NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE

EXAMINATION FOR
(Semester II: 2019/2020)

EE4204 - COMPUTER NETWORKS

April/May 2020 - Time Allowed: 2 Hours

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES:

1. This
paperpaper contains 4 questions andand
comprises 12 pages.
1.1.This
Thispaper contains
contains 44 questions
(four) questions comprises
and comprises 14 (fourteen) pages.
12 pages.
2. Each question carries 25 marks.
2.2.Each
Each questioncarries
3. question
Programmable carries 25 marks.
25 (twenty-five)
calculators are NOTmarks.
allowed.
4. The Final Exam is open book. You MAY use any of the materials handed out in class
3.3.Write
Writeyour
your
and matriculation
matriculation
refer number
number
to any textbook. Youbelow
MAYand
below and answer
to yourall
answer
refer all questions
questions
notes in the
in the spaces
spaces
on the computer provided.
provided.
or tablet.
5. You MAY consult Internet sources as a reference for technical concepts only. You are
4.4.You
Youare
areallowed
allowed totobring
bring one
onehandwritten
handwritten A4
A4 size help-sheet.
sizeelse
help-sheet. No other
othermaterial
material isallowed.
allowed.
NOT allowed to communicate with anyone about theNoExam via forum,isemail,
bulletin board, or any other electronic communication method.
5. Programmable calculators are not allowed.
5. Programmable
6. You shouldcalculators
NOT consult are with
not allowed.
any other person about the Exam or during the Exam.
You may NOT cut-and-paste from the Internet or any other sources. All answers must
be yours and in your own words.
7. Please abide by the Code of Student Conduct (http://nus.edu.sg/osa/resources/code-of-
student-conduct).
8. Write your answers on fresh sheets of A4-size paper. Please start each question (Q1,
Q2, Q3, and Q4) on a new page. Clearly indicate the part, e.g. Q1(a) on the left margin.
9. Write your matriculation number on every page.
10. Scan in each page and compile into one PDF file in the given order: cover page, signed
declaration form, and your answers.
11. Name your file: <matric number>-<module code>.pdf (e.g.: A1234567R-EE4204.pdf).
12. Upload the combined PDF file to the LumiNUS folder labeled “EE4204 Final Exam
Submission Group_X”, where X is your Final Exam Group Number.
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 2 of 12

Q.1(a)

(i) Calculate the total time required to transfer a 1000000-Byte file over a 10-Mbps link
with an RTT of 1 ms assuming error-free communication. The file is transferred as
batches of eight 1000-Byte packets. Every batch is acknowledged upon receiving the
last packet in the batch. Upon receiving the acknowledgement of the current batch, the
next batch is sent. The transfer is said to be complete when the acknowledgement for
the last batch is received.

(ii) Briefly explain how the above batch transfer compares with packet-by-packet transfer
when the packet size is 8000 Bytes for the cases of error-prone and error-free
communication. (10 marks)
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 3 of 12

Q.1(b) A receiver receives a frame with data bit stream 1000100110. Determine if the receiver
can detect an error using the generator polynomial C(x)=x2+x+1. (5 marks)

Q.1(c) Suppose that 12 hosts are connected to a store-and-forward packet switch through 1-Mbps
links that use statistical time division multiplexing. Each host transmits 20 percent of the
time but requires 1 Mbps when transmitting. All the hosts contend for an output link of
capacity 10 Mbps. Is there any possibility of the excess traffic getting queued up at the
switch? If yes, find the probability of occurrence of such an event. If no, explain why it
cannot happen. (5 marks)
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 4 of 12

Q.1(d) If a 10-Mbps link with the propagation delay of 10 ms can hold 10 frames, how many
frames can be held on a 100-Mbps link with the propagation delay of 100 ms?
(5 marks)

Q.2(a) Consider a sliding window-based flow control protocol that uses a 3-bit sequence number
and a window of size 7. At a given instant of time, at the sender, the current window size
is 5 and the window contains frame sequence numbers {1,2,3,4,5}. What are the possible
RR frames that the sender can receive? For each of the RR frames, show how the sender
updates its window. (5 marks)
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 5 of 12

Q.2(b) Node A detects an idle link in an 802.11 network that uses MACA and sends an RTS
frame to node B. But node A does not receive a CTS frame in response to its RTS frame.
Explain what could be the possible reasons for this. (5 marks)

Q.2(c) Suppose that node A sends frames to node B using the sliding window-based Go Back N
ARQ protocol. Assume that the size of the window is 7 and the sequence number of
frames is in the range of 0 to 7. Node A sends frames labeled 0 through 5, i.e., F0 through
F5. Node B receives all these frames and sends an acknowledgement frame RR6. Suppose
that node A sends frame F6 before RR6 is received. Also suppose that frames RR6 and F6
are lost. Explain how node A and node B will behave and what actions will be taken by
them. (5 marks)
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 6 of 12

Q.2(d) A learning-bridge, which was initially empty, receives four frames, F1 through F4, whose
source nodes are A, B, C, and D, respectively. The destination nodes for these frames
are all distinct, but among nodes A, B, C, and D. Out of these four frames, only two
frames are forwarded by the bridge. Explain the reason by choosing a possible set of
destination nodes and ports for the above four frames. (5 marks)

Q.2(e) Two hosts A and B attempt to transmit on an Ethernet. Each host has a steady queue of
frames ready to send. At an instant of time, the two hosts attempt to send their frames
simultaneously and collision occurs. We say that the hosts enter into a backoff race. It is
given that the probability of none wins the race is 1/16. If this is the first collision for A,
what is the collision number of B in this race? Explain. (5 marks)
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 7 of 12

Q.3(a) A LAN is assigned an IP address block that has a starting IP address of 114.44.23.128 and
an ending address of 114.44.23.255. (10 marks)

(i) How many IPv4 addresses does this block represent?

(ii) What is the CIDR representation of the subnet with this address block?

(iii) How many bits are there in the subnet and host parts of this network?

(iv) What are the subnet mask and broadcast address (in dotted decimal notation)?

(v) Can you divide this subnet into 3 subnets, each with at least 35 hosts?
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 8 of 12

Q.3(b) Consider the network shown below in which Router R is a NAT router and Host A is a
host inside the local network. (5 marks)

(i) In the table below, specify IP addresses for the router and Host A in the local network.
Also assign MAC addresses to these interfaces.

Please reproduce the following table in your written answers.

Node IP Address MAC Address
NAT Router

Host A

(ii) Now assume that Host A sends an HTTP request to http://www.nus.edu.sg (IP addr:
137.132.5.148) and the local port for the TCP connection for this HTTP request is 7000.
Fill out the NAT table below with the information that would be entered in that table after
the HTTP request has been forwarded from the NAT router into the WAN.

Please reproduce the following table in your written answers.

WAN side address, Port LAN side address, Port
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 9 of 12

Q.3(c) Consider the directed network shown in Fig. 3.1.

Suppose w = 1. (i) Using Dijkstra’s algorithm, 1
2 A
find the shortest path spanning tree (Tree 1) from
S to all other nodes. In the table below, put an ‘X’ 2
S C D
when an edge is in Tree 1. (ii) State the order in A
which edges are added in Dijkstra’s algorithm, 4
B w
e.g., put a 1, 2 in the row for the edge. (iii) Find Fig. 3.1
all values of ‘w’ for which Dijkstra’s algorithm
finds the correct shortest path spanning tree.
(5 marks)

Please reproduce the following table in your written answers.

Edge (i) Tree 1 (ii) Order of edges (iii)

S-A

S-B

A-C

B-C

C-D

Q.3(d) Consider the undirected network shown in Fig. 3.2. 2 A 1

Suppose we are routing with the distance vector 2
algorithm. Explain if removing the following edges S C D
will result in the count-to-infinity problem and A
explain your answer. 4
B w
Fig. 3.2

Please reproduce the following table in your written answers. (5 marks)

(i) Removing Edge S-A (ii) Removing Edge C-D
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 10 of 12

Q.4(a) TCP uses two different signals to infer congestion: Timeout at the Sender and Reception
of triple duplicate acknowledgements at the Sender. Both events will trigger a
retransmission of a certain packet. (5 marks)

(i) In each case, which packet is retransmitted?

(ii) Give one reason why TCP uses duplicate acknowledgements to trigger
retransmissions instead of simply waiting for timeout.

(iii) Is it advisable to remove the timeout mechanism and use triple duplicate
acknowledgements as the only way to trigger retransmissions? Explain briefly.

Q.4(b) You are designing a wireless multihop network that can tolerate 5% packet loss, meaning
that 95% of the packets must be delivered to the destination. (5 marks)

(i) Would you recommend using TCP or UDP at the transport layer and why?

(ii) Design an efficient protocol that meets the stated requirements using the least amount
of resources.
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 11 of 12

Q.4(c) Suppose there are two different Zoom calls, flow X and flow Y, using TCP. Suppose that
the RTT for flow X is 100ms and the RTT for flow Y is 200ms. Assume that each flow
has an MSS value of 1460 bytes and a slow-start threshold value of 8. Assume each flow
has been running for a long time over links with similar properties. (10 marks)

(i) Which flow do you expect to have a higher throughput? Explain briefly.

(ii) At some time in the future, say time t = 100 seconds, both flows experience a timeout,
and set their congestion window size to 1. Calculate the average throughput (in bytes per
second) over the next 1 second (counting the starting and ending points) for each flow.
Assume that the packet transmission time is negligible, and that there are no packet drops
for either flow in the next few seconds.
Matriculation Number: _________________________EE4204 Computer Networks / Page 12 of 12

Q.4(d) The figure below shows the evolution in time of the TCP congestion control window as a
function of round-trip time. Identify the 5 points (A, B, C, D, and E) indicated in the
figure using the terms in the set shown below. Note that not all terms will be used, and a
term may be used more than once. Please give your answer in the table shown below.
(5 marks)

Slow-start threshold Flow control window

Timeout Fast retransmit
Three-way handshake Additive Increase
Multiplicative decrease Slow start
Exponential backoff Sliding window

Please reproduce the following table in your written answers.

A
B
C
D
E

END OF PAPER