Wired LANs:

Ethernet
CS44 Data Communications

Dr. Shilpa Chaudhari

Department of Computer Science and
Engineering
Ramaiah Institute of Technology Bangalore
Outline
• ETHERNET PROTOCOL • FAST ETHERNET (100 MBPS)
◦ IEEE Project 802 ◦ Access Method
◦ Ethernet Evolution ◦ Physical Layer
• STANDARD ETHERNET • GIGABIT ETHERNET
◦ Characteristics ◦ MAC Sublayer
◦ Addressing ◦ Physical Layer
◦ Access Method
◦ Efficiency of Standard Ethernet • 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET
◦ Implementation ◦ Implementation
◦ Changes in the Standard ◦

2
Ethernet Protocol
• TCP/IP accepts any protocol at these two layers that can
provide services to the network layer
• data-link layer and the physical layer are actually the
territory of the local and wide area networks
• Local area network (LAN) is a computer network that is
designed for a limited geographic area such as a building or a
campus
• In the 1980s and 1990s several different types of LANs were
used
◦ problem of sharing the media
◦ Solution media-access method

3
Type of LAN
Type of LAN media-access method
Ethernet CSMA/CD approach
Token Ring/Bus, and token-passing disappeared from the marketplace
FDDI (Fiber Distribution approach
Data Interface) because Ethernet was able to update
itself to meet the needs of the time

• ATM LAN deployed the high speed WAN technology

• An organization that has used an Ethernet LAN in the past
and now needs a higher data rate would update to the new
generation Ethernet instead of switching to another
technology, which might cost more

4
IEEE standard
• In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE started a project,
called Project 802
◦ Set standards to enable intercommunication among equipment from a
variety of manufacturers
◦ does not seek to replace any part of the OSI model or TCP/IP protocol
suite
◦ a way of specifying functions of the physical layer and the data-link layer
of major LAN protocols
• The IEEE has subdivided the data-link layer into two sublayers:
◦ logical link control (LLC)
◦ Media access control (MAC)
• IEEE has also created several physical-layer standards for
different LAN protocols.
5
IEEE standard for
LANs

6
Logical Link Control (LLC)
• OSI or TCP/IP Data link control handles framing, flow
control, and error control
• In IEEE Project 802, flow control, error control, and part of
the framing duties are collected into one sublayer called
the logical link control (LLC)
• Framing is handled in both the LLC sublayer and the MAC
sublayer
• The LLC provides a single link-layer control protocol for all
IEEE LANs
◦ LLC protocol can provide interconnectivity between different LANs
because it makes the MAC sublayer transparent.

7
Media Access Control (MAC)
• OSI or TCP/IP multiple access methods including random
access, controlled access, and channelization
• IEEE Project 802 has created a sublayer called media access
control that defines the specific access method for each
LAN
◦ CSMA/CD as the media access method for Ethernet LANs
◦ Token-passing method for Token Ring and Token Bus LANs
• Part of the framing function is also handled by the MAC
layer in IEEE 802

8
Ethernet Evolution
• The Ethernet LAN was developed in the 1970s by Robert
Metcalfe and David Boggs.
• Since then, it has gone through four generations
◦ Standard Ethernet (10 Mbps)
◦ Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps)
◦ Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbps)
◦ 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gbps)

9
Standard Ethernet
• Original Ethernet technology with the data rate of 10 Mbps
• Although most implementations have moved to other
technologies in the Ethernet evolution, there are some
features of the Standard Ethernet that have not changed
during the evolution
• Characteristics of the Standard Ethernet
◦ Connectionless and Unreliable Service
◦ Frame Format
◦ Frame Length

10
Connectionless and
Unreliable Service
• A connectionless service means each frame sent is
independent of the previous or next frame
• Ethernet has no connection establishment or connection
termination phases
◦ The sender sends a frame whenever it has it; the receiver may or
may not be ready for it.
◦ The sender may overwhelm the receiver with frames, which may
result in dropping frames
◦ If a frame drops, the sender will not know about it
◦ Since IP, which is using the service of Ethernet, is also connectionless
◦ If the transport layer is also a connectionless protocol, such as UDP, the frame is lost and
salvation may only come from the application layer
◦ If the transport layer is TCP, the sender TCP does not receive acknowledgment for its
segment and sends it again

11
Connectionless and
Unreliable Service
• Ethernet is also unreliable like IP and UDP
◦ If a frame is corrupted during transmission and the receiver finds
out about the corruption, which has a high level of probability of
happening because of the CRC-32, the receiver drops the frame
silently
◦ It is the duty of high-level protocols to find out about it

12
Ethernet frame

• Remember that an Ethernet frame is a variable-length

frame
• Contains seven fields

13
Ethernet frame
• Preamble. This field contains 7 bytes (56 bits) of alternating
0s and 1s
◦ alert the receiving system to the coming frame
◦ enable it to synchronize its clock if it’s out of synchronization
◦ The pattern provides only an alert and a timing pulse
◦ The 56-bit pattern allows the stations to miss some bits at the
beginning of the frame
◦ actually added at the physical layer and is not (formally) part of the
frame

14
Ethernet frame
• Start frame delimiter (SFD)
◦ 1 byte: 10101011) signals the beginning of the frame as the size of
Ethernet frame is variable size
◦ The SFD warns the station or stations that this is the last chance for
synchronization
◦ The last 2 bits are (11)2 and alert the receiver that the next field is
the destination address
◦ The SFD field is also added at the physical layer

15
Ethernet frame
• Destination address (DA)
◦ Six bytes (48 bits)
◦ contains the linklayer address of the destination station or stations
to receive the packet
◦ When the receiver sees its own link-layer address, or a multicast
address for a group that the receiver is a member of, or a
broadcast address, it decapsulates the data from the frame and
passes the data to the upperlayer protocol defined by the value of
the type field
• Source address (SA)
◦ Six bytes and contains the link-layer address of the sender of the
packet

16
Ethernet frame
• Type
◦ Defines the upper-layer protocol whose packet is encapsulated in
the frame
◦ This protocol can be IP, ARP, OSPF, and so on
◦ It is used for multiplexing and demultiplexing.

17
Ethernet frame
• Data
◦ encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols
◦ minimum of 46 and a maximum of 1500 bytes
◦ If the data coming from the upper layer is more than 1500 bytes, it should be
fragmented and encapsulated in more than one frame
◦ If it is less than 46 bytes, it needs to be padded with extra 0s
◦ A padded data frame is delivered to the upper-layer protocol as it is (without
removing the padding)
◦ means that it is the responsibility of the upper layer to remove or, in the case of
the sender, to add the padding
◦ The upper-layer protocol needs to know the length of its data. For example, a
datagram has a field that defines the length of the data

18
Ethernet frame
• CRC
◦ contains error detection information, in this case a CRC-32
◦ The CRC is calculated over the addresses, types, and data field
◦ If the receiver calculates the CRC and finds that it is not zero
(corruption in transmission), it discards the frame.

19
Frame Length
• Ethernet has imposed restrictions on both the minimum and
maximum lengths of a frame
• The minimum length restriction is required for the correct operation
of CSMA/CD
◦ An Ethernet frame - a minimum length of 512 bits or 64 bytes
• Part of the length is the header and the trailer
◦ If 18 bytes of header and trailer (6 bytes of source address, 6 bytes of
destination address, 2 bytes of length or type, and 4 bytes of CRC), then the
minimum length of data from the upper layer is 64 − 18 = 46 bytes
◦ If the upper-layer packet is less than 46 bytes, padding is added to make up the difference

20
Frame Length
• The standard defines the maximum length of a frame
(without preamble and SFD field) as 1518 bytes
• If we subtract the 18 bytes of header and trailer, the
maximum length of the payload is 1500 bytes
• The maximum length restriction has two historical reasons
◦ First, memory was very expensive when Ethernet was designed; a
maximum length restriction helped to reduce the size of the buffer
◦ Second, the maximum length restriction prevents one station from
monopolizing the shared medium, blocking other stations that
have data to send frame length in bytes data length in bytes
Minimum Maximum Minimum Maximum
64 1518 46 1500

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Standard Ethernet -
Addressing
• Each station on an Ethernet network (such as a PC,
workstation, or printer) has its own network interface card
(NIC)
• The NIC fits inside the station and provides the station with
a link-layer address
• The Ethernet address is 6 bytes (48 bits), normally written
in hexadecimal notation, with a colon between the bytes

22
Standard Ethernet -
Addressing
• A source address is always a unicast address—the frame
comes from only one station
• The destination address can be unicast, multicast, or
broadcast
◦ If the least significant bit of the first byte in a destination address is
0, the address is unicast; otherwise, it is multicast.
◦ The broadcast address is a special case of the multicast address:
the recipients are all the stations on the LAN
◦ A broadcast destination address is forty-eight 1s

23
Standard Ethernet -
Addressing
• Define the type of the following destination addresses:
a. 4A:30:10:21:10:1A
b. 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
c. FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
• Look at the second hexadecimal digit from the left to find the type of the
address
◦ If it is even, the address is unicast
◦ If it is odd, the address is multicast
◦ If all digits are Fs, the address is broadcast

a. This is a unicast address because A in binary is 1010 (even)

b. This is a multicast address because 7 in binary is 0111 (odd)
c. This is a broadcast address because all digits are Fs in hexadecimal

24
Transmission of Address Bits
• Addresses are sent out online using different way they are
written in hexadecimal notation
• The transmission is left to right, byte by byte
◦ Each byte, the least significant bit is sent first and the most
significant bit is sent last
◦ bit that defines an address as unicast or multicast arrives first at
the receiver
◦ Receiver to immediately know if the packet is unicast or multicast

• How the address 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE is sent out online?

25
Medium in standard Ethernet
• Standard Ethernet uses a coaxial cable (bus topology) or a
set of twisted-pair cables with a hub (star topology)

26
Unicast, Multicast, and
Broadcast Transmission
• Transmission in the standard Ethernet is always broadcast,
no matter if the intention is unicast, multicast, or broadcast
◦ In the bus topology, when station A sends a frame to station B, all
stations will receive it
◦ In the star topology, when station A sends a frame to station B, the
hub will receive it
◦ Since the hub is a passive element, it does not check the destination address of the
frame; it regenerates the bits (if they have been weakened) and sends them to all
stations except station A
◦ In fact, it floods the network with the frame

• How the actual unicast, multicast, and broadcast

transmissions are distinguished from each other?
◦ It is based on the way the frames are kept or dropped

27
Unicast, Multicast, and Broadcast
Transmission
transmission all stations (except intended recipient keeps Non- intended
the sender) and handles the frame recipient
unicast receive the frame destination discard it
multicast receive the frame members of the group discard it
broadcast receive the frame all stations (except the -
sender)

28
Standard Ethernet - Access
Method
• Control access to the sharing medium as standard Ethernet
protocol is a broadcast network
◦ CSMA/CD with 1-persistent method

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 Standard Ethernet - Access
Method
measures the level of energy on
Station A send a the medium (for a short period of
frame to station D time, normally less than 100 μs)

No station is sending (or

the signal has not
Check whether any other Energy Yes reached station A) -
station is sending (carrier sense) == 0 interpreted as idle
medium
No

Medium is being used

by another station
keep a copy of the frame
in its buffer until it is sure
monitors the medium that there is no collision
for 100 μs starts sending its frame

Yes
Idle? A
No

30
Standard Ethernet - Access
Method
• After station A has started sending the frame, the medium
sensing does not stop
• Two cases may occur during the Station A transmission
◦ Station A has sent 512 bits and no collision is sensed
◦ the energy level did not go above the regular energy level
◦ Station A has sensed a collision before sending 512 bits

31
Standard Ethernet - Access
Method
sent 512 bits (one A
minimum size frame
64 bytes)

sensed a collision before

sending 512 bits: One of the
energy level not above No bits has collided with a bit sent
the regular energy
by another station
level

Yes Both stations should refrain from sending Increment K

and keep the frame in their buffer for (number of
resending when the line becomes available attempts)
no collision is sensed: the frame
will go through and stops sensing
the medium wait for a backoff K=15
time and restart No
Station A sends a 48-bit jam Yes
the process
signal to inform other stations
network is too
that there is a collision in the
busy, the station
network
needs to abort its
effort and try again

32
Backoff Time
• The station creates a random number between 0 and 2K − 1
• Each time the collision occurs, the range of the random
number increases exponentially
◦ After the first collision (K = 1) the random number is in the range (0,
1)
◦ After the second collision (K = 2) it is in the range (0, 1, 2, 3)
◦ After the third collision (K = 3) it is in the range (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
◦ So after each collision, the probability increases that the backoff
time becomes longer
◦ This is due to the fact that if the collision happens even after the
third or fourth attempt, it means that the network is really busy; a
longer backoff time is needed

33
Why 512 bits?
• Transmission rate of the Ethernet as 10 Mbps and assume that the length of the cable is
5120 meters
• Takes the station 512/(10 Mbps) = 51.2 μs to send out 512 bits.
• If a collision were to occur, it should occur by the time the sender has sent out 512 bits
(worst case) and the first bit has made a round trip of 5120 meters
• We should know that if the collision happens in the middle of the cable, not at the end,
station A hears the collision earlier and aborts the transmission.
• The designer of the standard Ethernet actually put a restriction of 2500 meters because
we
• The whole idea is that if station A does not sense the collision before sending 512 bits,
there must have been no collision, because during this time, the first bit has reached the
end of the line and all other stations know that a station is sending and refrain from
sending
• The sending station is certain that no collision will occur if it is not heard during the first
512 bits, so it can discard the copy of the frame in its buffer

34
Efficiency of Standard
Ethernet
• Ratio of the time used by a station for sending data to the time
the medium is occupied by this station
• The practical efficiency of standard Ethernet has been measured
as:
Efficiency = 1 / (1 + 6.4 x a)
◦ Parameter “a” is the number of frames that can fit on the medium
◦ It can be calculated as
◦ a = (propagation delay)/(transmission delay)
◦ Transmission delay is the time it takes a frame of average size to be sent out
◦ Propagation delay is the time it takes to reach the end of the medium
◦ The value of parameter a decreases, the efficiency increases
◦ If the length of the media is shorter or the frame size longer, the
efficiency increase
◦ In the ideal case, a = 0 and the efficiency is 1
35
Efficiency of Standard
Ethernet
• In the Standard Ethernet with the transmission rate of 10
Mbps, we assume that the length of the medium is 2500 m
and the size of the frame is 512 bits. The propagation
speed of a signal in a cable is normally 2 × 108 m/s.

Only 0.24 of a frame occupies the whole medium in this case

The efficiency is 39 percent, which is considered moderate; it means that only 61

percent of the time the medium is occupied but not used by a station

36
Standard Ethernet
Implementations
• Four popular standard Ethernet implementations during
the 1980s

37
Manchester : Revisited
• Combine the idea of RZ and the idea of NRZ-L
• inversion at the middle of each bit interval is used for both
synchronization and bit representation
◦ For bit representation:
◦ duration of the bit is divided into two halves.
◦ The voltage remains at one level during the first half and moves to the other level in
the second half
◦ A negative-to-positive transition represents 1 and a positive-to-negative transition
represents 0
◦ The transition at the middle of the bit provides synchronization
0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1
=0

t
=1

38
Standard Ethernet
Implementations
• In the nomenclature 10BaseX
◦ The number defines the data rate (10 Mbps)
◦ The term Base means baseband (digital) signal
◦ the bits are changed to a digital signal and directly sent on the line
◦ X approximately defines either
◦ the maximum size of the cable in 100 meters
◦ For example 5 for 500
◦ 2 for 185 meters - means that a given segment can be no longer than 200 m
◦ or the type of cable
◦ T for unshielded twisted pair cable (UTP)
◦ F for fiber-optic

39
Standard Ethernet
Implementations
Encoding and Decoding
• All standard implementations use digital signaling (baseband) at 10 Mbps
• At the sender, data are converted to a digital signal using the Manchester
scheme
• At the receiver, the received signal is interpreted as Manchester and decoded
into data
• Manchester encoding is self-synchronous, providing a transition at each bit
interval

40
10Base5: Thick Ethernet
• The size of the cable is roughly the size of a garden hose
and too stiff to bend with your hands
• 10Base5 was the first Ethernet specification to use a bus
topology with an external transceiver
(transmitter/receiver) connected via a tap to a thick
coaxial cable

41
10Base5: Thick Ethernet
• Transceiver
◦ responsible for transmitting, receiving, and detecting collisions
◦ connected to the station via a transceiver cable that provides
separate paths for sending and receiving
◦ collision can only happen in the coaxial cable

• The maximum length of the coaxial cable must not exceed

500 m, otherwise, there is excessive degradation of the
signal
• If a length of more than 500 m is needed, up to five
segments, each a maximum of 500 meters, can be
connected using repeaters

42
10Base2: Thin Ethernet
• called 10Base2, thin Ethernet, or Cheapernet
• 10Base2 also uses a bus topology, but the cable is much thinner
and more flexible
• The cable can be bent to pass very close to the stations
• In this case, the transceiver is normally part of the network
interface card (NIC), which is installed inside the station

43
10Base2: Thin
Ethernet
• Collision occurs in the thin coaxial cable
• More cost effective than 10Base5 because thin coaxial
cable is less expensive than thick coaxial and the tee
connections are much cheaper than taps
• Installation is simpler because the thin coaxial cable is very
flexible
• However, the length of each segment cannot exceed 185 m
(close to 200 m) due to the high level of attenuation in thin
coaxial cable

44
10Base-T: Twisted-Pair
Ethernet
• 10Base-T uses a physical star topology
• The stations are connected to a hub via two pairs of
twisted cable

45
10Base-T: Twisted-Pair
Ethernet
• Two pairs of twisted cable create two paths (one for
sending and one for receiving) between the station and the
hub
• Any collision here happens in the hub
• Compared to 10Base5 or 10Base2, the hub actually
replaces the coaxial cable as far as a collision is concerned
• The maximum length of the twisted cable here is defined
as 100 m, to minimize the effect of attenuation in the
twisted cable

46
10Base-F: Fiber Ethernet
• Although there are several types of optical fiber 10-Mbps
Ethernet, the most common is called 10Base-F
• 10Base-F uses a star topology to connect stations to a hub
• The stations are connected to the hub using two fiber-
optic cables

47
Changes in the
Standard
• Changes actually opened the road to the evolution of the
Ethernet to become compatible with other high-data-rate
LANs
• Three changes in Standard Ethernet
◦ Bridged Ethernet (first step)
◦ Switched Ethernet
◦ Full-Duplex Ethernet

48
Bridged Ethernet
• Division of a LAN by bridges
• Bridges have two effects on an Ethernet LAN:
◦ Raise the bandwidth
◦ Separate collision domains

49
Raising the Bandwidth
• Unbridged Ethernet network
◦ the total capacity (10 Mbps) is shared among all stations with a frame to
send
◦ If only one station has frames to send, it benefits from the total capacity
(10 Mbps)
◦ If more than one station needs to use the network, the capacity is
shared
◦ For example, if two stations have a lot of frames to send, they probably
alternate in usage
◦ When one station is sending, the other one refrains from sending - each
station on average sends at a rate of 5 Mbps

50
Raising the
Bandwidth
• A bridge divides the network into two or more networks
• Bandwidthwise, each network is independent
• For example, a network with 12 stations is divided into two networks, each with 6 stations
◦ Now each network has a capacity of 10 Mbps
◦ The 10-Mbps capacity in each segment is now shared between 6 stations (actually 7 because the
bridge acts as a station in each segment), not 12 stations
◦ In a network with a heavy load, each station theoretically is offered 10/7 Mbps instead of 10/12 Mbps

51
Raising the
Bandwidth
• Further division of the network, gain more bandwidth for
each segment
• For example, if we use a four-port bridge, each station is
now offered 10/4 Mbps, which is 3 times more than an
unbridged network

52
Separating Collision Domains
• Another advantage of a bridge is the separation of the
collision domain
• The collision domain becomes much smaller and the
probability of collision is reduced tremendously in a
bridged network
• Without bridging, 12 stations contend for access to the
medium; with bridging only 3 stations contend for access
to the medium.

53
Separating Collision Domains

54
Switched Ethernet
• Based on bridged LAN where N networks, where N is the
number of stations on the LAN
• Instead of multiple-port bridge have an N-port switch
◦ bandwidth is shared only between the station and the switch (5
Mbps each)
◦ Collision domain is divided into N domains
• A layer-2 switch is an N-port bridge with additional
sophistication that allows faster handling of the packets

55
Switched Ethernet

56
Full-Duplex Ethernet
• Limitation of 10Base5 and 10Base2: communication is half-
duplex
• 10Base-T is always full-duplex: a station can either send or
receive, but may not do both at the same time
• Switched Ethernet evolved to full-duplex switched Ethernet
for increasing the capacity of each domain from 10 to 20
Mbps
◦ Instead of using one link between the station and the switch, the
configuration uses two links: one to transmit and one to receive.

57
Full-Duplex Ethernet

58
Full-Duplex Ethernet
• No Need for CSMA/CD:
◦ each station is connected to the switch via two separate links
◦ Each station or switch can send and receive independently without worrying
about collision.
◦ Each link is a point-to-point dedicated path between the station and the
switch.
◦ The job of the MAC layer becomes much easier
◦ The carrier sensing and collision detection functionalities of the MAC sublayer
can be turned off
• MAC Control Layer
◦ Standard Ethernet was designed as a connectionless protocol at the MAC
sublayer without any positive or negative acknowledgment for explicit flow
control or error control
◦ MAC control sublayer id added in full-duplex switched Ethernet between the
LLC sublayer and the MAC sublayer to provide for flow and error control
59
Fast Ethernet
• The IEEE committee calls it the Standard 802.3u
• Fast Ethernet compatible with the Standard Ethernet was
designed to compete with LAN protocols such as FDDI or
Fiber Channel
• The goals of Fast Ethernet
1. Upgrade the data rate to 100 Mbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard Ethernet.
3. Keep the same 48-bit address.
4. Keep the same frame format.

60
Fast Ethernet - Access Method
• Proper operation of the CSMA/CD depends on
◦ the transmission rate
◦ the minimum size of the frame
◦ the maximum network length
• To keep the minimum size of the frame (512 bits),
◦ the maximum length of the network should be changed to transfer
10 times faster - 10 times shorter (the propagation speed does not
change)
◦ the collision needs to be detected 10 times sooner

61
Fast Ethernet - Access Method
• Fast Ethernet came with two solutions
◦ maximum size of the network is 250 meters instead of 2500 meters
as in the Standard Ethernet
◦ drop the bus topology and use a passive hub and star topology
◦ use a link-layer switch with a buffer to store frames and a full-
duplex connection to each host to make the transmission medium
private for each host
◦ no need for CSMA/CD because the hosts are not competing with each other
◦ The link-layer switch receives a frame from a source host and stores it in the buffer
(queue) waiting for processing.
◦ It then checks the destination address and sends the frame out of the corresponding
interface
◦ Since the connection to the switch is full-duplex, the destination address can even send
a frame to another station at the same time that it is receiving a frame

62
Fast Ethernet - Access Method
• Autonegotiation allows a station or a hub a range of
capabilities
◦ allows two devices to negotiate the mode or data rate of operation
• Goal of autonegotiation as follows
◦ To allow incompatible devices to connect to one another. For
example, a device with a maximum capacity of 10 Mbps can
communicate with a device with a 100 Mbps capacity (but which
can work at a lower rate).
◦ To allow one device to have multiple capabilities.
◦ To allow a station to check a hub’s capabilities.

63
Fast Ethernet - Physical Layer
Changes at the physical layer to handle a 100 Mbps data
rate

• Topology
◦ two stations connected point-to-point
◦ Three or more stations need to be connected in a star topology
with a hub or a switch at the center
• Encoding

64
Fast Ethernet - Physical Layer
• Manchester encoding unsuitable as it needs a 200-Mbaud
bandwidth for a data rate of 100 Mbps for a medium such
as twisted-pair cable

65
Fast Ethernet - Physical Layer

66
Fast Ethernet - Physical Layer
• 100Base-TX - the MLT-3 scheme has good bandwidth
performance but no a self-synchronous line coding scheme
◦ 4B/5B block coding is used to provide bit synchronization by
preventing the occurrence of a long sequence of 0s and 1s
◦ creates a data rate of 125 Mbps, which is fed into MLT-3 for encoding

• 100Base-FX - Optical fiber can easily handle high

bandwidth requirements by using simple encoding
schemes
◦ NRZ-I encoding has a bit synchronization problem for long
sequences of 0s (or 1s, based on the encoding)
◦ Similar to 100Base-TX, 4B/5B block encoding used which increases
the bit rate from 100 to 125 Mbps (can easily be handled by fiber-
optic cable)
67
Fast Ethernet - Physical Layer
• 100Base-T4, was designed to use category 3 or higher
UTP where each twisted-pair cannot easily handle more
than 25 Mbaud
• four pairs of UTP used for transmitting 100 Mbps
◦ one pair switches between sending and receiving
◦ Three pairs of UTP category 3 can handle only 75 Mbaud (25
Mbaud each)
• 8B/6T encoding scheme is used to convert 100 Mbps to a
75 Mbaud signal - (6/8) × 100 Mbps, or 75 Mbaud

68
Gigabit Ethernet - 1000 Mbps
• The IEEE committee calls it the Standard 802.3z
• The goals of the Gigabit Ethernet
1. Upgrade the data rate to 1 Gbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard or Fast Ethernet.
3. Use the same 48-bit address.
4. Use the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.
6. Support autonegotiation as defined in Fast Ethernet.

69
Gigabit Ethernet -MAC Sublayer
• two distinctive approaches for medium access: half-duplex
and fullduplex
• Almost all implementations of Gigabit Ethernet follow the
full-duplex approach, so we mostly ignore the half-duplex
mode

70
Gigabit Ethernet -MAC Sublayer
• Full-duplex approach
◦ a central switch connected to all computers or other switches
◦ Switch buffers of each input port store data until they are
transmitted
◦ switch uses the destination address of the frame to send a frame
out of the port connected to that particular destination - no
collision –no CSMA/CD
◦ Lack of collision implies that the maximum length of the cable is
determined by the signal attenuation in the cable, not by the
collision detection process

71
Gigabit Ethernet -MAC Sublayer
Half-Duplex Mode
• a switch can be replaced by a hub, which acts as the
common cable in which a collision might occur
• The half-duplex approach uses CSMA/CD
• the maximum length of the network in this approach is
totally dependent on the minimum frame size
• Three methods have been defined:
◦ Traditional
◦ carrier extension
◦ frame bursting

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Gigabit Ethernet -MAC Sublayer
Traditional
• minimum length of the frame as in traditional Ethernet
(512 bits)
◦ length of a bit is 1/100 shorter in Gigabit Ethernet than in 10-Mbps
Ethernet
◦ the slot time for Gigabit Ethernet is 512 bits × 1/ 1000 μs, which is
equal to 0.512 μs
◦ The reduced slot time means that collision is detected 100 times
earlier
◦ maximum length of the network is 25 m - suitable if all the stations
are in one room, but it may not even be long enough to connect
the computers in one single office

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Gigabit Ethernet -MAC Sublayer
Carrier Extension
• minimum length of a frame as 512 bytes (4096 bits) - 8
times longer - 200 m, allows a length of 100 m from the
hub to the station
• forces a station to add extension bits (padding) to any
frame that is less than 4096 bits

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Gigabit Ethernet -MAC Sublayer
Frame Bursting
• Carrier extension is very inefficient if we have a series of
short frames to send; each frame carries redundant data
• Frame bursting improve efficiency
• Instead of adding an extension to each frame, multiple
frames are sent to look like one frame, padding is added
between the frames (the same as that used for the carrier
extension method) so that the channel is not idle
◦ Deceives other stations into thinking that a very large frame has
been transmitted.

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Gigabit Ethernet - physical layer
• more complicated
• Topology
• only two stations connected point-to-point.
• Three or more stations connected in a star topology with a
hub or a switch at the center
• Another possible configuration is to connect several star
topologies or let one star topology be part of another

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Gigabit Ethernet -
physical layer

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Gigabit Ethernet -
physical layer
• Categorized as either a two-wire or a four-wire implementation
• The two-wire implementations use fiber-optic cable (1000Base-SX,
short-wave, or 1000Base-LX, long-wave), or STP (1000Base-CX)
◦ one wire (fiber or STP) is used for sending and one for receiving
• The four-wire version uses category 5 twisted-pair cable (1000Base-T)
◦ not possible to have 2 wires for input and 2 for output, because each wire would
need to carry 500 Mbps, which exceeds the capacity for category 5 UTP

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Gigabit Ethernet -
physical layer
• Encoding
• Two -wire implementations use an NRZ scheme (does not self-
synchronize properly) so 8B/10B block encoding is used
• four-wire implementation uses 4D-PAM5 encoding to reduce the
bandwidth
◦ all four wires are involved in both input and output; each wire carries 250
Mbps, which is in the range for category 5 UTP cable

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Gigabit Ethernet -
physical layer

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10 Gigabit Ethernet
• The IEEE Standard 802.3ae
• The goals of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet design can be
summarized as upgrading the data rate to 10 Gbps, keeping
the same frame size and format, and allowing the
interconnection of LANs, MANs, and WAN possible
• The standard defines two types of physical layers:
◦ LAN PHY (to support existing LANs)
◦ WAN PHY(WAN with links connected through SONET OC-192)

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10 Gigabit Ethernet
• operates only in full-duplex mode - no need for contention
- CSMA/CD is not used
• Four implementations are the most common: 10GBase-SR,
10GBase-LR, 10GBase-EW, and 10GBase-X4.

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Homework
• Problem P13.1 to P13.11

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