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Q. What do you mean by transmission systemutilization and exchange management?
Ans: Transmission system utilization: Transmission system utilization refers to the need to make
efficient use of transmission facilities that are typically shared among a number of communicating
devices. Various techniques are used to allocate the total capacity of a transmission medium among a
number of users
Exchange management: There is a variety of requirements for communication between two parties
that might be collected under the term exchange management. If data are to be exchanged in both
directions over a period of time the two parties must cooperates.
a. Error detection and correction: Error detection and correction are required in
circumstances where errors cannot be tolerated. This is usually case with data
procession systems.
b. Flow control: Flow control is required to assure that the source does not overwhelm
the destination by sending data faster than they can be processed and absorbed.
Q. What are the typical tasks to perform for communication network/data communication?
Ans:
Q. What is the difference between entity and system?
Ans: Entity: In computer networks, communication occurs between entities in different systems. An
entity is anything capable of sending or receiving data information. However, two entities cannot simply
send bit streams to each other and expect to be understood. For communication to occur, the entities
must agree on a protocol.
System:
Q. Define protocol. What are the key elements of a protocol?
Ans: Protocol: A protocol is a set of rules that govern data communications. It represents an agreement
between the communicating devices. A protocol defines what is communicated, how it is
communicated and when it is communicated. Without a protocol, two devices may be connected but
not communicating, just as a person speaking French cannot be understood by a person who speaks
only Japanese.
The key elements of a protocol are as follows:
Syntax: The term syntax refers to the structure or format of the data, meaning the order in
which they are presented. For example, a simple protocol might expect the first 8 bits of data to
be the address of the sender; the second 8 bits to be the address of the receiver and the rest of
the stream to be the message itself.
Semantics: The word semantics refers to the meaning of each section of bits. How is a
particular pattern to be interpreted and what action is to be taken based on that
interpretation? For example, does an address identify the route to be taken or the final
destination of the message?
Timing: The term timing refers to two characteristics: when data should be sent and how fast
they can be sent. For example, if a sender produces data at 100Mbps but the receiver can
process data at only 1 Mbps, the transmission will overload the receiver and some data will be
lost.
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Q. Write down the advantage and disadvantage of standardization.
Ans: There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to the standards making process. The
principal advantages of the standards are as follows:
A standard assures that there will be a large market for a particular piece of equipment of
software. This encourages mass production and in some cases, the use of large scale integration
(LSI) or very large scale integration (VLSI) techniques, resulting in lower costs.
A standard allows products from multiple vendors to communicate, giving the purchaser more
flexibility in equipment selection and use.
The principal disadvantages are as follows:
A standard tends to freeze the technology. By the time a standard is developed, subjected to
review and compromise, and promulgated, more efficient techniques are possible.
There are multiple standards for the same thing. This is not a disadvantage of standards per se,
but of the current way things are done. Fortunately in recent years the various standards
making organizations have begun to cooperate more closely. Nevertheless, there are still areas
where multiple conflicting standards exist.
Q. Describe the key elements of the model with block diagram.
Ans: The fundamental purpose of a communications system is the exchange of data between two
parties. The key elements of the model are as follows:
Source: This device generates the data to be transmitted; examples are telephones and
personal computers.
Transmitter: Usually, the data generated by a source system are not transmitted directly in the
form in which they were generated. Rather, a transmitter transforms and encodes the
information in such a way as to produce electromagnetic signals that can be transmitted across
some sort of transmission system. For example, a modem taken a digital bit stream from an
attached device such as a personal computer and transforms that bit stream into an analog
signal that can be handled by the telephone network.





Transmission system: This can be a single transmission line or a complex network connecting
source and destination.
Receiver: The receiver accepts the signal from the transmission system and converts it into a
form that can be handled by the destination device. For example, a modem will accept an
analog signal coming from a network or transmission line and convert it into a digital bit stream.
Destination: Takes the incoming data from the receiver.
Q. What are the communication tasks? Or, explain the communication task.
Ans: Communication tasks have the following steps:
1. Transmission system utilization: Transmission system utilization refers to the need to make
efficient use of transmission facilities that are typically shared among a number of
Transmitter Source
Transmission
system
Receiver Destination
Fig: General block diagram
Source system Destination system
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communicating devices. Various techniques are used to allocate the total capacity of a
transmission medium among a number of users.
2. Interface: To communicate, a device must interface with the transmission system.
3. Signal generation: Once an interface is established signal generation is required for
communication. The properties of the signal such as form and intensity must be such that the
signal is
a. Capable of being propagated through the transmission system
b. Interpretable as data at the receiver.
4. Synchronization: There must be some form of synchronization between transmitter and
receiver. The receiver must be able to determine when a signal begins to arrive and when it
needs
5. Exchange management: There is a variety of requirements for communication between two
parties that might be collected under the term exchange management. If data are to be
exchanged in both directions over a period of time the two parties must cooperates.
a. Error detection and correction: Error detection and correction are required in
circumstances where errors cannot be tolerated. This is usually case with data
procession systems.
b. Flow control: Flow control is required to assure that the source does not overwhelm
the destination by sending data faster than they can be processed and absorbed.
6. Addressing& routing: When more than two devices share a transmission facility, a source
system must indicate the identity of the intended destination. The transmission system must
assure that the destination system and only that system receives the data. Further the
transmission system may itself be a network through which various paths may be taken. A
specific route through this network must be chosen.
7. Recovery: Recovery is a concept distinct from that of error correction. Recovery techniques are
needed in situations in which an information exchange such as a database transaction or file
transfer is interrupted due to fault somewhere in the system. The objective is either to be able
to resume activity at the point of interruption or at least to restore the state of the systems
involved to the condition prior to the beginning of the exchange.
8. Message formatting: Message formatting has to do with an agreement between two parties as
to the form of the data to be exchanged or transmitted, such as the binary code for characters.
9. Security: It is important to provide some measure of security in a data communication system.
The sender of data may wish to be assured that only the intended receiver actually receives the
data. And the receiver of data may wish to be assured that the received data have not been
altered in transit and that the data actually come from the purported sender.
10. Network management: A data communications facility is a complex system that cannot create
or run itself. Network management capabilities are needed to configure the system, monitor its
status, react to failures and overloads and plan intelligently for future growth.
Q. What do you mean by data communication? Explain the simplify data communication model.
Ans: Data Communication: Data Communications are the exchange of data between two devices via
some form of transmission medium such as a wire cable. For data communications to occur, the
communicating devices must be part of a communication system made up of a combination of
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hardware (physical equipment) and software (programs). The effectiveness of a data communications
system depends on four fundamental characteristics: delivery, accuracy, timeliness and jitter.
Data communication model: Suppose that the input device and transmitter are components of a
personal computer. The user of the PC wishes to send a message m to another user. The user activates
the electronic mail package on the PC and enters the message via the keyboard. The character string is
briefly buffered in main memory. We can view it as a sequence of bits (g) in memory. The personal
computer is connected to some transmission medium such as a local network or telephone line by an
I/O device, such as a local network transceiver or a modem. The input data are transferred to the
transmitter as a sequence of voltage shifts [g(t)] representing bits on some communications bus or
cable. The transmitter is connected directly to the medium and converts the incoming stream [g(t)] into
a signal [s(t)] suitable for transmission.











The transmitted signal s(t) presented to the medium is subject to a number of impairments, before it
reaches the receiver. Thus the receiver signal r(t) may differ from s(t). The receiver will attempt to
estimate the original s(t), based or r(t) and its knowledge of the medium producing a sequence of bits
g(t) . These bits are sent to the output personal computer where they are briefly buffered in memory as
a block of bits (g). In many cases, the destination system, will attempt to determine if an error has
occurred and if so cooperate with the source system to eventually obtain a complete error free block
of data. These data are then presented to the user via an output device, such as a printer or screen. The
message (m) as viewed by the user will usually be an exact copy of the original message (m).
Q. Explain data communication network. Or, write short notes on: (a) Circuit switching, (b) Packet
switching, (c) Frame relay, (d) ATM, (e) ISDN and Broadband ISDN.
Ans: The data communication network consists following types:
i. Circuit switching: In a circuit switching network, a dedicated communications path is
established between two stations through the nodes of the network. That path is a connected
sequence of physical links between nodes. On each link, a logical channel is dedicated to the
connection. Data generated by the source station are transmitted along the dedicated path as
rapidly as possible. At each node, incoming data are routed or switched to the appropriate
outgoing channel without delay. The most common example of circuit switching is the
telephone network.
ii. Packet switching: A quite different approach is used in a packet switching network. In this case,
it is not necessary to dedicate transmission capacity along a path through the network. Rather
data are sent out in a sequence of small chunks called packets. Each packet is passed through
Digital bit
stream
Analog
signal
Analog
signal
Digital bit
stream
Transmitter Source
Transmission
system
Receiver Destination

1
Input
information
m
2
Input data
g(t)

3
Transmitted
signal
s(t)
4
Received
signal
r(t)
5
Output data
g(t)

6
Output
information
m
Fig: Simplified Data Communication Model

Text Text
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the network form node to node along some path leading from source to destination. At each
node the entire packet is received, stored briefly and then transmitted to the next node. Packet
switching networks are commonly used for terminal to computer and computer to computer
communications.
iii. Frame relay: Frame relay was developed to take advantage of high data rates and low error
rates. Whereas the original packet switching networks were designed with a data rate to end
user of about 64 kbps, frame relay networks are designed to operate efficiently at user data
rates of up to 2 Mbps.
iv. ATM: Asynchronous transfer mode, sometimes referred to as cell relay is a culmination of
developments in circuit switching and packet switching. ATM can be viewed as an evaluation
from frame relay. The most obvious difference between frame relay and ATM is that frame
relay uses variable length packets, called frames and ATM uses fixed length packets, called cells.
ATM is designed to work in the range of 10s and 100s of Mbps and in the Gbps range. ATM can
also be viewed as an evolution from circuit switching. With circuit switching only fixed data rate
circuits are available to the end system. ATM extends circuit switching to allow multiple
channels with the data rate on each channel dynamically set on demand.
v. ISDN and broadband ISDN: ISDN means integrated service digital network. It is a narrow band
network. Its speed is 64 Kbit. Broadband ISDN supports 100 Mbit speed.
vi. WAN: Wide area networks generally cover a large geographical area, require the crossing of
public right of ways and relay at least in part of circuits provided by a common carrier. Typically,
a WAN consists of a number of interconnected switching nodes. A transmission from any one
device is routed through these internal nodes to the specified destination device. Traditionally,
WANs have been implemented using one of two technologies: circuit switching and packet
switching. More recently, frame relay and ATM networks have assumed major roles.
vii. LAN: A LAN is a communications network that interconnects a variety of devices and provides a
means for information exchange among those devices. There are several key distinctions
between LANs and WANs:
a. The scope of the LAN is small, typically a single building or a cluster of buildings.
b. It is usually the case that the LAN is owned by the same organization that owns the
attached devices.
c. The internal data rates of LANs are typically much greater than those of WANs.