earth.
• This type of transmission allows for greater
distances with lower output power.
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Propagation of Radio Waves
• Radio technology considers the earth as
surrounded by two layers of atmosphere: the
troposphere and the ionosphere.
• The troposphere is the portion of the atmosphere
extending outward approximately 30 miles from
the earth's surface.
• The troposphere contains what we generally
think of as air. Clouds, wind, temperature
variations, and weather in general occur in the
troposphere.
• The ionosphere is the layer of the atmosphere
above the troposphere but below space.
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Unguided Media
• In ground propagation, radio waves travel
through the lowest portion of the atmosphere,
hugging the earth. These low-frequency
signals emanate in all directions from the
transmitting antenna and follow the curvature
of the planet.
• Distance depends on the amount of power in
the signal: The greater the power, the greater
the distance.
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Unguided Media
• In line-of-sight propagation, very high-
frequency signals are transmitted in straight
lines directly from the antenna to antenna.
• Antennas must be bidirectional, facing each
other, and either tall enough or close enough
together not to be affected by the curvature of
the earth.
• Line-of-sight propagation is tricky because
radio transmissions cannot be completely
focussed.
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 Propagation methods Bands
Band Range Propagation Application

VLF 3–30 KHz Ground Long-range radio navigation

Radio beacons and
LF 30–300 KHz Ground navigational locators
MF 300 KHz–3 MHz Sky AM radio
Citizens band (CB),
HF 3–30 MHz Sky
ship/aircraft communication
Sky and VHF TV,
VHF 30–300 MHz
line-of-sight FM radio
UHF TV, cellular phones,
UHF 300 MHz–3 GHz Line-of-sight
paging, satellite

SHF 3–30 GHz Line-of-sight Satellite communication

EHF 30–300 GHz Line-of-sight Long-range radio navigation

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Wireless Transmission Waves Wireless Transmission Frequencies

• 2GHz to 40GHz
– microwave
Wireless – highly directional
Transmission – point to point
– satellite
• 30MHz to 1GHz
– omnidirectional
– broadcast radio
Radio Waves Microwave Infrared
• 3 x 1011 to 2 x 1014
– infrared
– local
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Antennas Terrestrial Microwave

• Electrical conductor used to radiate or collect • Used for long haul telecommunications and
electromagnetic energy short point-to-point links
• Transmission antenna • Requires fewer repeaters but line of sight
– radio frequency energy from transmitter • Use a parabolic dish to focus a narrow beam
– converted to electromagnetic energy by antenna onto a receiver antenna
– radiated into surrounding environment • 1- 40 GHz frequencies
• Reception antenna • Higher frequencies give higher data rates
– electromagnetic energy impinging on antenna
• Main source of loss is attenuation
– converted to radio frequency electrical energy
– distance, rainfall
– fed to receiver
• also interference
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Same antenna is often used for both purposes17
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 Satellite Microwave Satellite Point to Point Link
• Satellite is relay station
• Receives on one frequency, amplifies or repeats signal
and transmits on another frequency
– eg. uplink 5.925-6.425 GHz & downlink 3.7-4.2 GHz
• Typically requires geo-stationary orbit
– height of 35,784km
– spaced at least 3-4° apart
• Typical uses
– television
– long distance telephone
– private business networks
– global positioning
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Satellite Broadcast Link Broadcast Radio

• Radio is 3kHz to 300GHz
• Use broadcast radio, 30MHz - 1GHz, for:
– FM radio
– UHF and VHF television
• Is omni-directional
• Still need line of sight
• Suffers from multipath interference
– reflections from land, water, other objects

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Infrared Wireless Propagation

• Modulate non-coherent infrared light Ground Wave
• End line of sight (or reflection)
• Are blocked by walls
• No licenses required
• Typical uses:
– TV remote control
– IRD port

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 Wireless Propagation Wireless Propagation
Sky Wave Line of Sight

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Line of Sight Transmission Radio Waves

• Free space loss • Although there is no clear-cut demarcation
– loss of signal with distance between radio waves and microwaves,
electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies
• Atmospheric Absorption
between 3 kHz and 1 GHz are normally called
– from water vapour and oxygen radio waves.
absorption • Waves ranging in frequencies between 1 and
• Multipath 300 GHz are called micro-waves.
– multiple interfering signals from • However, the behaviour of the waves, rather
reflections than the frequencies, is a better criterion for
• Refraction classification.
– bending signal away
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Radio Waves Microwaves

• Radio waves particularly those waves that
propagate in the sky mode, can travel long
distances making them good candidate for long-
distance broadcasting such as AM radio.
• Radio waves particularly those of low and
medium frequencies, can penetrate walls.
• Application:
– The omnidirectional characteristics of radio waves
make them useful for multicasting, in which there is
one sender but many receivers.
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• Electromagnetic waves having frequencies
between 1 and 300 GHz.
• They are unidirectional.
• When an antenna transmits microwave waves,
they can be narrowly focused. This means that
the sending and receiving antennas need to be
aligned.
• The advantage of unidirectional is that a pair
of antennas can be aligned without interfering
with another pair of aligned antennas.
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 Microwaves
• Some Characteristics of microwave
propagation:
– Microwave propagation is line-of-sight.
– Very high-frequency microwaves cannot
penetrate walls – disadvantage for receivers
inside a buildings.
– The microwave band is relatively wide, almost
299 GHz. Wider subbands can be assigned and
a high data rate can be achieved.
– Use of certain portions of the band requires
permission from authorities.
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Microwaves
• Applications:
– Microwaves, due to their unidirectional
properties, are very useful when unicast (one-
to-one) communication is needed between the
sender and the receiver.
– They are used in cellular phones, satellite
networks, and wireless LANs.
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Infrared Infrared
• Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300
• Infrared signals can not be used for long-
GHz to 400 THz (wavelengths from 1 mm to range communications.
770 nm), can be used for short-range
• Infrared waves cannot be used outside a
communication. building because the sun’s rays contain
• They can not penetrate walls and this prevents infrared waves that can interfere with the
interference between one system and another – communication.
a short-range communication system in one
room cannot be affected by another system in
the next room.

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Bluetooth Bluetooth
• Bluetooth is a wireless LAN technology • A bluetooth LAN can even be connected to the
designed to connect devices of different internet if one of the gadgets has this
functions such as telephones, notebooks, capability.
computers (desktops and laptops), cameras, • By nature, a bluetooth LAN can not be large.
printers, coffee makers, etc. If there are many gadgets that try to connect
• A bluetooth LAN is an ad-hoc network, which there will be chaos.
means that the network is formed • Originally started as a project by the Ericsson
spontaneously; the devices, sometimes Company. Named after Harald Blaatand
referred to as gadgets, find each other and (Dennish).
make a network called a piconet.
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 Bluetooth
• Bluetooth technology is the implementation
of a protocol defined by the IEEE 802.15
standard. The standard defines a wireless
personal-area-network (PAN) operable in
an area the size of a room or hall.
• Bluetooth defines two types of networks:
piconet and scatternet.
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Bluetooth - Scatternet
• Piconets can be combined to form what is
called a scatternet.
• A secondary station in one piconet can be a
primary in another piconet. This station can
receive messages from the primary in the first
piconet (as a secondary) and, acting as a
primary, deliver them to secondaries in the
second piconet.
• A station can be a member of two piconets.
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Bluetooth - Piconet
• A bluetooth network is called a piconet, or a small
net.
• A piconet can have up to eight (8) stations, one of
which is called the primary; the rest are called
secondaries.
• All the secondary stations synchronize their clocks
and hopping sequence with the primary.
• Note that a piconet can have only one primary station.
• The communication between the primary and the
secondary can be one-to-one or one-to-many.
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Bluetooth Devices
• A bluetooth device has a built-in short-
range radio transmitter.
• The current data rate is 1 Mbps with a 2.4-
GHz bandwidth. This means that there is a
possibility of interference between the IEEE
802.11b wireless LANs and Bluetooth
LANs.
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