Nepal Telecom Exam Preparation

(Level 7)

Dipak Kumar Nidhi

Data communication and computer
networking basics
 Communications Model
●Source - generates data to be transmitted
●Transmitter - Converts data into transmittable signals
●Transmission System - Carries data
●Receiver - Converts received signal into data
●Destination - Takes incoming data

Key Communications Tasks

Transmission system Addressing
Routing
Signal generation Recovery
Synchronization Message formatting
Exchange management Security
Error detection and correction Network
Flow control management

Interfacing Utilization
Simplified Communications Model
Simplified Data Communications
Model
 Circuit Switching
●Dedicated communications path established for the duration of the
conversation
●e.g. telephone network

Switching Networks
●Long distance transmission is typically done over a network of
switched nodes
●Nodes not concerned with content of data
●End devices are stations
○Computer, terminal, phone, etc.
●A collection of nodes and connections is a communications
network
●Data routed by being switched from node to node
 Circuit Switching
●Dedicated communication path between two stations
●Three phases
○Establish
○Transfer
○Disconnect (Teardown)
●Must have switching capacity and channel capacity to establish
connection
●Must have intelligence to work out routing
Circuit Switching – Applications
●Inefficient
-Channel capacity dedicated for duration of connection
-If no data, capacity wasted
●Set up (connection) takes time
●Once connected, transfer is transparent
●Developed for voice traffic (phone)
Circuit Switching
 Timing in Circuit Switching

Host 1 Host 2
C Switch 1 Switch 2
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between Host 1
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propagation delay
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Public Circuit Switched Network
Telecom Circuit Switch Elements

Components
●Subscriber
○Devices attached to network
●Local Loop
○Subscriber loop
○Connection to network
●Exchange
○Switching centers
○End office - supports
subscribers
●Trunks
○Branches between
exchanges
○Multiplexed
 Circuit Switching Concepts

●Digital Switch
○Provide transparent signal path between devices
●Network Interface
●Control Unit
○Establish connections
■ Generally on demand
■ Handle and acknowledge requests
■ Determine if destination is free
■ construct path
○Maintain connection
○Disconnect
 Advantages of Circuit Switching
●Guaranteed bandwidth
○Predictable communication performance
○Not “best-effort” delivery with no real guarantees
●Simple abstraction
○Reliable communication channel between hosts
○No worries about lost or out-of-order packets
●Simple forwarding
○Forwarding based on time slot or frequency
○No need to inspect a packet header
●Low per-packet overhead
○Forwarding based on time slot or frequency
○No IP (and TCP/UDP) header on each packet
Disadvantages of Circuit Switching
●Wasted bandwidth
○Bursty traffic leads to idle connection during silent period
○Unable to achieve gains from statistical multiplexing
●Blocked connections
○Connection refused when resources are not sufficient
○Unable to offer “okay” service to everybody
●Connection set-up delay
○No communication until the connection is set up
○Unable to avoid extra latency for small data transfers
●Network state
○Network nodes must store per-connection information
○Unable to avoid per-connection storage and state
 Blocking or Non-blocking

●Blocking
○A network is unable to connect stations because all paths are in
use
○A blocking network allows this
○Used on voice systems
■ Short duration calls
●Non-blocking
○Permits all stations to connect (in pairs) at once
○Used for some data connections
 Packet Switching
●Data sent out of sequence
●Small chunks (packets) of data at a time
●Packets passed from node to node between source and destination
●Used for terminal to computer and computer to computer
communications
Switching Technique
●Station breaks long message into packets
●Packets sent one at a time to the network
●Packets handled in two ways
○Datagram
○Virtual circuit
 Basic Operation
●Data transmitted in small packets
○Typically 1000 octets
○Longer messages split into series of packets
○Each packet contains a portion of user data plus some control
info
●Control info
○Routing (addressing) info
●Packets are received, stored briefly (buffered) and pass on to
the next node
○Store and forward
 Advantages

●Line efficiency
○Single node to node link can be shared by many packets over
time
○Packets queued and transmitted as fast as possible
●Data rate conversion
○Each station connects to the local node at its own speed
○Nodes buffer data if required to equalize rates
●Packets are accepted even when network is busy
○Delivery may slow down
●Priorities can be used
 Packet Switching ( Internet)
●Data traffic divided into packets
○Each packet contains a header (with address)
● Packets travel separately through network
○Packet forwarding based on the header
○Network nodes may store packets
temporarily
●Destination reconstructs the message
Packet Switching: Statistical
Multiplexing

Packet
 Packet Switching
Advantages:
○ Security
○ Bandwidth used to full potential
○ Devices of different speeds can communicate
○ Not affected by line failure (rediverts signal)
○ Availability – do not have to wait for a direct connection to become
available
○ During a crisis or disaster, when the public telephone network might
stop working, e-mails and texts can still be sent via packet switching

Disadvantages
○ Under heavy use there can be a delay
○ Data packets can get lost or become corrupted
○ Protocols are needed for a reliable transfer
○ Not so good for some types data streams e.g real-time video streams
can lose frames due to the way packets arrive out of sequence.
 IP Service: Best-Effort Packet
●Packet switching Delivery
○Divide messages into a sequence of packets
○Headers with source and destination address
●Best-effort delivery
○Packets may be lost
○Packets may be corrupted
○Packets may be delivered out of order

sourc destinatio
e n
IP network
 IP Service Model: Why Packets?
●Data traffic is bursty
○Logging in to remote machines
○Exchanging e-mail messages
●Don’t want to waste reserved bandwidth
○No traffic exchanged during idle periods
●Better to allow multiplexing
○Different transfers share access to same links
●Packets can be delivered by most anything
○RFC 2549: IP over Avian Carriers (aka birds)
●… still, packet switching can be inefficient
○Extra header bits on every packet
IP Service Model: Why Best-Effort?

●IP means never having to say you’re sorry…

○Don’t need to reserve bandwidth and memory
○Don’t need to do error detection & correction
○Don’t need to remember from one packet to next
●Easier to survive failures
○Transient disruptions are okay during failover

●… but, applications do want efficient, accurate transfer of data in

order, in a timely fashion
 IP Service: Best-Effort is Enough
●No error detection or correction
○Higher-level protocol can provide error checking
●Successive packets may not follow the same path
○Not a problem as long as packets reach the destination
●Packets can be delivered out-of-order
○Receiver can put packets back in order (if necessary)
●Packets may be lost or arbitrarily delayed
○Sender can send the packets again (if desired)
●No network congestion control (beyond “drop”)
○Sender can slow down in response to loss or delay
 Layering in the IP Protocols

HTTP Telnet FTP DNS RTP

Transmission Control User Datagram

Protocol (TCP) Protocol (UDP)

Internet Protocol

SONET Ethernet ATM

 IP Packet Structure
4-bit 4-bit 8-bit
Header Type of Service 16-bit Total Length (Bytes)
Version
Length (TOS)

16-bit 3-bit
Flags 13-bit Fragment Offset
Identification
8-bit Time to
16-bit Header
8-bit Protocol
Live (TTL) Checksum

32-bit Source IP Address

32-bit Destination IP Address

Options (if any)

Payload
 Store-and-Forward Networks

●Intermediate processors (IMPS, nodes, routers, gateways,

switches) along the path store the incoming block of data.
●Each block is received in its order, inspected for errors, and
retransmitted along the path to the destination. This implies
buffering at the router and one transmission time per hop.
 Message Switching

●A store-and-forward network where the block of transfer is a

complete message.
●Since messages can be quite large, this can cause:
○buffering problems
○high mean delay times
 Message Switching
●A store-and-forward network where the block of transfer is a
complete message.
●Since messages can be quite large, this can cause:
○buffering problems
○high mean delay times

○ Message switching is used primarily with data

○ – When the sender has a block of data to send, it is stored in the
first
○ switching office and forwarded one hop at a time (called a store-
and forward network)
Packet switching VS. Message switching

Why packet switching?

1. Long message has more chance to incur error than short

packet
2. Long message is not suitable for interactive application
because it causes very long waiting delay on other
messages. Moreover the delay for one message is
generally longer than the total delay of packets the
message is divided into.
 References
1. William Stallings
Data and Computer Communications3GPP
2. 4G Americas (3G Americas)
3. DoCoMo
4. Wikipedia
Thanks