1.3.

Transmission Media
Guided
 Twisted Pair Cable
 Coaxial Cable
 Fiber Optics/Optical Fiber Cable
Unguided
 Radio Communication
 Microwave Communication
 Satellite communication
 Terrestrial microwave
 Infrared Communication
Wireless LAN
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth Technology
 What is a transmission medium?

 Transmission medium/ communication channel

– refer to the media / physical path through which data

can be carried from a source to a destination.

 Characteristics and quality of data transmission are determined by

the characteristics of medium and signal.

 Therefore, transmission Media is broadly classified into :

 In Guided media (wire media)

– medium characteristics are more important whereas,

 In unguided (wireless media)

– signal characteristics(bandwidth produced by the antenna) are

more important.

 What is Guided Media?

• Is the physical medium through which the signals are transmitted.

• is also known as Bounded or wired media.

Signals being transmitted are directed and confined in a narrow pathway

by using physical links.

available in the lowest layer of the OSI reference model,

• Its features:
– High Speed
– Good security and low cost
– Used for comparatively shorter distances

• are limited by the physical geography.

• have different properties such as bandwidth, delay, cost

and ease of installation and maintenance.

• comprise cables or wires through which data is transmitted

• The most popular are:-

 twisted pair cable,
 co-axial cable, and
 fiber optical cable.
I. Twisted pair cable

– Most widely used network cabling (Transmission Media) w/c

consists of twisted pair & separately insulated cooper wires.

– Made of several such pairs of twisted solid cooper wire that

bundled together in a protective sheath / cable jacket.
– twists are done to reduce vulnerability to EMI and cross talk by cancels

out electrical noise from adjacent pairs.

– degree of reduction in noise interference is determined by the number of

turns per foot.

 i.e. increasing the number of turns per foot decreases noise

interference.

– Crosstalk occurs when signals from one line bleed into another line
 Transmission Media….
– also supports the speed of 100 mps.

– use distribution racks and rack shelves to organize a

network that has a lot of connections in a good way .

– use expandable patch panels –w/c has a transmission

speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

 Transmission Media….
– uses RJ-45 telephone connectors to connect to a
computer.

– its features:

• light weight,

• easy to install,

• has 0 to 3.5 kHz frequency range,

• inexpensive, and

• support many different types of network.

 – Two types

1. Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP):

– widely used in telecommunication i.e. is ordinary telephone wire
– cheapest
– easiest to install
– susceptible to crosstalk i.e. Suffers from external EM interference.
– maximum cable length / segment is 100 meters.
 – consist of 2 or 4 pairs of twisted cable.

• Cable with 2 pair use RJ-11 connector and

• 4 pair cable use RJ-45 connector.

 Some categories of the UTP cable:

– Category 1 (CAT-1):

• is used for telephone lines that have low-speed data.

• carry voice but not data transmission.

– Category 2 (CAT-2):

• It can support up to 4Mbps.

– Category 3 (CAT-3):

• It can support up to 16Mbps and are mostly used in 10 mps.

– Category 4 (CAT-4):
• It can support up to 20Mbps.
• Therefore, it can be used for long-distance & high speed
communication.
– Category 5 (CAT-5):
• It can support up to 200Mbps.
– Category 5e
• Improved version of cat 5 category. The bandwidth is 1000MBPS.
– Category 6
• Similar to CAT5 wire, but contains a physical separator between the
4 pairs to further reduce electromagnetic interference.
 Transmission Media….
• Characteristics of UTP
– low cost
– easy to install
– High speed capacity
– High attenuation
– Effective to EMI
– 100 meter limit
• Advantages Of UTP:
– Least expensive
– Easy to installation
– Capable of high-speed for LAN .
• Disadvantage:
– used for shorter distances because of attenuation.
– Susceptible to external interference
– Lower capacity and performance in comparison to STP
2. Shielded Twisted Pair (STP):
– contains a special jacket w/c is called wire mesh that
surrounding the wire to block external interference &
allows the higher transmission rate.
– used in fast-data-rate Ethernet and in voice and data
channels of telephone lines.
• Characteristics of STP

– Medium cost

– Easy to install

– Higher capacity than UTP

– Higher attenuation, but same as UTP

– Medium immunity from EMI

– 100 meter limit

 Transmission Media….
• Advantages:
– b/c shielded wire mesh it provide better performance at a higher data
rate in comparison to UTP in environments with:
• high noise levels and high levels of unwanted electrical signals.
– i.e. eliminates crosstalk
– comparatively faster data transmission rate than UTP and coaxial
• Disadvantages:
– Comparatively difficult to install and manufacture, i.e.
• It is more labor-intensive than UTP to install.
• Not all LAN systems work readily over STP.
– More expensive than UTP & coaxial.
 Transmission Media….
II. Coaxial Cable

– has an outer plastic covering containing 2 parallel conductors

each having a separate insulated protection cover.

 Inner conductor of the coaxial cable - made up of copper, and

outer conductor - made up of copper mesh.

 The middle core is made up of non-conductive cover & separates

the inner conductor from the outer conductor.

 The middle core is responsible for the data transferring whereas

the copper mesh prevents from the EMI(Electromagnetic
interference).

 wire mesh acts as a grounding and protects the core from

electrical noise and crosstalk.
 Transmission Media….
 Ex. TVs wire and analog television networks.
 Transmission Media….
– carries the electronic signals that make up the data.

– has a higher frequency as compared to Twisted pair

cable.

– transmits information in two modes:

• Baseband mode is use dedicated cable bandwidth

for transmitting a single signal at high speed.

• Broadband mode is use cable bandwidth w/c split

into separate ranges for transmitting multiple
signals simultaneously.
 Transmission Media….
 There are two types of coaxial cable:
– Thin (thin-net) cable
– Thick (thick-net) cable

 Thin-net Cable:
– is a flexible coaxial cable about 0.64 centimeters thick.
– can carry a signal for a distance of up to approximately 185
meters before the signal starts to suffer from attenuation.

 Thick-net Cable:
– is a relatively rigid coaxial cable about 1.27 centimeters in
diameter.
– Thick-net cable can carry a signal for 500 meters.
 Transmission Media….
 Coaxial-Cable Connection Hardware

– BNC cable connector:

• Is connector that crimped to the end of a cable.

– BNC T connector:

• is connector that joins the NIC with the network cable.

– BNC barrel connector:

• is connector that used to join two thinnet cable to make one

longer length.

– BNC terminator:
• it closes each end of the bus cable to absorb stray signals.
Otherwise, the signal will bounce and all network activity will
stop.

21
• Characteristics of coaxial cable
– Low cost
– Easy to install
– Has up to 10Mbps capacity
– Better immunity form EMI & attenuation
• Advantages:
– High Bandwidth
– Better noise Immunity
– Easy to install and expand
– Inexpensive
• Disadvantages:
– Single cable failure can disrupt the entire network
III. Fiber optic cable
– cable that contains glass (or in some cases, plastic) fibers rather
than copper wire.

– Signals are transmitted across these fibers in the form of light

pulses rather than electrical pulses.

– Optical fiber strands are thin filaments of glass consisting of an

inner core and an outer cladding.
– plastic coating / sheath protects the optical fibers from heat,
cold, electromagnetic interference from other types of wiring.

– uses the concept of reflection of light through a core made up

of glass or plastic.

– provide faster data transmission than copper wires.

– The diameter of the core varies with the type of optical fiber.
i.e.

– Single-mode optical fiber

• has a core diameter of approximately 8.5 µm.

– Multimode optical fiber

• has a core diameter of 62.5 µm.

• Basic elements of Fiber optic cable:

– Core:

• a narrow strand of glass or plastic.

• a light transmission area of the fiber.

– Cladding:

• concentric layer of glass.

• provide the lower refractive index at the core interface as to cause the
reflection within the core so that the light waves are transmitted
through the fiber.

– Jacket:

• protective coating consisting of plastic.

• preserve the fiber strength, absorb shock and extra fiber protection.
 Transmission Media….

Fibber optic outdoor

 Transmission Media….

Fibber optic indoor

 Advantages of optical fiber

– higher bandwidth(2GBPS) and capacity than that of twisted-

pair or coaxial cable.

– Optical signals through glass encounter less loss than electrical

signals through copper.

– has lower attenuation.

– Faster speed: - carries the data in the form of light.

– resist to electromagnetic interference since signal is sent as

light and not as electricity.

– Resistance to corrosive materials.

– more reliable than the copper

 Disadvantage of optical fiber

– Difficult to install and maintain

– High cost / Expensive

– Fragile

– unidirectional, i.e. will need another fiber, if we need

bidirectional communication.
• Un-guided Transmission media

– media that transmits the electromagnetic waves without using

any physical medium.

– also known as wireless / unbounded transmission media.

– air is the media through which the electromagnetic energy can

flow easily.

– bounded by geographical boundaries.

– Its features:

1. Signal is broadcasted through air

2. Less Secure

3. Used for larger distances

 – classified into three categories:
1. Radio waves
2. Microwaves
3. Infrared
• Radio waves
– the electromagnetic waves that are transmitted in all directions of free
space.
– multidirectional, i.e., the signals are propagated in all the directions.
– frequencies range from 3Khz to 1 khz.
– the sending and receiving antenna are not aligned, i.e., the wave sent
by the sending antenna can be received by any receiving antenna.
– example FM radio.
• Radio waves:

– easy to generate and can penetrate through buildings.

– useful for multicasting when there is one sender and many

receivers.

– Ex. FM radio, television, cordless phones etc.

• Advantages Of Radio transmission:
– mainly used for wide area networks and mobile cellular
phones.

– cover a large area, and they can penetrate the walls.

– provides a higher transmission rate.

• Microwaves

– are of two types:

• Terrestrial microwave

• Satellite microwave communication.

 Transmission Media….
• Microwaves
• Terrestrial Microwave Transmission

– a technology that transmits the focused beam of a radio signal from one
ground-based microwave transmission antenna to another.

 Microwaves

• electromagnetic waves having the frequency in the range from 1GHz to

1000 GHz.

• unidirectional as the sending and receiving antenna is to be aligned,

i.e., the waves sent by the sending antenna are narrowly focused.

– antennas are mounted on the towers to send a beam to another antenna

which is km away.

– works on the line of sight transmission, i.e., the antennas mounted on the
towers are the direct sight of each other.
• Characteristics of Microwave:
– Frequency range:
• frequency range of terrestrial microwave is from 4-6 GHz to 21-
23 GHz.
– Bandwidth:
• supports the bandwidth from 1 to 10 Mbps.
– Short distance:
• inexpensive for short distance.
– Long distance:
• expensive as it requires a higher tower for a longer distance.
– Attenuation:
• affected by environmental conditions and antenna size.
• Advantages Of Microwave:
– cheaper than using cables.
– does not require any land for the installation of cables.
– provides an easy communication in terrains as the installation of cable in terrain is
quite a difficult task.
– enables to achieve communication over oceans
• Disadvantages of Microwave transmission:
– Eavesdropping:
• creates insecure communication.
• i.e. Any malicious user can catch the signal in the air by using its own antenna.
– Out of phase signal:
• signal can be moved out of phase
– Susceptible to weather condition
• susceptible to weather condition. i.e. any environmental change such as rain,
wind can distort the signal.
– Bandwidth limited: bandwidth is allocation limited
• Satellite Microwave Communication
– a physical object that revolves around the earth at a known
height.
– more reliable nowadays as it offers more flexibility than cable
and fiber optic systems.
– used to communicate with any point on the globe.
• How Does Satellite work?
• satellite
– accepts the signal that is transmitted from the earth station, and
– it amplifies the signal. i.e. the amplified signal is retransmitted to
another earth station.
• Advantages Of Satellite Microwave Communication:
– more coverage area than the terrestrial microwave.
– transmission cost is independent of the distance from the centre of the
coverage area.
– used in mobile and wireless communication applications.
– easy to install.
– used in a wide variety of applications such as weather forecasting, radio/TV
signal broadcasting, mobile communication, etc.
• Disadvantages Of Satellite Microwave Communication:
– designing and development requires more time and higher cost.
– needs to be monitored and controlled on regular periods so that it remains
in orbit.
– life of the satellite is about 12-15 years.
 Due to this reason, launch of another satellite has to be planned before it
becomes non-functional.
• Infrared

– a wireless technology used for communication over short

ranges.

– Its frequency range from 300 GHz to 400 THz.

– 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.
• Characteristics Of Infrared:
– supports high bandwidth, and hence the data transmit
rate will be very high.

– cannot penetrate the walls. Therefore, the infrared

communication in one room cannot be interrupted by the
nearby rooms.

– provides better security with minimum interference.

– unreliable outside the building because the sun rays will

interfere with the infrared waves.
 Quiz 3

1. Explain the difference between guided and unguided

communication media, and give one example of each.

2. what is unicasting/Broadcasting/Multicasting?

3. Discuss essentials components of Fiber optic cable

4. List some wireless technology do you know