Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 1-1 DATA COMMUNICATIONS
The term telecommunication means communication at a
distance. The word data refers to information presented
in whatever form is agreed upon by the parties creating
and using the data. Data communications are the
exchange of data between two devices via some form of
transmission medium such as a wire cable.

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 Data Communication System
Effectiveness
depends on four characteristics:
 Delivery
 Must deliver data to correct destination
 Data must be received by the intending device
 Accuracy
 Deliver data accurately
 If altered data or uncorrected data is delivered then its of
no use.

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 Data Communication System
 Timeliness
 Data deliver in timely manner.
 In case of video and voice data, delivering data as it is
produced.
 In the same order that they are produced.
 It is called real time transmission.

 Jitter
 Variation in packet arrival
 Un even delay in the delivery of audio and video packets
 Sent every 30ms, some received with 30ms and some
with 40ms.

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 Five components of data communication

Message: info to be communicated

(data).
Text, numbers, sound or video.
Or any combination of it

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 Five components of data communication
 Sender
 Device that sends the data.
 Computer, workstation, telephone handset,
video camera etc.
 Receiver
 Device that receives the message
 Medium
 Physical path by which message travels from
sender to receiver

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 Five components of data communication

 Protocol
 Set of rules that govern data communication.
 Represents an agreement between
communicating devices.
 Without protocol 2 devices may be connected
but not be communicating.
 E.g. a person speaking french cannot be
understood by a person who speaks only
japanese.

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 1-2 NETWORKS

A network is a set of devices (often referred to as nodes)

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.

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 Distributed Processing
 Task is divided among multiple computers.
 Instead of one single large machine being
responsible for all aspects of a process,
separate computers handle a subset.
 Advantages:
 Security/encapsulation
 A system designer can limit the kinds of
interactions that a given user can have with
the entire system.
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 Cont…
 E.g. bank allows user to access its own
account through ATM.
 Distributed database
 No one system needs to provide storage
capacity for the entire database.
 E.g. World wide web (www) gives users
access to information that may be actually
stored and manipulated anywhere on the
internet.

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 Cont…
 Faster Problem Solving
 Multiple computers working on parts of a
problem concurrently can solve the problem
faster than a single machine working alone.
 Security through redundancy
 Multiple computers running the same program
at the same time.
 E.g. in the space shuttle, 3 computers run the
same program so that if one has a hardware
error the other 2 can override it.
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 Cont…
 Collaborative Processing
 Both multiple users and multiple computers
act on a task.
 E.g. multi user games

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 Network Criteria
 A network must be able meet a certain
number of criteria. The most important of
these are:
 Performance
 Reliability
 Security

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 Network Criteria (Cont…)
 Performance
 Can be measured in many ways.
 Transit time
 Amount of time required for a message to travel from
one device to another.
 Response time
 Elapsed time between an inquiry and a response.
 Factors
 Number of users
 Type of transmission medium
 Hardware
 Software
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 Network Criteria (Cont…)
 Number of users:
 Large number of concurrent users can slow
response time in a network not designed to
coordinate heavy traffic load.
 Type of transmission medium
 It defines the speed at which data can travel
(data rate)
 E.g. fiber optic cabling.
 Hardware
 A higher speed computer with greater storage
capacity provides better performance.
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 Network Criteria (Cont…)
 Software
 Software used at sender, receiver and
intermediate nodes also affects the
network performance.

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 Network Criteria (Cont…)
 Reliability
 Network reliability is measured by:
 Frequency of failure
 A network that fails often is of little value to the
user.
 Recovery time of a network after failure
 How long it take to restore the service?
 The one that recovers quickly is more useful

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 Network Criteria (Cont…)
 Security
 It includes:
 Unathorized Access
 User id codes and passwords
 encryption
 Viruses
 A virus is an illegitimate code that damages the
system.
 A good network is protected from viruses.

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