Subject Name: Computer Networks & Protocols

Subject Name: BEC702

Semester : 7th
Academic Year: ODD 2025-2026
Module-2
 MODULE-2
• Data Link Control services: Framing, Flow and Error Control

• Media Access Control: Random Access: ALOHA, CSMA, CSMA/CD

• Connecting Devices: Hubs, Switches, Virtual LANs: Membership,

Configuration, Communication between switches, Advantages.

• Wired and Wireless LANs: Ethernet Protocol, Standard Ethernet.

• Introduction to wireless LAN: Architectural Comparison,

Characteristics, Access Control.
• DLC SERVICES The data link control (DLC) deals with procedures for
communication between two adjacent nodes—node-to-node communication—
no matter whether the link is dedicated or broadcast.
• Data link control functions include framing and flow and error control.
Framing Data
• Transmission in the physical layer means moving bits in the form of a signal
from the source to the destination.
• Framing in the data-link layer separates a message from one source to a
destination by adding a sender address and a destination address.
• The destination address defines where the packet is to go; the sender address
helps the recipient acknowledge the receipt.
• When a message is carried in one very large frame, even a single-bit error
would require the retransmission of the whole frame. When a message is
divided into smaller frames, a single-bit error affects only that small frame.
Frame Size
• Frames can be of fixed or variable size.

• Fixed-size framing: there is no need for defining the boundaries of the

frames; the size itself can be used as a delimiter.

• An example of this type of framing is the (Asynchronous transfer

mode)ATM WAN, which uses frames of fixed size called cells.

• Variable-size framing: prevalent in local-area networks. Invariable-size

framing, we need a way to define the end of one frame and the
beginning of the next.
• Two approaches were used for this purpose:
– a character-oriented approach and
– a bit-oriented approach
Character-Oriented Framing
• In character-oriented (or byte-oriented) framing, data to be carried are 8-bit
characters from a coding system such as ASCII.

Fig: A frame in a character-oriented protocol

• The header, which normally carries the source and destination addresses and other
control information, and the trailer, which carries error detection redundant bits, are
also multiples of 8 bits.
• To separate one frame from the next, an 8-bit (1-byte) flag is added at the beginning
and the end of a frame.
• The flag, composed of protocol-dependent special characters, signals the start or end
of a frame.
• Character-oriented framing was popular when only text was exchanged by the data-
link layers.
• The flag could be selected to be any character not used for text communication.
Now, however, we send other types of information such as graphs, audio, and video.
• Any character used for the flag could also be part of the information. If this happens,
the receiver, when it encounters this pattern in the middle of the data, thinks it has
reached the end of the frame.
• To fix this problem, a byte-stuffing strategy was added to character-oriented framing.
In byte stuffing (or character stuffing), a special byte is added to the data section of
the frame when there is a character with the same pattern as the flag.

• The data section is stuffed with an extra byte. This byte is usually called the escape
character (ESC) and has a predefined bit pattern.

Fig: Byte stuffing and unstuffing

• Whenever the receiver encounters the ESC character, it removes it from the data
section and Byte stuffing by the escape character allows the presence of the flag in
the data section of the frame, but it creates another problem.

Ques: What happens if the text contains one or more escape characters followed by a
byte with the same pattern as the flag?

Ans: The receiver removes the escape character, but keeps the next byte, which is
incorrectly interpreted as the end of the frame.
Bit-Oriented Framing
• In bit-oriented framing, the data section of a frame is a sequence of bits to be
interpreted by the upper layer as text, graphic, audio, video, and so on.
• However, in addition to headers (and possible trailers), we still need a delimiter to
separate one frame from the other. Most protocols use a special 8-bit pattern flag,
01111110, as the delimiter to define the beginning and the end of the frame.

Fig: A frame in bit-oriented protocol

• If the flag pattern appears in the data, need to somehow inform the receiver that this
is not the end of the frame.
• We do this by stuffing 1 single bit (instead of 1 byte) to prevent the pattern from
looking like a flag.
• The strategy is called bit stuffing. In bit stuffing, if a 0 and five consecutive 1 bits are
encountered, an extra 0 is added.
• This extra stuffed bit is eventually removed from the data by the receiver.
• Bit stuffing is the process of adding one extra 0 whenever five consecutive 1s follow
a 0 in the data, so that the receiver does not mistake the pattern 0111110 for a flag.

Fig: Bit stuffing

and unstuffing
Flow Control
• Whenever an entity produces items and another entity consumes them,
there should be a balance between production and consumption rates.
• If the items are produced faster than they can be consumed, the
consumer can be overwhelmed and may need to discard some items.
• If the items are produced more slowly than they can be consumed, the
consumer must wait, and the system becomes less efficient.

Fig: Flow control at the data link layer

Buffers
• Although flow control can be implemented in several ways, one of the solutions is
normally to use two buffers; one at the sending data-link layer and the other at the
receiving data-link layer.

• A buffer is a set of memory locations that can hold packets at the sender and receiver.

• The flow control communication can occur by sending signals from the consumer to
the producer.

• When the buffer of the receiving data-link layer is full, it informs the sending data-
link layer to stop pushing frames.
Error Control
• we need to implement error control at the data-link layer to prevent the receiving
node from delivering corrupted packets to its network layer.

• Error control at the data-link layer is normally very simple and implemented using
one of the following methods.

• In the method, a CRC is added to the frame header by the sender and checked by the
receiver.

• In the first method, if the frame is corrupted, it is silently discarded; if it is not

corrupted, the packet is delivered to the network layer. This method is used mostly in
wired LANs such as Ethernet.
Combination of Flow and Error Control
• Flow and error control can be combined.

• In a simple situation, the acknowledgment that is sent for flow control can also be
used for error control to tell the sender the packet has arrived uncorrupted.

• The lack of acknowledgment means that there is a problem in the sent frame.

• A frame that carries an acknowledgment is normally called an ACK to distinguish it

from the data frame.
Connectionless and Connection-Oriented
• A DLC protocol can be either connection less or connection-oriented.

Connectionless Protocol
• In a connectionless protocol, frames are sent from one node to the next without any
relationship between the frames; each frame is independent.

• Note that the term connectionless here does not mean that there is no physical
connection (transmission medium) between the nodes; it means that there is no
connection between frames.

• The frames are not numbered and there is no sense of ordering. Most of the data-link
protocols for LANs are connectionless protocols.
Connection-Oriented Protocol
• In a connection-oriented protocol, a logical connection should first be established
between the two nodes (setup phase).

• After all frames that are somehow related to each other are transmitted (transfer phase),
the logical connection is terminated (teardown phase).

• In this type of communication, the frames are numbered and sent in order.

• If they are not received in order, the receiver needs to wait until all frames belonging to
the same set are received and then deliver them in order to the network layer.

• Connection oriented protocols are rare in wired LANs, but we can see them in some
point-to-point protocols, some wireless LANs, and some WANs.
Media Access Control (MAC)
• When nodes or stations are connected and use a common link, called a multipoint or
broadcast link, we need a multiple-access protocol to coordinate access to the link.
• Many protocols have been devised to handle access to a shared link. All of these
protocols belong to a sub layer in the data-link layer called media access control
(MAC).
• At each instance, a station that has data to send uses a procedure defined by the protocol
to make a decision on whether or not to send.

• This decision depends on the state of the medium (idle or busy). In other words, each
station can transmit when it desires on the condition that it follows the predefined
procedure, including testing the state of the medium.

• Two features give this method its name.

– First, there is no scheduled time for a station to transmit. Transmission is random

among the stations. That is why these methods are called random access.

– Second, no rules specify which station should send next. Stations compete with one
another to access the medium. That is why these methods are also called contention
methods.
• In a random-access method, each station has the right to the medium without
being controlled by any other station. However, if more than one station tries to
send, there is an access conflict “collision” and the frames will be either
destroyed or modified.
• The random-access methods have evolved from a very interesting protocol
known as ALOHA, which used a very simple procedure called multiple access
(MA).
• The method was improved with the addition of a procedure that forces the station
to sense the medium before transmitting. This was called carrier sense multiple
access (CSMA).
• CSMA method later evolved into two parallel methods: carrier sense multiple
access with collision detection (CSMA/CD), which tells the station what to do
when a collision is detected, and carrier sense multiple access with collision
avoidance (CSMA/CA), which tries to avoid the collision
ALOHA
• ALOHA, the earliest random access method, was developed at the University of
Hawaii in early 1970. It was designed for a radio (wireless) LAN, but it can be used
on any shared medium.

• The medium is shared between the stations. When a station sends data, another
station may attempt to do so at the same time. The data from the two stations collide
and become garbled.
Pure ALOHA
• The original ALOHA protocol is called pure ALOHA. This is a simple but elegant
protocol.
• The idea is that each station sends a frame whenever it has a frame to send (multiple
access) there is only one channel to share, there is the possibility of collision
between frames from different stations.
• There are four stations (unrealistic assumption) that contend with one another for
access to the shared channel. The above figure shows that each station sends two
frames, there are a total of eight frames on the shared medium.
• Some of these frames collide because multiple frames are in contention for the
shared channel.
• If one bit of a frame coexists on the channel with one bit from another frame,
there is a collision and both will be destroyed. It is obvious that the frames have
to be resend that have been destroyed during transmission.
• The pure ALOHA protocol relies on acknowledgments from the receiver. When
a station sends a frame, it expects the receiver to send an acknowledgment. If the
acknowledgment does not arrive after a time-out period, the station assumes that
the frame (or the acknowledgment) has been destroyed and resends the frame.
• A collision involves two or more stations. If all these stations try to resend their
frames after the time-out, the frames will collide again
• Pure ALOHA dictates that when the time-out period passes, each station waits a
random amount of time before resending its frame. The randomness will help
avoid more collisions. This time is called as the back off time TB.
• Pure ALOHA has a second method to prevent congesting the channel with
retransmitted frames. After a maximum number of retransmission attempts Kmax,
a station must give up and try later.
• The time-out period is equal to the maximum possible round-trip propagation
delay, which is twice the amount of time required to send a frame between the
two most widely separated stations (2 × Tp).
• The backoff time TB is a random value that normally depends on K (the number
of attempted unsuccessful transmissions).
• In this method, for each retransmission, a multiplier R = 0 to 2 K is randomly
chosen and multiplied by Tp (maximum propagation time) or Tfr (the average
time required to send out a frame) to find TB
Vulnerable time
The length of time in which there is a possibility of collision. The stations send fixed-
length frames with each frame taking Tfr seconds to send.
• Station B starts to send a frame at time t. Imagine station A has started to send its
frame after t − Tfr . This leads to a collision between the frames from station B
and station A.
• On the other hand, suppose that station C starts to send a frame before time t +
Tfr. There is also a collision between frames from station B and station C.
PROBLEM: A pure ALOHA network transmits 200-bit frames on a shared
channel of 200 kbps. What is the requirement to make this frame collision-free?
Solution: Average frame transmission time Tfr is 200 bits/200 kbps or 1 ms. The
vulnerable time is 2 × 1 ms = 2 ms. This means no station should send later than 1
ms before this station starts transmission and no station should start sending
during the period (1 ms) that this station is sending.
Throughput
• G = the average number of frames generated by the system during one
frame transmission time (Tfr)

• S= the average number of successfully transmitted frames for pure

ALOHA. And is given by,

S = G × 𝑒 −2𝐺 . ------------------------(1)

• Differentiate equation (1) with respect to G and equate it to 0, we get G

= 1/2. Substitute G=1/2 in equation (1) to get Smax.
• The maximum throughput Smax = 0.184.
• If one-half a frame is generated during one frame transmission time (one
frame during two frame transmission times), then 18.4 percent of these
frames reach their destination successfully.
• G is set to G = 1/2 to produce the maximum throughput because the
vulnerable time is 2 times the frame transmission time. Therefore, if a
station generates only one frame in this vulnerable time (and no other
stations generate a frame during this time), the frame will reach its
destination successfully.
NOTE:
• The throughput for pure ALOHA is S = G × 𝑒 −2𝐺 .
• The maximum throughput Smax = 1/(2e) = 0.184 when G = (1/2).
PROBLEM
• A pure ALOHA network transmits 200-bit frames on a shared channel of 200 kbps.
What is the throughput if the system (all stations together) produces
a. 1000 frames per second?
b. 500 frames per second?
c. 250 frames per second?
Solution: The frame transmission time Tfr is 200/200 kbps or 1 ms.
(a) If the system creates 1000 frames per second, or 1 frame per millisecond (1s =
1000ms) then G = 1 (because G= number of frames generated for one Tfr).
S = G × 𝑒 −2𝐺 = 0.135 (13.5 percent). This means that the throughput is
1000×0.135 = 135 frames. Only 135 frames out of 1000 will probably survive.
(b) If the system creates 500 frames per second, or 1/2 frame per millisecond (1s =
1000ms) then G = 1/2 (because G= number of frames generated for one Tfr).

S = G × 𝑒 −2𝐺 = 0.184 (18.4 percent). This means that the throughput is 500 ×0.184
= 92 frames. Only 92 frames out of 500 will probably survive.

(c) If the system creates 250 frames per second, or 1/4 frame per millisecond (1s =
1000ms) then G = 1/4 (because G= number of frames generated for one Tfr).

S = G × 𝑒 −2𝐺 = 0.152 (15.2 percent). This means that the throughput is 250 ×0.152
= 135 frames. Only 38 frames out of 250 will probably survive.
Slotted ALOHA
• Pure ALOHA has a vulnerable time of 2 × Tfr. This is so because there is no rule that
defines when the station can send.
• A station may send soon after another station has started or just before another
station has finished. Slotted ALOHA was invented to improve the efficiency of pure
ALOHA.
• In slotted ALOHA we divide the time into slots of Tfr seconds and force the station
to send only at the beginning of the time slot.

Figure: Frames in
Slotted ALOHA
network
• A station is allowed to send only at the beginning of the synchronized time slot, if a
station misses this moment, it must wait until the beginning of the next time slot.
• This means that the station which started at the beginning of this slot has already
finished sending its frame.
• There is still the possibility of collision if two stations try to send at the beginning of
the same time slot. However, the vulnerable time is now reduced to one-half, equal
to Tfr.

Figure: Vulnerable time

for slotted ALOHA
protocol
Throughput
• G = the average number of frames generated by the system during one
frame transmission time (Tfr)

• S= the average number of successfully transmitted frames for Slotted

ALOHA.

• And is given by, S = G × 𝑒 −𝐺 . ------------------------(1)

• Differentiate equation (1) with respect to G and equate it to 0, we get G

= 1. Substitute G=1 in equation (1) to get Smax.

• The maximum throughput Smax = 0.368

• If one frame is generated during one frame transmission time then 36.8 percent
of these frames reach their destination successfully.

• G is set to G = 1 to produce the maximum throughput because the vulnerable

time is equal to the frame transmission time. Therefore, if a station generates
only one frame in this vulnerable time (and no other stations generate a frame
during this time), the frame will reach its destination successfully.

NOTE:

• The throughput for Slotted ALOHA is S = G × 𝑒 −𝐺 .

• The maximum throughput Smax = 1/(e) = 0.368 when G = 1.

PROBLEM
• A Slotted ALOHA network transmits 200-bit frames on a shared channel of 200 kbps.
What is the throughput if the system (all stations together) produces
a.1000 frames per second?
b.500 frames per second?
c.250 frames per second?
Solution: The frame transmission time Tfr is 200/200 kbps or 1 ms.
(a) If the system creates 1000 frames per second, or 1 frame per millisecond ( 1s =
1000ms) then G = 1 (because G= number of frames generated for one Tfr). 𝑆 = 𝐺 ×
𝑒 −𝐺 = 0.368 (36.8 percent). This means that the throughput is 1000 ×0.368 = 368
frames. Only 368 frames out of 1000 will probably survive.
(b) If the system creates 500 frames per second, or 1/2 frame per millisecond ( 1s =
1000ms) then G = 1/2 (because G= number of frames generated for one Tfr).

𝑆 = 𝐺 × 𝑒 −𝐺 = 0.303 (30.3 percent). This means that the throughput is 500

×0.303 = 151 frames. Only 151 frames out of 500 will probably survive.

(c) If the system creates 250 frames per second, or 1/4 frame per millisecond ( 1s =
1000ms) then G = 1/4 (because G= number of frames generated for one Tfr).

𝑆 = 𝐺 × 𝑒 −𝐺 = 0.195 (19.5 percent). This means that the throughput is 250

×0.195 = 49 frames. Only 49 frames out of 250 will probably survive.
CSMA
• To minimize the chance of collision and, therefore, increase the performance, the
CSMA method was developed. The chance of collision can be reduced if a station
senses the medium before trying to use it.
• Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) requires that each station first listen to the
medium (or check the state of the medium) before sending.
• CSMA is based on the principle “sense before transmit” or “listen before talk.”
• CSMA can reduce the possibility of collision, but it cannot eliminate it. The reason
for this is shown in Figure, a space and time model of a CSMA network. Stations are
connected to a shared channel.

Figure: Space/time model

of a collision in CSMA
• The possibility of collision still exists because of propagation delay; when a station
sends a frame, it still takes time (although very short) for the first bit to reach every
station and for every station to sense it.

• A station may sense the medium and find it idle, only because the first bit sent by
another station has not yet been received.

• At time t1, station B senses the medium and finds it idle, so it sends a frame. At time
t2 (t2 > t1), station C senses the medium and finds it idle because, at this time, the
first bits from station B have not reached station C. Station C also sends a frame. The
two signals collide and both frames are destroyed.
Vulnerable Time
• The vulnerable time for CSMA is the propagation time Tp. This is the time needed
for a signal to propagate from one end of the medium to the other.
• When a station sends a frame and any other station tries to send a frame during this
time, a collision will result.
• But if the first bit of the frame reaches the end of the medium, every station will
already have heard the bit and will refrain from sending.
• Figure below shows the worst case. The leftmost station, A, sends a frame at time t1,
which reaches the rightmost station, D, at time t1 + Tp. The gray area shows the
vulnerable area in time and space.
Persistence Methods
Persistence method is developed to determine what the station has to do whenever it
encounters the channel is idle or busy. There are 3 persistent methods
1. 1-persistent method
2. Non persistent method, and
3. p-Persistent method.
1-Persistent
• The 1-persistent method is simple and straightforward.
• After the station finds the line idle, it sends its frame immediately (with probability
1).
• This method has the highest chance of collision because two or more stations may
find the line idle and send their frames immediately
Non persistent
• In the non persistent method, a station that has a frame to send senses the line.
If the line is idle, it sends immediately. If the line is not idle, it waits a random
amount of time and then senses the line again.

• The non persistent approach reduces the chance of collision because it is

unlikely that two or more stations will wait the same amount of time and retry
to send simultaneously.

• This method reduces the efficiency of the network because the medium
remains idle when there may be stations with frames to send.
p-Persistent
• The p-persistent method is used if the channel has time slots with a slot duration equal to or
greater than the maximum propagation time.
• The p-persistent approach combines the advantages of the other two strategies. It reduces
the chance of collision and improves efficiency. In this method, after the station finds the
line idle it follows these steps:
1. With probability p, the station sends its frame.
2. With probability q = 1 − p, the station waits for the beginning of the next time slot and
checks the line again.
(a) If the line is idle, it goes to step 1.
(b) If the line is busy, it acts as though a collision has occurred and uses the backoff
procedure.
Figure: Behaviour of three persistence methods
Figure: Flow diagram for three persistence methods
CSMA/CD
• The CSMA method does not specify the procedure following a collision. Carrier sense
multiple access with collision detection (CSMA/CD) augments the algorithm to handle the
collision.
• Station monitors the medium after it sends a frame to see if the transmission was successful.
• The first bits transmitted by the two stations involved in the collision. Although each station
continues to send bits in the frame until it detects the collision.

Figure: Collision of
the first bits in
CSMA/CD
• At time t1, station A has executed its persistence procedure and starts sending the
bits of its frame. At time t2, station C has not yet sensed the first bit sent by A.

• Station C executes its persistence procedure and starts sending the bits in its frame,
which propagate both to the left and to the right.

• The collision occurs sometime after time t2. Station C detects a collision at time t3
when it receives the first bit of A’s frame. Station C immediately aborts
transmission.

• Station A detects collision at time t4 when it receives the first bit of C’s frame, it
also immediately aborts transmission.
Figure: Flow diagram for the CSMA/CD
The flow diagram for CSMA/CD is as shown in Figure. It is similar to the one for the
ALOHA protocol, but there are differences.
[Link] first difference is the addition of the persistence process. It is required to sense
the channel before sending the frame by using one of the persistence processes (non
persistent, 1 persistent, or p-persistent).
[Link] second difference is the frame transmission. In ALOHA, there is transmission
of the entire frame and then wait for an acknowledgment. In CSMA/CD,
transmission and collision detection are continuous processes.
• It is not like the entire frame is sent and then look for a collision. The station
transmits and receives continuously and simultaneously (using two different ports or
a bidirectional port).
• Loop is used to show that transmission is a continuous process. It is constantly
monitored in order to detect one of two conditions: either transmission is finished
or a collision is detected.

• Either event stops transmission. When it comes out of the loop, if a collision has
not been detected, it means that transmission is complete; the entire frame is
transmitted. Otherwise, a collision has occurred.

3. The third difference is the sending of a short jamming signal to make sure that all
other stations become aware of the collision.
PROBLEM:

A network using CSMA/CD has a bandwidth of 10 Mbps. If the maximum

propagation time (including the delays in the devices and ignoring the time
needed to send a jamming signal) is 25.6 µs, what is the minimum size of the
frame?

Solution:

The minimum frame transmission time is Tfr = 2 × Tp = 51.2 µs. This means, in
the worst case, a station needs to transmit for a period of 51.2 µs to detect the
collision. The minimum size of the frame is, Band width × Tfr = 10 Mbps × 51.2
µs = 512 bits or 64 bytes. This is actually the minimum size of the frame for
Standard Ethernet.
Throughput
• The throughput of CSMA/CD is greater than that of pure or slotted ALOHA.

• The maximum throughput occurs at a different value of G and is based on the

persistence method and the value of p in the p-persistent approach.

• For the 1-persistent method, the maximum throughput is around 50 percent

when G = 1. For the non persistent method, the maximum throughput can go
up to 90 percent when G is between 3 and 8.
CSMA/CA
• Carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA) was invented
for wireless networks.
• Collisions are avoided through the use of CSMA/CA’s three strategies: the inter
frame space, the contention window, and acknowledgments.
Inter frame Space (IFS):
• When an idle channel is found, the station does not send immediately. It waits for
a period of time called the inter frame space or IFS.
• Even though the channel may appear idle when it is sensed, a distant station may
have already started transmitting.
• The distant station’s signal has not yet reached this station. The IFS time allows
the front of the transmitted signal by the distant station to reach this station.
• After waiting an IFS time, if the channel is still idle, the station can send, but it
still needs to wait a time equal to the contention window
Contention Window
• The contention window is an amount of time divided into slots. A station that is
ready to send chooses a random number of slots as its wait time.
• The number of slots in the window changes according to the binary exponential back
off strategy. This means that it is set to one slot the first time and then doubles each
time the station cannot detect an idle channel after the IFS time.
• This is very similar to the p-persistent method except that a random outcome defines
the number of slots taken by the waiting station.
• One interesting point about the contention window is that the station needs to sense
the channel after each time slot.
Acknowledgement
• Even with all the precautions considered, there still may be a collision resulting in
destroyed data. In addition, the data may be corrupted during the transmission.
• The positive acknowledgment and the time-out timer can help guarantee that the
receiver has received the frame.
CONTROLLED ACCESS
In controlled access, the stations consult one another to find which station has the right
to send. A station cannot send unless it has been authorized by other stations.
There are three controlled access methods,
1. Reservation.
2. Polling.
3. Token passing.
1. Reservation.
In the reservation method, a station needs to make a reservation before sending data.
• Time is divided into intervals. In each interval, a reservation frame precedes the data
frames sent in that interval.

• If there are N stations in the system, there are exactly N reservation mini slots in the
reservation frame. Each mini slot belongs to a station. When a station needs to send a
data frame, it makes a reservation in its own mini slot. The stations that have made
reservations can send their data frames after the reservation frame.

• Above Figure shows a situation with five stations and a five-mini slot reservation
frame. In the first interval, only stations 1, 3, and 4 have made reservations. In the
second interval, only station 1 has made a reservation.
2. Polling
• Polling works with topologies in which one device is designated as a primary
station and the other devices are secondary stations.

• All data exchanges must be made through the primary device even when the
ultimate destination is a secondary device. The primary device controls the link; the
secondary devices follow its instructions.

• The primary device determines which device is allowed to use the channel at a
given time. The primary device, therefore, is always the initiator of a session.

• This method uses poll and select functions to prevent collisions. However, the
drawback is if the primary station fails, the system goes down.
Figure: Select and poll functions in polling-access method
Select
• The select function is used whenever the primary device has something to
send. Since the primary controls the link. If it is neither sending nor receiving
data, it knows the link is available.

• If it has something to send, the primary device sends it. The primary station
has to confirm whether the target device is prepared to receive.

• The primary must alert the secondary to the upcoming transmission and wait
for an acknowledgment of the secondary’s ready status. Before sending data,
the primary creates and transmits a select (SEL) frame, one field of which
includes the address of the intended secondary.
Poll
• The poll function is used by the primary device to solicit transmissions from the
secondary devices
• When the primary is ready to receive data, it must ask (poll) each device in turn if it
has anything to send. When the first secondary is approached, it responds either with
a NAK frame if it has nothing to send or with data (in the form of a data frame) if it
does.
• If the response is negative (a NAK frame), then the primary polls the next secondary
in the same manner until it finds one with data to send.
• When the response is positive (a data frame), the primary reads the frame and
returns an acknowledgment (ACK frame), verifying its receipt poll function is used
by the primary device.
3. Token Passing
• In the token-passing method, the stations in a network are organized in a logical ring.
For each station, there is a predecessor and a successor.
• The predecessor is the station which is logically before the station in the ring; the
successor is the station which is after the station in the ring. The current station is the
one that is accessing the channel now.
• The right to this access has been passed from the predecessor to the current station.
The right will be passed to the successor when the current station has no more data to
send.
• In this method, a special packet called a token circulates through the ring. The
possession of the token gives the station the right to access the channel and send its
data.
• When a station has some data to send, it waits until it receives the token from its
predecessor. It then holds the token and sends its data.
• When the station has no more data to send, it releases the token, passing it to the
next logical station in the ring.
• The station cannot send data until it receives the token again in the next round. In
this process, when a station receives the token and has no data to send, it just passes
the data to the next station.
• Token management is needed for this access method. Stations must be limited in the
time they can have possession of the token.
• The token must be monitored to ensure it has not been lost or destroyed. For
example, if a station that is holding the token fails, the token will disappear from the
network.
• Another function of token management is to assign priorities to the stations and to
the types of data being transmitted.
• And finally, token management is needed to make low-priority stations release the
token to high-priority stations.
CONNECTING DEVICES
• We use connecting devices to connect hosts together to make a network or to
connect networks together to make an internet.

• Connecting devices can operate in different layers of the Internet model.

• There are 3 kinds of connecting devices: 1. Hubs, 2. Link‐layer switches, and

[Link].
Hubs
• A hub is a device that operates only in the physical layer.

• Signals that carry information within a network can travel a fixed distance before
attenuation.

• A repeater receives a signal and, before it becomes too weak or corrupted,

regenerates and retimes the original bit pattern and then sends the refreshed signal.

• Hub can be used to serve as the connecting point and at the same time function as a
repeater.

• When a packet from station A to station B arrives at the hub, the hub forwards the
packet to all outgoing ports except the one from which the signal was received.
• Today, Ethernet LANs use star topology.

• In a star topology, a repeater is a multipoint device, often called a hub, that can be
used to serve as the connecting point and at the same time function as a repeater.

• A hub or repeater is a physical layer device. They do not have a link-layer address
and they do no check the link layer address of the received frame. They just
regenerates the corrupted bits and send them out from every port.
Link‐Layer Switches
• A link‐layer switch (or switch) operates in both the physical and the data‐link
layers. As a physical‐ layer device, it regenerates the signal it receives.

• As a link‐layer device, the link‐layer switch can check the MAC addresses (source
and destination) contained in the frame.

• What is the difference in functionality is between a link‐layer switch and a hub.?

• Answer: A link‐layer switch has filtering capability.

• A Link layer switch can check the destination address of a frame and can decide
from which outgoing port the frame should be sent.
Filtering

Figure: Link Layer Switch

• If a frame destined for station 71:2B:13:45:61:42 arrives at port 1,
• The link‐layer switch consults its table to find the departing port.
• According to its table, frames for 71:2B:13:45:61:42 should be sent out only through
port 2;
• Therefore, there is no need for forwarding the frame through other ports.
Transparent Switches
• A transparent switch is a switch in which the stations are completely unaware of the
switch’s existence.
• If a switch is added or deleted from the system, reconfiguration of the stations is
unnecessary.
• According to the IEEE 802.1d specification, a system equipped with transparent
switches must meet three criteria:
• Frames must be forwarded from one station to another.
• The forwarding table is automatically made by learning frame movements in the
network.
• Loops in the system must be prevented.
Learning
• The earliest switches had switching tables that were static. The system
administrator would manually enter each table entry during switch setup.
• Although the process was simple, it was not practical. If a station was added or
deleted, the table had to be modified manually.
• A better solution to the static table is a dynamic table that maps addresses to
ports (interfaces) automatically.
• To make a table dynamic, we need a switch that gradually learns from the
frames movements.
• To do this, the switch inspects both the destination and the source addresses in
each frame that passes through the switch.
• The destination address is used for the forwarding decision (table lookup);the
source address is used for adding entries to the table and for updating purposes.
• When station A sends a frame to station D, the frame goes out from all three ports;
the frame floods the network.
• However, by looking at the source address, the switch learns that station A must be
connected to port1.
• This means that frames destined for A, in the future, must be sent out through port
1.
• The switch adds this entry to its table.
• When station D sends a frame to station B, the switch has no entry for B, it adds one
more entry to the table related to station D.
• The learning process continues until the table has information about every port.
• However, the learning process may take a long time. For example, if a station does
not send out a frame (a rare situation), the station will never have an entry in the
table
Loop Problem
• Transparent switches work fine as long as there are no redundant switches in the
system.

• Systems administrators, however, like to have redundant switches(more than one

switch between a pair of LANs) to make the system more reliable.

• Redundancy can create loops in the system, which is very undesirable. Loops can be
created only when two or more broadcasting LANs (those using hubs, for example)
are connected by more than one switch.
Spanning Tree Algorithm
• To solve the looping problem, the IEEE specification requires that switches use the
spanning tree algorithm to create a loopless topology.

• In a switched LAN, this means creating a topology in which each LAN can be
reached from any other LAN through one path only (noloop).

• To find the spanning tree, we need to assign a cost (metric) to each arc.

• The interpretation of the cost is left up to the systems administrator.

• We have chosen the minimum hops. However, the hop count is normally 1 from a
switch to the LAN and 0 in the reverse direction.
• Steps to find Spanning tree
[Link] switch has a built‐in ID (normally the serial number, which is unique).
Each switch broadcasts this ID so that all switches know which one has the
smallest ID. The switch with the smallest ID is selected as the root switch (root of
the tree). We assume that switch S1 has the smallest ID. It is, therefore, selected
as the root switch.
[Link] algorithm tries to find the shortest path (a path with the shortest cost) from
the root switch to every other switch or LAN. The shortest path can be found by
examining the total cost from the root switch to the destination.
[Link] combination of the shortest paths creates the shortest tree.
[Link] on the spanning tree, we mark the ports that are part of it, the forwarding
ports, which forward a frame that the switch receives. We also mark those ports
that are not part of the spanning tree, the blocking ports, which block the frames
received by the switch
Advantages of Switches
[Link] Elimination: A link‐layer switch eliminates the collision. This means
increasing the average bandwidth available to a host in the network. In a switched
LAN, there is no need for carrier sensing and collision detection; each host can
transmit at any time.

[Link] Heterogeneous Devices: A link‐layer switch can connect devices that

use different protocols at the physical layer and different transmission media.

As long as the format of the frame at the data‐link layer does not change, a switch can
receive a frame from a device that uses twisted‐pair cable and sends data at 10 Mbps
and deliver the frame to another device that uses fiber‐optic cable and can receive data
at 100 Mbps
Routers
• A router is a three‐layer device; it operates in the physical, data‐link, and
network layers.
• As a physical‐layer device, it regenerates the signal it receives. As a
link‐layer device, the router checks the physical addresses (source and
destination) contained in the packet.
• As a network‐layer device, a router checks the network‐layer addresses.
• A router can connect networks. In other words, a router is an
internetworking device; It connects independent networks to form an
internetwork.
Differences between a router and a switch

1.A router has a physical and logical (IP) address for each of its
interfaces.

2.A router acts only on those packets in which the link‐layer destination
address matches the address of the interface at which the packet arrives.

3.A router changes the link‐layer address of the packet (both source and
destination) when it forwards the packet.
VIRTUAL LANs
• A station is considered part of a LAN if it physically belongs to that LAN.
• What happens if we need a virtual connection between two stations belonging to two
different physical LANs? We can roughly define a virtual local area network
(VLAN) as a local area network configured by software, not by physical wiring.

A Switch connecting three LANs

 A Switch using
VLAN software

• The whole idea of VLAN technology is to divide a LAN into logical, instead of physical,
segments.
• A LAN can be divided into several logical LANs, called VLANs. Each VLAN is a work
group in the organization.
• If a person moves from one group to another, there is no need to change the physical
configuration.
• Any station can be logically moved to another VLAN. All members belonging to a VLAN
can receive broadcast messages sent to that particular VLAN.
• VLAN technology even allows the grouping of stations connected to different
switches in a VLAN.

• Stations from switches A and B belong to each VLAN. This is a good configuration
for a company with two separate buildings. Each building can have its own
switched LAN connected by a backbone.

• People in the first building and people in the second building can be in the same
work group even though they are connected to different physical LANs.
Configuration
• How are the stations grouped into different VLANs? Stations are configured in one of three
ways:
[Link] Configuration: In a manual configuration, the network administrator uses the
VLAN software to manually assign the stations into different VLANs at setup. Later
migration from one VLAN to another is also done manually. Note that this is not a physical
configuration; it is a logical configuration. The term manually here means that the
administrator types the port numbers, the IP addresses, or other characteristics, using the
VLAN software.
[Link] Configuration: In an automatic configuration, the stations are automatically
connected or disconnected from a VLAN using criteria defined by the administrator. For
example, the administrator can define the project number as the criterion for being a member
of a group. When a user changes projects, he or she automatically migrates to a new VLAN.
[Link] Configuration: A semiautomatic configuration is somewhere between a
manual configuration and an automatic configuration. Usually, the initializing is done
manually, with migrations done automatically.
Communication between Switches
• In a multi‐switched backbone, each switch must know not only which station
belongs to which VLAN, but also the membership status of stations connected to
other switches.
• Three methods have been devised for this purpose: they are
[Link] Maintenance In this method, when a station sends a broadcast frame to its
group members, the switch creates an a table and records station membership.
The switches send their tables to one another periodically for updating.
[Link] Tagging In this method, when a frame is traveling between switches, an
extra header is added to the MAC frame to define the destination VLAN. The
frame tag is used by the receiving switches to determine the VLANs to be
receiving the broad cast message.
3. Time‐Division Multiplexing (TDM) In this method, the connection between
switches is divided into time‐shared channels. For example, if the total number of
VLANs in a backbone is five, each trunk is divided into five channels. The traffic
destined for VLAN1 travels in channel1,the traffic destined for VLAN 2 travels in
channel 2, and so on. The receiving switch determines the destination VLAN by
checking the channel from which the frame arrived.
Advantages of VLAN
[Link] and Time Reduction VLANs can reduce the migration cost of stations going
from one group to another. Physical reconfiguration takes time and is costly. Instead
of physically moving one station to another segment or even to another switch, it is
much easier and quicker to move it by using software.

[Link] Virtual Work Groups VLANs can be used to create virtual work groups.
For example, in a campus environment, professors working on the same project can
send broadcast messages to one another without the necessity of belonging to the
same department. This can reduce traffic if the multicasting capability of IP was
previously used.

[Link] VLANs provide an extra measure of security. People belonging to the same
group can send broadcast messages with the guaranteed assurance that users in other
groups will not receive these messages.
 Wired LANs: Ethernet
ETHERNET PROTOCOL
• A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that is designed for a
limited geographic area such as a building or a campus.

• Although a LAN can be used as an isolated network to connect computers in

an organization for the sole purpose of sharing resources, most LANs today
are also linked to a wide area network (WAN) or the Internet.

• Almost every LAN except Ethernet has disappeared from the marketplace
because Ethernet was able to update itself to meet the needs of the time.
IEEE Project 802
• In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE started a project, called Project 802, to set
standards to enable intercommunication among equipment from a variety of
manufacturers.
• Project 802 does not seek to replace any part of the OSI model or TCP/IP protocol
suite. Instead, it is a way of specifying functions of the physical layer and the data-
link layer of major LAN protocols.
• The relationship of the 802 Standard to the TCP/IP protocol suite is shown

Figure IEEE
standard for
LANs
The IEEE has subdivided the data-link layer into two sub layers:

1. Logical link control (LLC)

2. Media access control (MAC)

Logical Link Control (LLC)

• In IEEE Project 802, flow control, error control, and part of the framing duties are
collected into one sub layer 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. This means
LLC protocol can provide interconnectivity between different LANs because it makes
the MAC sub layer transparent.
Media Access Control (MAC)

• IEEE Project 802 has created a sublayer called media access control that
defines the specific access method for each LAN. For example, it
defines CSMA/CD as the media access method for Ethernet LANs and
defines the token-passing method for Token Ring and Token Bus LANs.

• Part of the framing function is also handled by the MAC layer.

Ethernet Evolution
The Ethernet LAN was developed in the 1970s by Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs.
The four generations of Ethernet are :
[Link] Ethernet (10 Mbps)
[Link] Ethernet (100 Mbps)
[Link] Ethernet (1 Gbps) and
4.10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gbps)

Figure: Ethernet
evolution through
four generations
STANDARD ETHERNET
Let us discuss some characteristics of the standard Ethernet.
1. Connectionless and Unreliable Service
• Ethernet provides a connectionless service, which 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, 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, it will not know
about it either.
• 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.
2. Frame Format
The Ethernet frame contains seven fields, as shown in Figure
• Preamble. This field contains 7 bytes (56 bits) of alternating 0s and 1s
that alert the receiving system to the coming frame and 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. The preamble is actually
added at the physical layer and is not part of the frame.
• Start frame delimiter (SFD). This field (1 byte: 10101011) signals the
beginning of the frame. 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. This field is actually
a flag that defines the beginning of the frame, an Ethernet frame is a
variable-length frame. It needs a flag to define the beginning of the frame.
The SFD field is also added at the physical layer.
• Destination address (DA). This field is six bytes (48 bits) and contains the link layer
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 upper layer protocol defined by the value of the type field.

• Source address (SA). This field is also six bytes and contains the link-layer address of
the sender of the packet.

• Type. This field defines the upper-layer protocol whose packet is encapsulated in the
frame. This protocol can be IP, ARP, and so on. In other words, it serves the same
purpose as the protocol field in a datagram and the port number in a segment or user
datagram. It is used for multiplexing and demultiplexing.
• Data. This field carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols. It is a
minimum of 46 bytes 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), which 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.
• CRC. The last field 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.
3. 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 needs to have a minimum length of 512 bits or 64
bytes. Part of this length is the header and the trailer.
• If we count 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.
• 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.
NOTE:
• Minimum frame length: 64 bytes
• Maximum frame length: 1518 bytes
• Minimum data length: 46 bytes
• Maximum data length: 1500 bytes
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. For example, the following shows an Ethernet MAC
address:
4A:30:10:21:10:1A
Transmission of Address Bits
• The way the addresses are sent out online is different from the way they are written
in hexadecimal notation.
• The transmission is left to right, byte by byte; however, for each byte, the least
significant bit is sent first and the most significant bit is sent last.
• This means that the bit that defines an address as unicast or multicast arrives first at
the receiver. This helps the receiver to immediately know if the packet is unicast or
multicast.
Example
Show how the address 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE is sent out online. Solution:
The address is sent left to right, byte by byte; for each byte, it is sent right
to left, bit by bit, as shown below
Unicast, Multicast, and Broadcast Addresses
• A source address is always a unicast address, the frame comes from only one
station. The destination address, however, 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.
• With the way the bits are transmitted, the unicast/multicast bit is the first bit
which is transmitted or received.
• 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.
Example
Define the type of the following destination addresses
a.4A:30:10:21:10:1A
b.47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
[Link]: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. 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. Therefore, we have the
following:
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.
Efficiency of Standard Ethernet
• The efficiency of the Ethernet is defined as the ratio of the time used by a station to
send data to the time the medium is occupied by this station. The practical efficiency
of standard Ethernet has been measured to be,
𝟏
𝑬𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 =
(𝟏 + 𝟔. 𝟒𝑿𝒂)

• a= the number of frames that can fit on the medium.

• a= (propagation delay/transmission delay)
• The transmission delay is the time it takes a frame of average size to be sent out and
the propagation delay is the time it takes to reach the end of the medium. As the
value of parameter decreases, the efficiency increases. This means that if the length
of the media is shorter or the frame size longer, the efficiency increases. In the ideal
case, a= 0 and the efficiency is 1.
Example
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.
Solution:

The example shows that a = 0.24, which means 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.
Implementation
The Standard Ethernet defined several implementations, but only four of them
became popular during the 1980s. Table below shows a summary of Standard
Ethernet implementations.

In the nomenclature 10BaseX, the number defines the data rate (10 Mbps), the term
Base means baseband (digital) signal, and X approximately defines either the
maximum size of the cable in 100 meters (for example 5 for 500 or 2 for 185
meters) or the type of cable, T for unshielded twisted pair cable (UTP) and F for
fiber-optic. The standard Ethernet uses a baseband signal, which means that the bits
are changed to a digital signal and directly sent on the line.
Encoding and Decoding
All standard implementations use digital signalling (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.
10Base5: Thick Ethernet
The first implementation is called 10Base5, thick Ethernet, or Thicknet. The nickname
derives from the size of the cable, which 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.
• The transceiver is responsible for transmitting, receiving, and detecting
collisions. The transceiver is connected to the station via a transceiver cable that
provides separate paths for sending and receiving.

• This means that 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.
10Base2: Thin Ethernet
• The second implementation is called 10Base2, thin Ethernet, or Cheapernet. 10Base2
also uses a bus topology, but the cable is much thinner and more flexible.
• In this case, the transceiver is normally part of the network interface card (NIC),
which is installed inside the station.
• The collision here occurs in the thin coaxial cable. This implementation
is 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.
10Base-T: Twisted-Pair Ethernet
• The third implementation is called 10Base-T or twisted-pair Ethernet. 10Base-
T uses a physical star topology. The stations are connected to a hub via two
pairs of twisted cable

• Two pairs of twisted cable create two paths (one for sending and one for
receiving) between the station and the hub.
• The maximum length of the twisted cable here is defined as 100 m, to
minimize the effect of attenuation in the twisted cable.
10Base-F: Fiber Ethernet
Although there are several types of optical fibre 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 fibre-optic cables.
Wireless LANs
• Wireless communication is one of the fastest‐growing technologies. The demand for
connecting devices without the use of cables is increasing everywhere.
• Wireless LANs can be found on college campuses, in office buildings, and in many
public areas.
Architectural Comparison
1. Medium
2. Hosts
• In a wireless LAN, the medium is air, the signal is generally broadcast. When
hosts in a wireless LAN communicate with each other, they are sharing the same
medium (multiple access).
• In a very rare situation, we may be able to create a point‐to‐point communication
between two wireless hosts by using a very limited bandwidth and two‐directional
antennas
2. Hosts
• In a wired LAN, a host is always connected to its network at a point with a fixed link
layer address related to its network interface card (NIC).Of course, a host can move
from one point in the Internet to another point.

• In this case, its link‐layer address remains the same, but its network‐layer address
will change.

• However, before the host can use the services of the Internet, it needs to be physically
connected to the Internet.

• In a wireless LAN, a host is not physically connected to the network; it can move
freely and can use the services provided by the network.
3. Isolated LANs
• A wired isolated LAN is a set of hosts connected via a link‐layer switch.
• A wireless isolated LAN, called an ad hoc network in wireless LAN terminology, is a
set of hosts that communicate freely with each other.
• The concept of a link‐layer switch does not exist in wireless LANs.
4. Connection to Other Networks
• A wired LAN can be connected to another network or an internetwork
such as the Internet using a router.
• A wireless LAN may be connected to a wired infrastructure network, to
a wireless infrastructure network, or to another wireless LAN.
5. Moving between Environments
• In order to move from the wired environment to a wireless environment we need
to change the network interface cards designed for wired environments to the
ones designed for wireless environments.

• We replace the link‐layer switch with an access point. In this change, the
link‐layer addresses will change but the network‐layer addresses (IP addresses)
will remain the same; we are moving from wired links to wireless links.
Access Control
The most important issue we need to discuss in a wireless LAN is access control.
The CSMA/CD algorithm does not work in wireless LANs for three reasons:

1. To detect a collision, a host needs to send and receive at the same time (sending
the frame and receiving the collision signal), which means the host needs to
work in a duplex mode. Wireless hosts do not have enough power to do so (the
power is supplied by batteries). They can only send or receive at onetime.
2. Hidden station problem, In this a station may not be aware of another station’s
transmission due to some obstacles or range problems, collision may occur but not
be detected. Hidden stations can reduce the capacity of the network because of the
possibility of collision.

3. Since the distance between stations can be great. Signal fading could prevent a
station at one end from hearing a collision at the other end.
• To overcome the above three problems, Carrier Sense Multiple Access with
Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) was invented for wireless LANs.