UNIT 2

Physical Layer
Bandwidth

 The maximum amount of data

transmitted over an
internet connection in a given amount
of time.
 Bandwidth is often mistaken for
internet speed when it's actually the
volume of information that can be
sent over a connection ina
measured amount
of time – calculated in megabits per
second (Mbps).
Bandwidth

 Bandwidth is how much information

you receive every second, while speed is
how fast that information is
received or downloaded.
Bandwidth

 The bandwidth of a transmission

medium is the frequency width of the
medium and is dependent upon its
physical characteristics like thickness,
material, length etc.
Bandwidth
Bandwidth Limited Signals
 The range of frequencies that are used for
transmitting a signal without being substantially
attenuated is called the bandwidth. It is calculated
as the difference between the highest and the
lowest frequencies. It is expressed in Hertz (Hz).
 For example, if the minimum frequency is 100
Hz and the maximum frequency is 1000 Hz,
the bandwidth will be 900 Hz.
Maximum Data Rate of a Channel

 Data rate refers to the speed of data

transfer through a channel. It is generally
computed in bits per second (bps). Higher data
rates are expressed as Kbps ("Kilo" bits per
second, i.e.1000 bps), Mbps ("Mega" bits per
second, i.e.1000 Kbps), Gbps ("Giga" bits per
second, i.e. 1000 Mbps) and Tbps ("Tera" bits per
second, i.e. 1000 Gbps).
Maximum Data Rate of a Channel

 One of the main objectives of data

communications is to increase the data rate. There
are three factors that determine the data rate of a
channel:
 Bandwidth of the channel
 Number of levels of signals that are
used  Noise present in the channel
Transmission Media

 A communication channel that is used to carry the

data from the transmitter to the receiver through
the electromagnetic signals. The main function of
this is to carry the data in the bits form through the
Local Area Network (LAN). In data communication,
it works like a physical path between the sender &
the receiver.
Transmission Media

 Factors to be considered while choosing

Transmission Medium
 1. Transmission Rate

 2. Cost and Ease of Installation

 3. Resistance to Environmental Conditions

 4. Distances
Transmission Media
Magnetic Media

 One of the most convenient way to transfer

data from one computer to another, even
before the birth of networking, was to save it on
some storage media and transfer physical from
one station to another. Though it may seem
old-fashion way in today’s world of high speed
internet, but when the size of data is huge, the
magnetic media comes into
play.
Magnetic Media
 For example, a bank has to handle and transfer
huge data of its customer, which stores a backup of
it at some geographically far-away place for security
reasons and to keep it from uncertain calamities. If
the bank needs to store its huge backup data then
its, transfer through internet is not feasible. The
WAN links may not support such high speed. Even if
they do; the cost too high to afford.
 In these cases, data backup is stored onto
magnetic tapes or magnetic discs, and then shifted
physically at remote places.
Twisted Pair Cable
 A twisted pair cable is made of two plastic
insulated copper wires twisted together to form
a single media. Out of these two wires, only
one carries actual signal and another is used
for ground reference. The twists between wires
are helpful in reducing noise (electro-magnetic
interference) and crosstalk.
 There are two types of twisted pair cables:
 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cable
 Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cable
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable
 It is the most common type of telecommunication
when compared with Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
which consists of two conductors usually copper,
each with its own colour plastic insulator.
Identification is the reason behind coloured plastic
insulation. UTP cables consist of 2 or 4 pairs of
twisted cable. Cable with 2 pair use RJ-11 connector
and 4 pair cable useRJ-45 connector.
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable

 Advantages :
 Installation is easy
 Flexible
 Cheap
 It has high speed capacity,
 100 meter limit Higher grades of UTP are used in
LAN technologies like Ethernet.
Unshielded Twisted Pair Cable

 Disadvantages :
 Bandwidth is low when compared with Coaxial
Cable
 Provides less protection from interference
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
 This cable has a metal foil or braided-
mesh covering which encases each pair of
insulated conductors.
 Electromagnetic noise penetration is
prevented by metal casing.
 Shielding also eliminates crosstalk
 It has same attenuation as unshielded
twisted pair.
 It is faster the unshielded and coaxial cable. It
is more expensive than coaxial and
unshielded twisted pair.
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable

 Advantages :
 Easy to install
 Performance is adequate
 Can be used for Analog or Digital transmission
 Increases the signaling rate
 Higher capacity than unshielded twisted pair
 Eliminates crosstalk
Shielded Twisted Pair Cable

 Disadvantages :
 Difficult to manufacture
 Heavy
Coaxial Cable
 Coaxial is called by this name because it contains
two conductors that are parallel to each other.
 Copper is used in this as center conductor which
can be a solid wire or a standard one.
 It is surrounded by PVC installation, a sheath which
is encased in an outer conductor of metal foil.
 Outer metallic wrapping is used as a shield
against noise and as the second conductor which
completes the circuit.
 The outer conductor is also encased in an
insulating sheath. The outermost part is the plastic
cover which protects the whole cable.
Coaxial Cable
Types of Coaxial Cable

 Base Band
 This is a 50 ohm (Ω) coaxial cable which is used for
digital transmission.
 It is mostly used for LAN’s.
 Baseband transmits a single signal at a time with
very high speed.
 The major drawback is that it needs amplification
after every 1000 feet.
Types of Coaxial Cable

 Broad Band
 This uses analog transmission on standard cable
television cabling.
 It transmits several simultaneous signal using
different frequencies.
 It covers large area when compared with
Baseband Coaxial Cable.
Coaxial Cable
 Advantages :
 Bandwidth is high
 Used in long distance telephone lines.
 Transmits digital signals at a very high rate of
10Mbps.
 Much higher noise immunity Data transmission
without distortion.
 The can span to longer distance at higher speeds
as they have better shielding when compared to
twisted pair cable
Coaxial Cable

 Disadvantages :
 Single cable failure can fail the entire network.
 Difficult to install and expensive when compared
with twisted pair.
 If the shield is imperfect, it can lead to grounded
loop.
Fibre Optic Cable

 These are similar to coaxial cable.

 It uses electric signals to transmit data.
 At the center is the glass core through
which light propagates.
Fibre Optic Cable
 The core in fiber optic cable is surrounded
by glass cladding with lower index of
refraction as compared to core to keep all
the light in core.
 This is covered with a thin plastic jacket
to protect the cladding.
 The fibers are grouped together in
bundles protected by an outer shield.
 Fiber optic cable has bandwidth more than
2 gbps
Fibre Optic Cable

 Advantages :
 Provides high quality transmission of signals at
very high speed.
 These are not affected by electromagnetic
interference, so noise and distortion is very less.
 Used for both analog and digital signals.
Unguided Media

 It is also known as unbounded

otherwise wireless transmission media.
 It doesn’t require any physical medium
to transmit electromagnetic signals.
 The main features of this media are
less secure, the signal can be transmitted
through air, and applicable for large
distances.
Radio waves
 Radio waves are the electromagnetic waves
that are transmitted in all the directions of free
space.  Radio waves are omnidirectional, i.e., the
signals
are propagated in all the directions.
 The range in frequencies of radio waves is
from 3Khz to 1 khz.
 In the case of radio waves, the sending
and receiving antenna are not aligned, i.e., the
wave sent by the sending antenna can be
received by any receiving antenna.
 An example of the radio wave is FM radio.
Radio waves
Radio waves
 Applications Of Radio waves:
 A Radio wave is useful for multicasting when there is
one sender and many receivers.
 An FM radio, television, cordless phones are examples
of a radio wave.
 Advantages Of Radio transmission:
 Radio transmission is mainly used for wide area
networks and mobile cellular phones.
 Radio waves cover a large area, and they can
penetrate the walls.
 Radio transmission provides a higher transmission
rate.
Microwaves

 They are of two types

 Terrestrial microwave
 Satellite microwave communication.
Terrestrial Microwaves

 Terrestrial Microwave transmission is a

technology that transmits the focused beam
of a radio signal from one ground-based
microwave transmission antenna to another.
 Microwaves are the electromagnetic
waves having the frequency in the range
from 1GHz to 1000 GHz.
Terrestrial Microwaves
 Microwaves are unidirectional as the
sending and receiving antenna is to be
aligned, i.e., the waves sent by the sending
antenna are narrowly focused.
 In this case, antennas are mounted on
the towers to send a beam to another
antenna which is km away.
 It works on the line of sight transmission,
i.e., the antennas mounted on the towers
are the direct sight of each other.
Satellite Microwaves

 A satellite is a physical object that

revolves around the earth at a known height.
 Satellite communication is more reliable
now a days as it offers more flexibility than
cable and fiber optic systems.
 We can communicate with any point on
the globe by using satellite communication.
Satellite Microwaves

 How Does Satellite work?

 The satellite accepts the signal that
is transmitted from the earth station, and
it amplifies the signal. The amplified signal
is retransmitted to another earth station.
Infrared
 An infrared transmission is a wireless
technology used for communication over
short ranges.
 The frequency of the infrared in the
range from 300 GHz to 400 THz.
 It is used for short-range communication
such as data transfer between two cell
phones, TV remote operation, data transfer
between a computer and cell phone resides
in the same closed area.
Infrared
 It supports high bandwidth, and hence the data
rate will be very high.
 Infrared waves cannot penetrate the walls.
Therefore, the infrared communication in one room
cannot be interrupted by the nearby rooms.
 An infrared communication provides better
security with minimum interference.
 Infrared communication is unreliable outside
the building because the sun rays will interfere with
the infrared waves.
Multiplexing

 What is Multiplexing?
 Multiplexing is a technique used to
combine and send the multiple data
streams over a single medium. The process
of combining the data streams is known as
multiplexing and hardware used for
multiplexing is known as a multiplexer.
Multiplexing
 The transmission medium is used to send
the signal from sender to receiver. The medium
can only have one signal at a time.
 If there are multiple signals to share
one medium, then the medium must be
divided in such a way that each signal is
given some portion of the available bandwidth.
 When multiple signals share the common
medium, there is a possibility of collision.
 Multiplexing concept is used to avoid
such collision.
Multiplexing Techniques
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv FDM
 It is an analog technique.
 Frequency Division Multiplexing is a
technique in which the available bandwidth
of a single transmission medium is subdivided
into several channels.

•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv FDM
 In the above diagram, a single
transmission medium is subdivided into
several frequency channels, and each frequency
channel is given to different devices. Device 1
has a frequency channel of range from 1 to 5.
 The main aim of the FDM is to subdivide
the available bandwidth into different
frequency channels and allocate them to
different devices.
 FDM is mainly used in radio broadcasts and
TV networks.
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv WDM
 Wavelength Division Multiplexing is same
as FDM except that the optical signals
are transmitted through the fibre optic cable.
 WDM is used on fibre optics to increase
the capacity of a single fibre.
 It is used to utilize the high data
rate capability of fibre optic cable.
 It is an analog multiplexing technique.
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv TDM
 It is a digital technique.
 In Time Division Multiplexing
technique, the total time available in the
channel is distributed among different users.
Therefore, each user is allocated with
different time interval known as a Time slot
at which data is to be transmitted by the
sender.
 A user takes control of the channel for a
fixed amount of time.
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv TDM
 In Frequency Division Multiplexing
Technique, all signals operate at the same
time with different frequency, but in case of
Time Division Multiplexing technique, all
signals operate at the same frequency with
different time.
 In Time Division Multiplexing technique,
data is not transmitted simultaneously
rather the data is transmitted one-by-one.
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv TDM
 There are two types of TDM:
 Synchronous TDM
 Asynchronous TDM
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv Synchronous TDM

 A Synchronous TDM is a technique in
which time slot is preassigned to every
device.
 In Synchronous TDM, each device is
given some time slot irrespective of the
fact that the device contains the data or not.
 If the device does not have any data, then
the slot will remain empty.
 If there are n devices, then there are n slots.
•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv Synchronous TDM

•In the above diagram, a single transmission medium is subdivided into several frequency channels, and each frequency channel is

giv Asynchronous TDM

 An asynchronous TDM is a technique in which
time slots are not fixed.
 Time slots are allocated to only those devices
which have the data to send. Therefore, we can
say that Asynchronous Time Division multiplexor
transmits only the data from active workstations.
 An asynchronous TDM technique dynamically
allocates the time slots to the devices.
 In Asynchronous TDM, total speed of the input
lines can be greater than the capacity of the channel.
 Asynchronous Time Division multiplexor accepts
the incoming data streams and creates a frame
that contains only data with no empty slots.
Asynchronous TDM
Difference
 The difference between Asynchronous TDM
and Synchronous TDM is that many slots in
Synchronous TDM are unutilized, but in
Asynchronous TDM, slots are fullyutilized. This
leads to the smaller transmission
time and efficient utilization of the capacity of
the channel.
 In Synchronous TDM, if there are n sending
devices, then there are n time slots. In
Asynchronous TDM, if there are n sending devices,
then there are m time slots where m is less than n
(m<n).
 The number of slots in a frame depends on
the statistical analysis of the number of input lines.
Switching
 When a user accesses the internet or
another computer network outside their immediate
location, messages are sent through
the network of transmission
media. This technique of transferring the information
from one computer network to another network is
known as switching.
 Switching in a computer network is achieved by
using switches. A switch is a small hardware device
which is used to join multiple computers together
with one local area network (LAN).
 Network switches operate at layer 2 (Data link
layer) in the OSI model.
Switching Techniques

 Circuit switching
 Message Switching
 Packet Switching
Circuit switching
 Circuit switching is a switching technique
that establishes a dedicated path between
sender and receiver.
 In the Circuit Switching Technique, once
the connection is established then the
dedicated path will remain to exist until the
connection is terminated.
 Circuit switching in a network operates in
a similar way as the telephone works.
 A complete end-to-end path must exist
before the communication takes place.
Circuit switching
 In case of circuit switching technique, when
any user wants to send the data, voice,
video, a request signal is sent to the receiver
then the receiver sends back the
acknowledgment to ensure the availability of
the dedicated path. After receiving the
acknowledgment, dedicated path transfers the
data.
 Circuit switching is used in public
telephone network. It is used for voice
transmission.
 Fixed data can be transferred at a time in
circuit switching technology.
Circuit switching

 Communication through circuit switching

has 3 phases:
 Circuit establishment
 Data transfer
 Circuit Disconnect
Circuit switching

 Advantages Of Circuit Switching:

 In the case of Circuit Switching technique,
the communication channel is dedicated.
 It has fixed bandwidth.
Message switching
 Message Switching is a switching technique
in which a message is transferred as a
complete unit and routed through
intermediate nodes at which it is stored and
forwarded.
 In Message Switching technique, there is
no establishment of a dedicated path between
the sender and receiver.
 The destination address is appended to
the message. Message Switching
provides a dynamic routing as
the message is routed through the
intermediate nodes based on the information
available in the message.
Message switching

 Message switches are programmed in such

a way so that they can provide the
most efficient routes.
 Each and every node stores the
entire message and then forward it to
the next node. This type of network is
known as store and forward network.
 Message switching treats each message as
an independent entity.
Message switching
Advantages of Message switching

 Data channels are shared among the

communicating devices that improve the
efficiency of using available bandwidth.
 Traffic congestion can be reduced because the
message is temporarily stored in the nodes.
 Message priority can be used to manage the
network.
 The size of the message which is sent over the
network can be varied. Therefore, it supports the
data of unlimited size.
Packet switching
 The packet switching is a switching technique
in which the message is sent in one go, but it
is divided into smaller pieces, and they are
sent individually.
 The message splits into smaller pieces known
as packets and packets are given a unique
number to identify their order at the receiving
end.
 Every packet contains some information in
its headers such as source address,
destination address and sequence number.
Packet switching

 Packets will travel across the network,

taking the shortest path as possible.
 All the packets are reassembled at
the receiving end in correct order.
 If any packet is missing or corrupted, then
the message will be sent to resend the
message.
 If the correct order of the packets is
reached, then the acknowledgment
message will be sent.
Packet switching
Advantages of Packet switching
 Cost-effective: In packet switching technique,
switching devices do not require massive secondary
storage to store the packets, so cost is minimized to
some extent. Therefore, we can say that the packet
switching technique is a cost-effective technique.
 Reliable: If any node is busy, then the packets can
be rerouted. This ensures that the Packet
Switching technique provides reliable
communication.
 Efficient: Packet Switching is an efficient technique.
It does not require any established path prior to the
transmission, and many users can use the same
communication channel simultaneously, hence makes
use of available bandwidth very efficiently.