Tutorial 1
1. Describe the most commonly used transmission media.
a. Twisted pair
b. Coaxial cable
c. Optical fiber
d. Terrestrial and satellite microwave
• Guided media, which are those that provide a conduit from one device to another, include twisted-pair cable,
coaxial cable, and fiber-optic cable.
• Unguided media transport electromagnetic waves without using a physical conductor. This type of communication
is often referred to as wireless communication.
Coaxial cable
Fiber construction
Optical fiber
Reference: Data Communications and Networking · Forouzan
Tutorial 1 Propagation methods
Electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communication
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Tutorial 1
2. State the differences in LAN’s and WAN’s
LANs WANs
Geographically smaller area (Building, office) Larger geographic area (relies on a common carrier)
Usually owned by the same organization than owns the Significant fraction of the network is not owned by the
devices organization that owns the devices.
Much higher data rates Relatively less.
Switched LANs, ATM LANs, channel LANs. Circuit switched, Fiber, Packet switched, Frame
relay, ATM.
An isolated LAN connecting 12 computers to a hub in a closet WANs: a switched WAN and a point-to-point WAN
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A heterogeneous network made of four WANs and two LANs
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3. Describe circuit switching, packet switching and the reasoning behind the evolution of Frame Relay and ATM.
Circuit switching
• Dedicated communication path exists
• Connected sequence of physical links between the nodes.
In circuit switching, the resources need to be reserved during the setup phase; the resources remain dedicated for the
entire duration of data transfer until the teardown phase.
Reference: Data Communications and Networking · Forouzan
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Packet switching
• Data is sent out in small chunks called packets.
• Packet is received, stored briefly, and transmitted
• No guaranteed data rates.
• In a packet‐switched network, there is no resource reservation; resources are allocated on demand.
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Frame Relay
• As the communication channels became more and more reliable, the error detection and correction bits became
unnecessary. The remaining error can be dealt by levels above the packet switching logic( TCP layer). Frame relay
reduces this overhead from packet switching.
• Variable length Frame, 64kbps ‐ 2Mbps
• Frame Relay does not provide flow or error control; they must be provided by the upper‐layer protocols.
Frame Relay frame
Frame Relay network
Multiplexing using different frame sizes
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ATM
• Culmination of Circuit switching and Packet switching.
• Fixed length cell – reduced processing overheads ‐ 10‐ 100Mbps.
• Implementation of Virtual Circuits ‐ Data rates are dynamically defined at the time of the creation of VC(Circuit
switching!)
• A cell network uses the cell as the basic unit of data exchange. A cell is defined as a small, fixed‐size block of
information.
ATM multiplexing
Reference: Data Communications and Networking · Forouzan
Tutorial 1
4. Explain Internetworking using the following acronyms: CPE, POP, ISP, LP, CO, NAP, NSP.
CPE Customer premises equipment‐
Home user ‐56‐kbps modem
POP point of presence
ISP Internet Service Provider
LP Local Loop
CO Central Office
NAP Network Access Point
NSP Network Service Proivder
Internet Terminology
Telecommunications equipment that is located on the customer’s premises (physical location) rather than on the
Customer provider’s premises or in between. Telephone handsets, modems, cable TV set‐top boxes, and digital subscriber line
CPE premises routers are examples. Historically, this term referred to equipment placed at the customer’s end of the telephone line
equipment and usually owned by the telephone company. Today, almost any end‐user equipment can be called customer premises
equipment and it can be owned by the customer or by the provider.
A site that has a collection of telecommunications equipment, usually refers to ISP or telephone company sites. An ISP
POP is the edge of the ISP’s network; connections from users are accepted and authenticated here. An Internet access
point of
POP provider may operate several POPs distributed throughout its area of operation to increase the chance that their
presence
subscribers will be able to reach one with a local telephone call. The largest national ISPs have POPs all over the
country.
A company that provides other companies or individuals with access to, or presence on, the Internet. An ISP has the
Internet Service equipment and the telecommunication line access required to have a POP on the Internet for the geographic area
ISP
Provider served. The larger ISPs have their own high‐speed leased lines so that they are less dependent on the
telecommunication providers and can provide better service to their customers.
The CPE is physically attached to the “local loop”. The term local loop refers to the path from the home to the CO or
LP Local Loop
cable facility
The place where telephone companies terminate customer lines and locate switching equipment to interconnect those
CO Central Office
lines with other networks.
In the United States, a network access point (NAP) is one of several major Internet interconnection points that serve to
Network Access tie all the ISPs together. The NAPs provide major switching facilities that serve the public in general. Companies apply to
NAP
Point use the NAP facilities. Much Internet traffic is handled without involving NAPs, using peering arrangements and
interconnections within geographic regions.
Network Service A company that provides backbone services to an Internet service provider (ISP).Typically, an ISP connects at a point
NSP
Proivder called an Internet exchange (IX) to a regional ISP that in turn connects to an NSP backbone.
The CPE is physically attached to the “local loop” or “last mile. "This is the infrastructure between a provider’s installation and the site where the host is located. For
example, a home user with a 56K modem attaches the modem to the telephone line. The telephone line is typically a pair of copper wires that runs from the house to a central
office (CO) owned and operated by the telephone company. In this instance the local loop is the pair of copper wires running between the home and the CO.
If the home user has a cable modem, the local loop is the coaxial cable that runs from the home to the cable company facilities. The preceding examples are a bit of an
oversimplification, but they suffice for this discussion. In many cases the wires that leave a home are aggregated with wires from other homes and then converted to a
different media such as fiber. In these cases the term local loop still refers to the path from the home to the CO or cable facility. The local loop provider is not necessarily the
ISP. In many cases the local loop provider is the telephone company and the ISP is a large, national service organization. Often, however, the local loop provider is also the
ISP. The ISP provides access to its larger network through a POP. A POP is simply a facility where customers can connect to the ISP network. The facility is sometimes
owned by the ISP, but often the ISP leases space from the local loop carrier. A POP can be as simple as a bank of modems and an access server installed in a rack at the CO.
The POPs are usually spread out over the geographic area where the provider offers service. The ISP acts as a gateway to the Internet, providing many important services. For
most home users, the ISP provides the unique numeric IP address needed to communicate with other Internet hosts. Most ISPs also provide name resolution and other
essential network services. The most important service an ISP provides, hough, is access to other ISP networks. Access is facilitated by formal peering agreements between
providers. Physical access can be implemented by connecting POPs from different ISPs. This can be done directly with a local connection if the POPs are collocated or with
leased lines when the POPs are not collocated. A more commonly used mechanism is the network access point (NAP).
A NAP is a physical facility that provides the infrastructure to move data between connected networks. In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF)
privatization plan called for the creation of four [Link] NAPs were built and are operated by the private [Link] number of NAPs has grown significantly over the
years, and the technology employed has shifted from Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) and Ethernet to ATM and Gigabit Ethernet. Most NAPs today have an ATM
core. The networks connected at a NAP are owned and operated by network service providers (NSPs). A NSP can also be an ISP but this is not always the case. Peering
agreements are between NSPs and do not include the NAP operator. The NSPs install routers at the NAP and connect them to the NAP infrastructure. The NSP equipment is
responsible for routing, and the NAP infrastructure provides the physical access paths between routers.
Data and Computer Communication, William Stallings, Chapter 1
Hierarchical organization of the Internet
• Telephone networks use circuit switching. The telephone network had its
beginnings in the late 1800s. The entire network, which is referred to as
the plain old telephone system (POTS), was originally an analog system
using analog signals to transmit voice.
• The tasks of data transfer and signaling are separated in modern
telephone networks: data transfer is done by one network, signaling by
another.
• Dial Up Modems: Traditional telephone lines can carry frequencies
between 300 and 3300 Hz, giving them a bandwidth of 3000 Hz. All this
range is used for transmitting voice, where a great deal of interference
and distortion can be accepted without loss of intelligibility.
Modulation/demodulation
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Tutorial 2
5. What is a “protocol”?
• Protocol is a set of rules or conventions used for peer layers to communicate.
A three-layer protocol
A single-layer protocol
1. Message. The message is the information (data) to be communicated. Popular forms of information include
text, numbers, pictures, audio, and video.
2. Sender. The sender is the device that sends the data message. It can be a computer, workstation,
telephone handset, video camera, and so on.
3. Receiver. The receiver is the device that receives the message. It can be a computer, workstation, telephone handset,
television, and so on.
4. Transmission medium. The transmission medium is the physical path by which a message travels from sender to
receiver. Some examples of transmission media include twisted‐pair wire, coaxial cable, fiber‐optic cable, and radio
waves.
5. Protocol. A protocol is a set of rules that govern data communications. It represents an agreement between the
communicating devices. Without a protocol, two devices may be connected but not communicating, just as a person
speaking French cannot be understood by a person who speaks only Japanese.
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Tutorial 2
6. What are the key elements in a protocol?
• Syntax, Semantics, timing
Syntax Concerns the format of the data blocks
Semantics Includes control information for coordination and error handling
timing Includes speed matching and sequencing
7. What are the layers in the TCP/IP protocol?
• Application layer Relationship of layers and addresses in TCP/IP
• Host‐to‐host, or transport layer (TCP layer)
• Internet layer
• Network access layer (Data Link in OSI)
• Physical layer
Communication through an internet Reference: Data Communications and Networking · Forouzan
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The layers in the TCP/IP protocol suite do
not exactly match those in the OSI model. TCP/IP and OSI model
The original TCP/IP protocol suite was
defined as having four layers: host‐to‐
network, internet, transport, and
application. However, when TCP/IP is
compared to OSI, we can say that the
TCP/IP protocol suite is made of five
layers: physical, data link, network,
transport, and application.
Reference: Data Communications and Networking · Forouzan
Tutorial 2
8. Why ATM can afford to reduce the burden in error detection?
1) Modern Communication mediums are reliable.
2) The remaining error detection and error correction is handled by the TCP layer
9. What is UDP and what are its disadvantages?
• UDP is an alternative to TCP
• The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is called a connectionless, unreliable transport protocol. It does not add anything
to the services of IP except to provide process-to-process communication instead of host-to-host communication.
• TCP is a connection-oriented protocol; it creates a virtual connection between two TCPs to send data. In addition, TCP
uses flow and error control mechanisms at the transport level.
Disadvantages: Advantages:
• No guaranteed delivery – No acknowledgment field • Minimum overheads
• no preservation of sequence – no sequence field • Adds port addressing to IP
User datagram format
UDP length = IP length – IP header’s length
Reference: Data Communications and Networking · Forouzan
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Well-known ports used with UDP Well-known ports used by TCP
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10. What is IPv6 and what is the major difference to its predecessor?
• IPv6 is the standard for the next generation of IP.
• The major different to IP is this is 128bit addressing (source and destination) as opposed to IP’s 32 bit.
• An IPv6 address is 128 bits or 16 bytes (octets) long, four times the address length in IPv4.
IPv6 datagram
IPv4 datagram format
Tutorial 2
11. Name three TCP/IP applications.
FTP File Transfer Protocol is used to send files from one system to another under user
command.
SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol provides a basic electronic mail transport facility.
TELNET Terminal Network provides a remote logon capability, which enables a user at a
terminal or personal computer to logon to a remote computer and
function as if directly connected to that computer.
12. State the basic functionality of a layer in a layered architecture? (Chapter 2.4‐ William Stallings)
• Services to upper layers
• Services from lower layers
• Protocol with peer layers.
13. What layer in TCP/IP provides similar functionality to DLL(Data Link Layer) in OSI model?
• Network Access.
Tutorial 2
14. What is elastic and inelastic traffic, and give some examples?
• Elastic: Susceptible to delay and throughput over a wider range i.e mail,
• Inelastic: Not adjustable to changes in delay and throughput. Need to satisfy minimum requirements in the
network architecture. i.e Real time audio and video.
Elastic traffic can adjust, over wide ranges, to changes in delay and throughput across an internet and still meet the
needs of its applications. This is the traditional type of traffic supported on TCP/IP‐based internets and is the type of
traffic for which internets were designed. With TCP, traffic on individual connections adjusts to congestion by reducing
the rate at which data are presented to the network.
Elastic applications include common Internet‐based applications, such as file transfer, electronic mail, remote logon,
network management, and Web access. But there are differences among the requirements of these applications. For
example,
• E‐mail is generally quite insensitive to changes in delay.
• When file transfer is done online, as it frequently is, the user expects the delay to be proportional to the file size and
so is sensitive to changes in throughput.
• With network management, delay is generally not a serious concern. However, if failures in an internet are the cause
of congestion, then the need for network management messages to get through with minimum delay increases with
increased congestion.
• Interactive applications, such as remote logon and Web access, are quite sensitive to delay.
Tutorial 2
14. What is elastic and inelastic traffic, and give some examples?
• Elastic: Susceptible to delay and throughput over a wider range i.e mail,
• Inelastic: Not adjustable to changes in delay and throughput. Need to satisfy minimum requirements in the
network architecture. i.e Real time audio and video.
Inelastic traffic does not easily adapt, if at all, to changes in delay and throughput across an internet. The prime example
is real‐time traffic, such as voice and [Link] requirements for inelastic traffic may include the following:
• Throughput: A minimum throughput value may be required. Unlike most elastic traffic, which can continue to
deliver data with perhaps degraded service, many inelastic applications require a firm minimum throughput.
• Delay: An example of a delay‐sensitive application is stock trading; someone who consistently receives later
service will consistently act later, and with greater disadvantage.
• Delay variation: The larger the allowable delay, the longer the real delay in delivering the data and the greater
the size of the delay buffer required at receivers. Real‐time interactive applications, such as teleconferencing,
may require a reasonable upper bound on delay variation.
• Packet loss: Real‐time applications vary in the amount of packet loss, if any, that they can sustain.
These requirements are difficult to meet in an environment with variable queuing delays and congestion
losses. Accordingly, inelastic traffic introduces two new requirements into the internet architecture. First, some
means is needed to give preferential treatment to applications with more demanding requirements.
Applications need to be able to state their requirements, either ahead of time in some sort of service request
function, or on the fly, by means of fields in the IP packet header. A second requirement in supporting inelastic
traffic in an internet architecture is that elastic traffic must still be supported.
Tutorial 2
15. In the figure below, exactly one protocol data unit (PDU) is layer N is encapsulated in a PDU at layer N‐1. (Here, layers
are counted from the bottom. i.e Layer N is above layer N‐1.) It is also possible to break one N‐level PDU into
multiple N‐1 level PDU’s (segmentation) or to group multiple N‐level PDU’s into one N‐1 level PDU(blocking)
a. In the case of Segmentation, is it necessary that each
N‐1 level segment contains a copy of the N‐level
header?
• No. This would violate the principle of separation
of layers. To layer (N– 1), the N‐level PDU is
simply data. The (N – 1) entity does not know
about the internal format of the N‐level PDU. It
breaks that PDU into fragments and reassembles
them in the proper order.
b. In the case of blocking, is it necessary that each N‐
level PDU retains it own header, or can the data be
considered into a single N‐level PDU with a single N‐level
header?
• Each N‐level PDU must retain its own header, for
the same reason given in (a).
Tutorial 2
16. What are the tasks performed by the transport layer?
• The transport layer is concerned with data reliability and correct sequencing.
17. What is the major function of the network access layer?
• The network access layer is concerned with the exchange of data between a computer and the network to which
it is attached.
• The network access layer is concerned with the exchange of data between an end system (server, workstation, etc.)
and the network to which it is attached. The sending computer must provide the network with the address of the
destination computer, so that the network may route the data to the appropriate destination. The sending computer
may wish to invoke certain services, such as priority, that might be provided by the [Link] specific software
used at this layer depends on the type of network to be used; different standards have been developed for circuit
switching, packet switching (e.g., frame relay), LANs (e.g., Ethernet), and others. Thus it makes sense to separate
those functions having to do with network access into a separate layer. By doing this, the remainder of the
communications software, above the network access layer, need not be concerned about the specifics of the network
to be used. The same higher‐layer software should function properly regardless of the particular network to which
the computer is attached.
• The network access layer is concerned with access to and routing data across a network for two end systems attached
to the same network. In those cases where two devices are attached to different networks, procedures are needed to
allow data to traverse multiple interconnected networks.