CHAPTER 9 -

LOCAL AREA
NETWORK

INTRODUCTION TO DATA COMMUNICATION AND NETWORKING

9-1 INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

•Local Area Network (LAN) - computer

network in a limited geographic
area ; a building, a campus, an
organization to be compared with (WAN
and MAN).
•There are two types of LAN:
•Wired LAN
•Wireless LAN
9-2 WIRED LAN

• Wired LAN has seen several technologies -

Ethernet, Token Ring, Token Bus, FDDI (Fiber
connection).
• The most dominant today is Ethernet.
Ethernet is LAN that using CSMA/CD access
method.
• What is Ethernet, Ethernet is the technology
for connecting devices (combination of
multiple devices) in a wired local area
network (LAN).
ETHERNET EVOLUTION
The original Ethernet was created in 1976.
The main different of this 4 technology is their speed.

Figure 9.1 Ethernet evolution through four generations

11.5
9-2-1 STANDARD ETHERNET (10mbps)

• The Data Link Layer (6th layer in OSI) is divided into

two sublayers:
• Logical Link Control (LLC) sublayer – flow
control, error control, and part of the framing
duties. Originally designed to be the same for all
LANs for interoperability. This mean that LAN differ
only in their MAC sublayer and in their physical
sublayer.
• Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer –
manage the operation of access method and
framing.
 MAC SUBLAYER
• The MAC sublayer governs the operation of the access
method. It also frames data received from the upper layer
and passes them to PLS sublayer for encoding.
• Access Method: CSMA/CD (Standard method used)
• Frame Format: consists of seven fields.

Figure 9.2 MAC

SFD =frame
Start Frame Delimiter
(Defined the type of protocol used.)

CRC = Cyclic Redundancy Check

(Error detection)

11.7
Frame Length
• The minimum frame length for Ethernet is 64 bytes (512
bits) and the maximum frame length is 1518 bytes (12 144
bits).

(the size is excluding the header)

Figure 9.3 Minimum and maximum lengths
Addressing
• Each station on an Ethernet network (such as PC or printer)
has its own network interface card (NIC).
• The NIC fits inside the station and provides the station with
a 6-byte physical address.
• The Ethernet address is 6 bytes (48 bits), normally written
in hexadecimal notation, with a colon between the bytes.

Figure 9.4 Example of an Ethernet address in hexadecimal notation

Unicast, Multicast and Broadcast Addresses
• A source address is always a unicast(one) address, means the
frame comes from only one station.
• The destination address can be unicast, multicast or broadcast.
• The least significant bit of the first byte defines the type of
address.
• Unicast destination address defines only one recipient. The
relationship between the sender and receiver in one-to-one.
• Multicast destination address defines a group of addresses. The
relationship between the sender and the receiver is one to many.
• Broadcast address is a special case of multicast address. (a group
of a group address). The recipients are all the stations in the
network.

Figure 9.5 Unicast and multicast addresses

Unicast, Multicast and Broadcast Addresses

• If the right most is “0” then it is Unicast.

• If the right most is “1” then it is Multicast.
• If the right most is “F” then it is Broadcast.

Figure 9.5 Unicast and multicast addresses

• Example 11.1
Define the type of the following destination addresses:
a. 48:30:10:21:10:1A b. 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
c. FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF

Solution
To find the type of the address, we need to look at the second hexadecimal
digit from the left.
a. This is a unicast address because 8 in binary is 1000.
b. This is a multicast address because 7 in binary is 0111.
c. This is a broadcast address because all digits are F’s
 PHYSICAL LAYER

 Physical layer consist of Physical Layer

Signaling(PLS)sublayer, attachment unit
interface (AUI), medium attachment unit (MAU)
and medium dependent interface (MDI)
 PLS – encodes and decodes data.
 AUD – defines the interface between PLS &
MAU.
 MAU – transmitter & receiver.
 MDI – Hardware for connecting a transceiver to
the medium
11.13
PHYSICAL LAYER

T = Twisted pair

F = Fiber

(10mbps) (10mbps)

(Shorter coverage)

Figure 9.7 Categories of Standard Ethernet

10Base5: Thick Ethernet
• Uses bus topology with an external transceiver
connected via a tap to a thick coaxial cable.
• Transceiver is responsible for transmitting,
receiving, detecting collisions.

Figure 9.8 10Base5 implementation

10Base2: Thin Ethernet
• 10Base2 or Thin Ethernet or Cheapernet.
• Uses bus topology, but the cable is much
thinner and more flexible
• The disadvantage is it cover shorter range (max
185 m)

Speed for 10Base2

and 10Base5 is still
the same that is 10 Mbps

Figure 9.9 10Base2 implementation

10Base-T: Twisted-Pair Ethernet
• Uses physical star topology.
• The stations are connected to a hub via two pairs of
twisted cable (create two paths for sending and
receiving)

Controller

Figure 9.10 10Base-T implementation

10Base-F: Fiber Ethernet

• The most common of optical fiber 10-Mbps Ethernet.

• Uses star topology to connect stations to a hub.
• The stations are connected to the hub using two fiber
optic cables.

Figure 9.11 10Base-F implementation

Summary

Characteristics 10Base5 10Base2 10Base-T 10Base-F

Media Thick coaxial Thin coaxial 2 UTP 2 Fiber
cable cable
Maximum length 500m 185m 100m 2000m
Line encoding Manchester Manchester Manchester Manchester

Topology BUS BUS STAR STAR

Table 9.1 Summary of Standard Ethernet implementations

9-2-2 CHANGES IN THE STANDARD

The 10-Mbps Standard Ethernet has

gone through several changes before
moving to the higher data rates. These
changes actually opened the road to the
evolution of the Ethernet to become
compatible with other high-data-rate
LANs.
 BRIDGED ETHERNET
• In unbridged Ethernet network, the stations share the
bandwidth of the network
• Bridge divides the network into two or more networks,
and we can gain more bandwidth for each segment

Figure 9.12 Unbridge and Bridge Ethernet

BRIDGED ETHERNET
In bridge, collision domain becomes much smaller. For example,
without bridging, 12 stations contend for access to the medium,
with bridging only 3 stations contend for access the medium
12

3 3

3 3

Figure 9.13 Collision domains in an unbridged network and a bridged network

 SWITCHED ETHERNET
• The bandwidth is shared only between the station and the switch
• The collision domain is divided into N domains. Switch is better in
collision handling compared to bridged ethernet. That why today most of
the network is using the switch widely.
• Has additional sophistication that allows faster handling of the packets

Figure 9.14 Switched Ethernet

 FULL-DUPLEX ETHERNET
• Station can either send or receive data at the same time simultaneously
• The full-duplex mode increases the capacity of each domain from10 to
20 Mbps

Full duplex = 2 direction

Figure 9.15 Full-duplex switched Ethernet

11.25
9-2-3 FAST ETHERNET
Designed to compete with other LAN protocols. IEEE
created Fast Ethernet under the name 802.3u
Goals of Fast Ethernet:
• Upgrade the data rate from 10 Mbps to 100Mbps
• Make it compatible with Standard Ethernet
• Keep the same 48-bit MAC address
• Keep the same frame format (7 fields)
• Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths
MAC SUBLAYER
• The access method is the same (half duplex with
CSMA/CD).
• A new feature added is called autonegotiation that
allows two devices to negotiate the mode or data rate of
operation. (both device can communicate how many
data rate that they want to use in the transmission)
 Physical layer

 Made up of 4 sublayer: RS sublayer, MII, PHY

sublayer and MDI.
 RS (Reconciliation sublayer) – replaces the PLS
sublayer in 10 Mbps.
 MII – Replaces the AUI in 10 Mbps.
 PHY – the transceiver in fast ethernet that is
responsible for encoding and decoding.
 MDI (Medium dependent Interface) – hardware
that is responsible for connecting the transceiver
to the medium.
11.28
 PHYSICAL LAYER
• It uses star topology.
• Can be categorized as either two-wire or four-wire.
• Two-wire implementation can be either cat 5 UTP or
fiber-optic cable.
• Four-wire implementation is designed only for cat 4 UTP.
T = Twisted pair
F = Fiber

Figure 9.16 Fast Ethernet implementations

Summary

Characteristics 100Base-TX 100Base-FX 100Base-T4

Media Cat 5 UTP or STP Fiber Cat 4 UTP
Number of wires 2 2 4
Maximum length 100m 185m 100m

Encoding 4B/5B 4B/5B 8B/6T

Table 9.2 Summary of Fast Ethernet implementations

11.31
9-2-4 GIGABIT ETHERNET

The need for an even higher data rate resulted in the design
of the Gigabit Ethernet protocol (1000 Mbps or 1Gb)
The IEEE committee calls the standard 802.3z
Goals of Gigabit Ethernet:
•Upgrade the data rate to 1Gbps
•Make it compatible with Standard or Fast Ethernet
•Use the same 48-bit MAC address
•Use the same frame format
•Keep the same minimum and maximum frame length
MAC SUBLAYER
• Gigabit Ethernet has two distinctive approaches
medium access:
• half-duplex using CSMA/CD or
• full-duplex without CSMA/CD To improve
efficiency, frame bursting was proposed – instead
of adding an extension to each frame, multiple
frames are sent. No collision.
 Physical Layer
 The physical layer is made up of four sublayer: RS,
GMII, PHY and MDI
 RS (Reconciliation Sublayer) – it sends 8 bit parallel data
to PHY sublayer via a GMII interface.
 GMII (Gigabit medium independent Interface) –
specification that defines how the reconciliation sublayer
is to be connected to the PHY sublayer.
 PHY sublayer – the transceiver that medium dependent.
 MDI (Medium dependent interface) – connects the
transceiver to the medium and only RJ-45 and fiber optic
connectors are defined.

11.34
 PHYSICAL LAYER
• It uses star topology
• Can be categorized as either two-wire or four-wire implementation
• Four-wire version uses cat 5 twisted-pair cable (1000Base-T)

Figure 9.17 Gigabit Ethernet implementations

Summary

Characteristics 1000Base-SX 1000Base-LX 1000Base- 1000Base-T4

CX
Media Fiber short- Fiber long- STP Cat 5 UTP
wave wave
Number of 2 2 2 4
wires
Maximum 550m 5000m 25m 100m
length
Encoding 8B/10B 8B/10B 8B/10B 4D-PAM5

Table 9.3 Summary of Gigabit Ethernet implementations

11.37
9-2-5 TEN-GIGABIT ETHERNET

• The IEEE committee created Ten-Gigabit Ethernet and called 802.3ae

• Goals of Ten-Gigabit Ethernet:
• Upgrade the data rate to 10Gbps
• Make it compatible with Standard, Fast, and Gigabit Ethernet
• Use the same 48-bit address
• Use the same frame format
• Keep the same minimum and maximum frame length
• Allow the interconnection of existing LANs into MAN or a WAN.
• Make ethernet compatible with techngology such as frame relay and ATM.
• Operates only in full duplex mode which means there no need for contention:
CSMA/CD is not used in Ten-Gigabit Ethernet.
• The physical layer in Ten-Gigabit Ethernet is designed for using fiber-optic
cable over long distance.
11.39