Unit 2: The Physical layer

Computers and other telecommunication devices use signals to represent the data. These
Signals are transmitted from one point to another in the form of electromagnetic energy.
Electromagnetic signals can travel through air, vacuum and other transmission media. There are
two important categories of transmission media.

1) Guided (Wired) Transmission Medium: In this medium, electromagnetic waves are

transmitted along a solid medium. Mainly used for transmission of signals.
Eg: Twisted pair, Co-axial cables, optical fibre.
2) Unguided (Wireless) Transmission Medium: The Unguided medium makes use of
atmosphere and other space for transmission of signals. Used for long distance
transmission and mobile communication systems.
3) Eg: Radio waves, Infrared waves, microwaves.

a) Twisted Pair:

a) Category 3 UTP b) Category 5 UTP

 A twisted pair consists of two insulated copper wires, typically about 1 mm thick.
 The wires are twisted together in a helical form, just like a DNA molecule.
 Twisting is done to reduce electrical interference. This provides better immunity to
external noise.

Types of Twisted Pair:

 Unshielded twisted pair (UTP) consists of twisted pair of copper wires with a plastic
casing.
 Shielded twisted pair (STP) consists of metal foil that encases each pair of copper wire
apart from plastic casing.

• Characteristics of Twisted Pair

• Low cost
• Easy to install and maintain.
• Data rate of 1 to 500 Mbps.
• Support both analog and digital transmission.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
 • Used is telephone network.
• Cat 3 UTP and Cat 5 UTP are used in computer networks.
• Though the twisted pair provides good speed, the drawback is signal attenuate fast
(signal becomes week) hence repeaters are required to strengthen the signals.

b) Co –axial Cable

 A coaxial cable consists of a stiff copper wire as the core, surrounded by an insulating
material.
 The insulator is encased by a cylindrical conductor, often as a closely woven braided
mesh.
 The outer conductor is covered in a protective plastic sheath.
 The construction and shielding of the coaxial cable give it a good combination of high
bandwidth and excellent noise immunity.

Characteristics of Co-axial Cable

 Less expensive than optical fiber.

 Installation and maintenance is simple.
 Data rate is 10 Mbps.
 Used in telephone system for long distance transmission.
 Widely used in TV networks and MAN.
 Drawback is that they suffer from signal attenuation since copper is used as its core.

c) Optical Fiber

a) Side view of single fiber b) End view of sheath with three fibers.

 Optical fiber transmits light signals rather than electrical signals.

 At the center of each fiber is glass core through which light propgates.
 The core is surrounded by glass cladding with lower index of refraction to keep all
the light inside the core.
 Above that is a thin plastic jacket which protects the cladding. Many such fibers are
bundled together in optical cable.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
There are two types of optical fibers:

Single Mode optical fiber:

 These fibers have a very narrow core diameter through which light ray passes. Hence in a
single mode fiber only one ray of light passes along the axis of the fiber.

Single light path propagates in fiber

Multimode optical fiber:

It has a little larger core diameter which supports mere than one propagating modes. Hence in a
multimode fiber there can be multiple light paths traversing through the fiber.

• Characteristics of Optical Fibers

• Most expensive guided medium
• Difficult to install and maintain because fiber connection must be done carefully in order
to avoid light obstruction.
• High Data rate and high bandwidth.
• Gigabit transmission
• Low attenuation, not affected by power surges.
• Support both analog and digital transmission.
 Used in High speed LANs , WAN.

Wireless transmission system:

As the technology is advancing, the use of devices such as laptops, mobile, wristwatch
computer is increasing. Hence a wireless communication system is commonly used to provide
connectivity medium.
When electrons move, they create electromagnetic waves that can propagate through
space. These waves were predicted by British physicist James Maxwell in 1865.

1. Radio waves:

 Radio transmission is done with help of radio waves. They are easy to generate can travel
long distance and can penetrate through building easily. So, they are widely used for
telecommunication system.
 An important characteristic of radio waves is that they are omnidirectional that is they
can travel in all direction from source. So the transmitter and receiver need not be
carefully aligned.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
  Radio waves are very commonly used in transmission of short messages in paging
system, in codeless phones and cellular phones for transmission of analog and digital
voice signals.
 They are also used in wireless LANs to transmit data at a very high speed.
 Radio waves are absorbed by rain and affected by interference from electrical
equipment’s. Since they have high attenuation, repeaters are required to strengthen the
signal.

2. Micro waves:
 The electromagnetic waves in the range 108 to 1012 are known as microwaves.
 These waves travel in straight line and therefore they can be narrowly focused.
 Microwaves transmission requires the transmitter and receiver to be aligned with each
other. They do not pass through buildings, walls. However, they are widely used for
long distance transmission.
 Hence, they find their application in television communication systems, satellite
transmission systems and for long distance telecommunication systems.

3.Infrared Waves:
 These are used to transmit signals over short distance.
 LEDs transmit the signals and photodiodes receives them.
 These signals cannot penetrate through walls or other obstacles.
 They are also diluted by strong light sources hence infrared light is rarely used for
computer networks. But remote controls of TV or VCR use infrared medium.
 It is an expensive medium because only pure infrared light can be used for transmission.
 It provides a standard data rate of 100 kbps.

Multiplexing:
Multiplexing refers to a set of techniques that allow simultaneous transmission of signals over
a single data link.

Consider 3 user devices that communicate with 3 other users on separate set of wires.

This method is inefficient because it requires completely dedicated transmission lines. Also, as
the number of users increase, the cost of implementing such a system becomes high. Hence a
better approach is to use multiplexing. In a multiplexed system, N devices share a capacity of a
link.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
The above figure shows 3 devices on the left that direct their transmission stream to multiplexer
which combines them into a single stream. At the receiving end it is fed to a demultiplexer which
separates them back into component transmission signals and directs them to specific devices.

There are three types of multiplexing techniques:

A. Frequency division multiplexing (FDM)
B. Time division multiplexing (TDM)
C. Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM)

A. Frequency division multiplexing (FDM)

It is analog technique where bandwidth of single data link is divided into frequency slots and
each slots can accommodate the signal of an individual connection. The multiplexer assigns a
slot to each connection and uses modulation to accommodate the signal into appropriate slot. The
Process results in an overall combined signal that is transmitted over a channel.

(a) The original bandwidths.

(b) The bandwidths raised in

frequency.

(b) The multiplexed channel.

The demultiplexer uses series of filters to decompose the multiplexed signals into constituent
signals. Individual signals are then passed through demodulators and then sent to respective
devices.

B.Time division multiplexing

It is a digital technique that can be applied when the data rate capacity of the transmission line is
greater than the combined data rate capacity of the sending devices. In time division
multiplexing each device is allocated a time slot. Time slots are grouped into frames. Each
device can send a stream in the form of bits during a given slot.
Time division multiplexing can be implemented in two ways:
a. Synchronous time division multiplexing.
b. Asynchronous time division multiplexing.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
 A. Synchronous time division multiplexing

The word synchronous means that the multiplexer allocates the same time slots to each device
whether or not the device has anything to send. Each time the allocated time slot comes up the
device has an opportunity to send the data. It is unable to transmit then that time slots goes
empty.

DMUX

MUX

The figure above shows frame with 3 time slots assigned to devices A B and C. Hence it is an
example of synchronous TDM. Here the fame always contains exactly same number of slots as
many are communication devices.

b) Asynchronous time division multiplexing

It is designed to overcome the problem of wastage of time slots. Here the term synchronous
means that it is flexible and not fixed. In an asynchronous system if any device has no data to be
sent then it is not allocated any time slot. Hence time slots will not be empty and idle. Hence in
synchronous system if there are n input lines then fame may contain m slots where m<=n

For example, in the above diagram there are three input lines but frames contain only two slots.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
 A. Wavelength division multiplexing
This technique is a variation of FDM. It is used for optical channels. In this
technique multiple information signals are combined into single optical fiber and are
transmitted over an optical channel. At the receiving end a device splits the combined
colours back into individual colours again.

Switching:

An important function in any network is to transfer data

between source and destination. If devices are present far apart,
then it is necessary to include intermediate devices known as
switches. The importance of switch can be understood with the
help of following diagram.

Consider and network with 5 communicating devices as shown in the

figure. The pairwise interconnection of users would require a number
of transmission lines. However by introducing a switch the network
design can be simplified.

A switch is a device that takes data over incoming line and forwards it over appropriate outgoing
line. This is known as switching.

There are 3 types of switching

1) Circuit switching
2) Message switching
3) Packet switching.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
 1) Circuit switching
Conceptually, when you or your computer places a telephone call, the switching
equipment within the telephone system seeks out a physical path all the way
from your telephone to the receiver’s telephone. This technique is called circuit
switching.
 It is a transmission model that involves setting up a dedicated end to end
connection before any data can be sent.
 Commonly used in telephone system.
 It is connection oriented technique.
 No delay in data flow.
 Link of connection can’t be used to send any other data even when free.
 More bandwidth is required.
 Connection establishment time is more.

2) Message switching
 An alternative switching strategy is message switching.
 No physical path is established in advance between sender and receiver.
 Mainly switches are responsible for transferring the entire message from one node
to the next.
 Every intermediary node inside the network needs to store every message prior to
retransferring the messages one-by-one as adequate resources become available
 Every message should include a header, which typically consists of routing
information, such as the source and destination, expiry time, priority level, etc.
 Efficient traffic management.
 Reduced network traffic congestion.
 Some delay due to storing and forwarding.
 Large storing capacity is required.

3) Packet Switching
a) In packet switching data is sent in the form of discrete logical blocks known as packets.
Packet consists of two parts data and header.
b) It places an upper limit on the block size, so that packets can be buffered in the routers
main memory.

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2
Working:
 Uses store and forward transmission
 Call setup is not needed
 No dedicated physical path
 Each packet can follow different route
 Packets do not arrive in order
 Bandwidth is dynamic

(a) Circuit switching (b) Message switching (c) Packet switching

Comparison of Circuit Switching and Message Switching

KLS Gogte BCA – Belagavi Sem III Computer Communication and Networks –UNIT 2