Lecture 1

Introduction
Data Comminications:
Definition
 Exchange of data between two devices via
some form of transmission medium
 Data – information presented in whatever
form is agreed by the parties creating and
using the data
 Communicating devices – part of a
communication system, combination of
hardware and software
Data Communications:
Effectivenes
 Delivery - the system must deliver data to the
correct destination
 Accuracy - the system must deliver data
accurately
 Timelines - data delivered late are useless
Data Communications

 Components

 Data Representation

 Direction of Data Flow

Components
Five components of a data communication system
 Data Reprresentation:
Text

 ASCII - The American Standard Code for Information Interchange, standard

7-bit code proposed by ANSI in 1963, and finalized in 1968.

 ISO 646 - European 7-bit coded character set for information interchange
adopted in 1967 by ISO.

 Extended ASCII - 8-bit code with an additional 128 characters to represent

characters from foreign languages and special symbols for drawing pictures.

 ISO 2022, ISO 8859 – Set of 8-bit character codes which cover accented
Latin characters, Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew alphabets.
 Data Reprresentation:
Text

 ANSI - The Microsoft collective name for all Windows code pages.
Sometimes used specifically for code page 1252, which is a
superset of ISO 8859-1 (Latin 1)

 EBCDIC - Extended Binary-Coded Decimal Interchange Code; an

8-bit IBM code for representing characters as numbers first used in
1964; based on the earlier 6-bit BCDIC (BCD)

 Unicode – 16-bit multilingual character code project launched in the

1980s in the USA by the Unicode Consortium (www.unicode.org).

 UCS (ISO 10646) - Universal Coded Character Set (UCS) first

introduced in 1993; UCS-4 (32-bit), UCS-2 (16-bit).
Data Representation
Imaged, Audio, and Video

Images
 Represented by bit patterns
 An images is divided into a matrix of pixels, where each
pixel is a small dot
 The size of the pixel depends on the resolution
 Each pixel is assigned a bit pattern
 In practice additional mechanisms for compression of
image data, e.g. JPEG

Audio
 Audio is continuous, not discrete
 It can be changed to a digital or analog sugnal
Direction of Data Flow

Simplex mode – only one of the two devices on a link can transmit,
the other can only receive
Direction of Data Flow

Half-duplex mode – each station can both ransmit and receive,

but not at the same time
Direction of Data Flow

Full-duplex mode – both stations can transmit and receive simultaneously

Networks:
Definition

 A network is a set of devices (nodes)

connected by communications links.
 Distributed processing – a task is divided
among multiple computers in a network.
 Network Criteria
 Performance
 Reliability
 Security
Networks:
Physical structures

 Type of connection:
 Point-to-point
Networks:
Physical structures

 Type of connection:
 Multipoint
Networks: Physical Topology
Networks: Mesh Topology
 Eliminates traffic problems
 Robust
 Privacy (security)
 Easy fault identification and
isolation

 Amount of cabling
 Amount of I/O ports
 Installation and
reconnection difficult
Networks: Star Topology

 Less expensive than mesh  Requires more cabling than

 Each device needs one link bus or ring
and one I/O port  If the hub is not working the
 Easy to install and whole network is not
reconfigure working
 Robust as long as the hub
is working
Networks: Bus Topology

 Ease of installation; Less cabling than mesh or star

 Difficult reconnection and fault isolation
 Signal reflection at taps can cause degradation in quality
 As signal travels along the backbone, some of its energy is
transformed into heat
 Limit on the number of taps and distance between those taps
(taps either splice into the main cable or puncture the sheathing
of a cable)
 A fault or a break in the bus stops all transmission
Networks: Ring Topology

 Easy to install and reconfigure

 Fault isolation is simplified
 A break in the ring can disable the entire network
 Can be avoided by using a dual ring or a switch capable of
closing off the break
Categories of Networks
LAN

 Usually privately owned

 Links the devices in a single office, building, or campus
 Limited to a few kilometres
 Can be as simple as two PCs and a printer in somebody’s office
 Allow resources to be shared between PCs or workstations
 In general LANs use one type of transmission media
 Most common topologies: bus, ring, and star
LAN (more)
MAN
WAN
The Internet
 A Brief History

 Mid-1960s, Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) in the

US Department of Defense presents the idea at an ACM meeting
 Computers (not necessarily from the same manufacturer) connected
to IMP (interface message processor)
 IMPs connected to each other

 By 1969 ARPANET is reality – four nodes at the UCLA, UCSB,

Stanford Research Institute, University of Utah

 In 1973, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn (pat of the core ARPANET
group) publish the TCP (later split into TCP and IP) protocol
The Internet Today
Protocols and Standards
 Protocol
 Set of rules that govern data communication
 Defines what is communicated, how it is communicated, and
when it is communicated
 Syntax: format of the data
 Semantics: meaning of each section of bits (does an address
identify the route to be taken or the final destination of the
message)
 Timing: when data should be sent and how fast they can be sent

 Standards
 De facto
 De jure
 Defacto: Standards that have not been
approved by an organized body but have
been adopted as standards through
widespread use are defacto standards.
 Dejure: Those that have been legislated by
an officially recognized body are dejure
standards