Chapter 5

WAN Technologies and Switched Networks

January 2, 2020

By Lake F.
Introduction
2

What is WAN?
 A WAN is a data communication network that operates

beyond the geographic scope of a LAN.

 When we need access other remote networks, connect two

LANs together, we need a WAN (Wide Area Network).

 WANs cover large geographical areas. This could be a

network between two cities or as large as the Internet.

By Lake F.
Cont’
3
Sample WAN-diagram

By Lake F.
Cont’
4

 Communication networks can be classified based on the way

in which the nodes exchange information:

Communication
Network

Switched
Communication Network
Broadcast
Communication
Network
Circuit-Switched Packet-Switched
Communication Communication
Network Network

Datagram Virtual Circuit

Network Network

By Lake F.
Cont’
5

Broadcast networks Switched networks

 Information transmitted by any  Links are point-to-point
node is received by every node
Example:
in the network.
 WANs (Telephony Network,
Example:
Internet).
 Broadcast Ethernet, wireless
 Routing becomes harder
LANs.
 Need to coordinate the access to
the shared medium.

By Lake F.
 Switched Communication Networks
6

 Whenever we have multiple devices, we have the problem of:

 How to connect devices to make one-to-one communication

is possible.

● One solution is to make a point-to-point connection between

each pair of devices (a mesh topology) or between a central

device and every other device (a star topology).

 But these solution is impractical and wasteful when applied

to very large networks.

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Cont’
7

● We know that the number and length of the links require too

much infrastructure to be cost-efficient.

● Multipoint connections, such as a bus, are not good because

the distances between devices and the total number of

devices increase beyond the capacities of the media and
equipment.

 A better solution is Switching.

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Cont’
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● A switched network consists of a series of interlinked nodes,

called switches.

● In a switched network, some of the nodes are connected to

the end systems. Others are used only for routing.

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Cont’
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Switched networks

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Cont’
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● The end systems are labeled as A, B, C, D, and so on,

and the switches are labeled I, II, III, IV, and V.

● Each switch is connected to multiple links.

● Three methods of switching have been implemented:

 Circuit switching
Commonly used today
 Packet switching

 Message switching
By Lake F.
Circuit Switching
11

● Circuit switching is a technique that directly connects the

sender and the receiver through uninterrupted path.

● In a circuit-switched network, a dedicated communications

path is established between two stations through the nodes

of the network.

● Once a connection is established, a dedicated path exists

between both ends until the connection is terminated.

By Lake F.
Cont’
12

● Data generated by the source station are transmitted along

the dedicated path as rapidly as possible.

● At each node, incoming data are routed or switched to

the appropriate outgoing channel without delay.

● The most common example of circuit switching is the

telephone network.

By Lake F.
Cont’
11

 A circuit-switched communication system involves three

phases:
• Circuit establishment phase: setting up dedicated links
between the source and destination.
• Data transfer phase: transmitting the data between the
source and destination.
• Circuit disconnect phase: removing the dedicated links.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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• Each link/channel is divided into n (n is 3 in the below

figure) channels by using FDM or TDM.

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Cont’
15

• The end systems, such as computers or telephones, are

directly connected to the switch.
• For simplicity, in the above figure, there are two end
systems.
 When end system A needs to communicate with end
system M, A needs to request a connection to M that must
be accepted by all switches as well as by M itself.
 This is called the setup phase

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Cont’
14

• A circuit (channel) is reserved on each link, and the

combination of circuits or channel defines the dedicated
path.
• After the dedicated path made of connected circuits
(channels) is established, data transfer can take place.
• After all data have been transferred, the circuits are
disconnected.

By Lake F.
Cont’
17

Advantages
• Since it has less delay for the call to be established, it is widely
used for real-time voice services.
• Once the connection is established between two parties, it will
be available till end of the conversation.
• Unlike packet switched network, no loss of packets or out of
order packets because this is connection oriented network.
• As there is no header requirement, there is low overhead.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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Disadvantages
• More expensive than any other switching techniques.
• Inefficient in terms of resource utilization (eg. Bandwidth
and channel).
• As it is designed for voice traffic, it is not suitable for data
transmission.

By Lake F.
 …
17

Note:
 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.
 Switching at the physical layer in the traditional telephone
network uses the circuit-switching approach.

By Lake F.
Packet Switching
20

• Packet switching is a method for sending data whereby the

data is divided into packets.

• Each packet is given a header containing information of the

destination and each packet is forwarded through the network

to the destination.

• At the destination, the data has to be collected from the

received packages.

• In packet switching, there is no resource allocation for a packet.

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Cont’
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How packet switching works?

 Breaks data into a number of partitions that are packaged in

specially formatted units called packets.

 These are typically routed from the source to the destination

using network switches and routers.

 Then the data is reassembled at the destination.

 Each packet contains address information that identifies the

sending computer and intended recipient.

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Cont’
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 Using these addresses, network switches and routers

determine how best to transfer the packet between hops on

the path to its destination.

 There are two common packet switching methods in use:

 Datagram Packet Switching

 Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

By Lake F.
Datagram Packet switching
23

 Each packet is forwarded independently based on the

destination address.

 Routing decisions are made dynamically, so each packet

may follow a different route and thus the packages may

arrive out of order.

 Resources are allocated on demand using first come, first-

served (FCFS) approach.

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Cont’
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 If the message is going to pass through a packet-switched

network, it needs to be divided into packets of fixed or

variable size.

● When a switch receives a packet, no matter what is the source

or destination, the packet must wait if there are other packets

being processed.

● Datagram switching is normally done at the network layer.

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Cont’
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Datagram network-diagram

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Cont’
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 From the figure, all four datagrams belong to the same

message, but may travel different paths to reach their destination.

 This is because the links may be involved in carrying packets

from other sources and do not have the necessary bandwidth

available to carry all the packets from A to X.

 This approach can cause the datagrams of a transmission to

arrive at their destination out of order.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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 The datagram networks are sometimes referred to as

connectionless networks.

 Here, the term connectionless means the switch does not

keep information about the connection state.

 In datagram networks, there are no setup or teardown

phases.

By Lake F.
Virtual-circuit Packet Switching
28
• Virtual Circuits are computer networks that provide
connection-oriented services.
• A route is set up prior to packets being sent. The packets will
follow this route.
• This makes the routing through the network very easy and
the packages will be received in the correct order.
• A virtual-circuit has the characteristics of both switched
network and datagram network.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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Virtual-circuit Packet Switching: diagram

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 …
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Note:
 In virtual-circuit switching, all packets belonging to the
same source and destination travel the same path; but the
packets may arrive at the destination with different delays
if resource allocation is on demand.

By Lake F.
 Cont’
31

Datagram Packet Switching Virtual Circuit Packet Switching

 Connection-less  Connection oriented

 No fixed path for transmitting  Uses fixed path for particular

data session
 Every packet is free to choose  All packets follow same path
any path  Data packets reach the
 Data packets reach the destination in order
destination in random order  Reliable but expensive
 Cost efficient but not reliable

By Lake F.
Packet switching- Advantages
32

• Packet switching is cost effective, because switching

devices do not need massive amount of secondary storage.
• Packet switching offers improved delay because there
are no long messages in the queue.
• Packet can be rerouted if there is any problem, such as,
busy or disabled links.
• Many network users can share the same channel at the
same time.

By Lake F.
Packet switching- Disadvantages
33

• Protocols for packet switching are more complex.

• If packet is lost, sender needs to retransmit the
data(delay).
• Packet-switched systems still can’t deliver the same quality
as dedicated circuits in applications requiring very little
delay (like voice conversations or moving images).

By Lake F.
Circuit Switching Vs Packet Switching
34

Circuit switching Packet switching

 Physical path between  No physical path
sources and destination  Packets transfer
 All packets use same path independently
 Reserve all bandwidth  Does not reserve bandwidth

 Bandwidth wastage  No bandwidth wastage

 No forward and store  Store and forward

transmission transmission
By Lake F.
WAN Technology-continued
35

 WAN uses the different technology and protocols for

connectivity over the longer distances:

 ATM

 Frame Relay

 ISDN

 X.25

…etc.

By Lake F.
 Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
36

 ATM is a technology that is capable of transferring voice,

video, and data through private and public networks.

 It is built on a cell-based architecture rather than on a frame-

based architecture.

 ATM is a connection-oriented, high-speed, low-delay

switching and transmission technology that uses short and

fixed-size packets (called cells) to transport information.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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 Video and voice traffic do not have to wait for a larger data

packet to be transmitted.

 ATM cells are always a fixed length of 53 bytes.

 The 53 byte ATM cell contains a 5 byte ATM header followed

by 48 bytes of ATM payload.

5 octets 48 octets

Header Information

53 octets
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Cont’
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 ATM combines the benefits of both circuit switching (low

and constant delay, guaranteed capacity) and packet

switching (flexibility, efficiency for bursty traffic) to
support the transmission of multimedia traffic such as voice,
video, image, and data over the same network.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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Why ATM ?

 It is an international standard-based technology (for

interoperability).

 It has low network latency (for voice, video, and real-time

applications).

 Low variance of delay (for voice and video transmission).

 Guaranteed quality of service.

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Cont’
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 Bandwidth flexibility (dynamically assigned to users).

 Scalability (capacity may be increased on demand).

 Supports a wide range of user access speeds .

 Appropriate for LANs, MANs, and WANs.

 Supports audio, video, image, and data traffic (for

integrated services).

By Lake F.
X.25
41

 X.25 was the first packet switching interface that

designed to provide a low cost alternative for data

communication over public networks.

 X.25 was designed for use over less reliable transmission

medium than what is available in the marketplace today.

 It can support speeds of 9.6 Kbps to 2 Mbps.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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 Due to this unreliable nature, X.25 took on the error

detection and correction (windowing and retransmission)

mechanisms within the protocol stack.

 This resulted in higher overhead on the network, yielding

less available bandwidth for data throughput.

 X.25 is used universally for interfacing to packet switched

networks.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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X.25 Devices
 Data Terminal Equipment (DTE)

 Personal computers and network hosts.

 Located on premises of subscriber.
 Data Circuit-terminating Equipment (DCE)

 Modems and packet switches.

 Usually located at carrier facility.
 Packet Switching Exchange (PSE)

 Switches that make up the carrier network.

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 Cont’
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Sample X.25 Network

X.25
PSE WAN PSE

Modem Personal Computer

DCE DTE

Terminal Modem
DTE DCE

Modem
PSE PSE
DCE

Server
DTE

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Cont’
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X.25-architecture

 The physical layer consists of the various electrical interfaces

which allow a device to connect to the network.

 At the data link layer the LAPB (Link Access Protocol -

Balanced) is an implementation of the ISO HDLC (High-

level Data Link Control) bit-oriented protocol.

 This layer performs link setup and disconnect, error control

and data flow control.

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Cont’
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 In X.25, a DTE connects to another DTE via DCEs and

intermediary packet switches (PSEs).

 A X.25 network is the ability of each DTE to multiplex up to

4096 logical connections.

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Cont’
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X.25 key features

 Flow and error control use in Layer 2 & and Layer 3.

 Multiplexing virtual circuits in Layer 3.

 Call control packets are on the same channel as data

packets.

 Node to node technology and has considerable overhead.

By Lake F.
Frame Relay
48

 Frame Relay is a packet-switched technology, enabling

end nodes to dynamically share network resources.

 Frame Relay is a high-performance WAN protocol that

operates at the physical and Data Link layers of the OSI

reference model.

 Frame Relay is considered to be a more efficient version of

X.25 because it does not require the windowing and

retransmission features found with X.25.

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Cont’
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 This is primarily due to the fact that Frame Relay

services typically are carried by more reliable access

and backbone facilities.

 X.25 has several disadvantages so frame relay was

invented.

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Cont’
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Frame Relay features:

 Operates at a higher speed.

 It allows a frame size of 9000 bytes, which can

accommodate all local- area network frame sizes.

 It is less expensive than other traditional WANs.

 Frame Relay has error detection at the data link layer

only.

By Lake F.
Cont’
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Frame Relay Devices

 Data Terminal Equipment (DTE)

 Terminal, Personal Computers, routers, and bridges.

 Typically at the customer location.

 Data Circuit-terminating Equipment (DCE)

 Typically packet switches owned by the carrier that

transmit data through the WAN.

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Cont’
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Sample Frame Relay Network

Packet Switch Packet Switch

DCE DCE

Personal Computer
DTE
Terminal
DTE
Frame Relay
WAN

Packet Switch Packet Switch

DCE DCE
Network Host
DTE

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Cont’
53

Frame Relay Operation:

 When carriers use Frame Relay to interconnect LANs, a router on
each LAN is the DTE.
 A serial connection connects the router to the Frame Relay switch
of the carrier at the nearest point-of presence(POP) for the
carrier.
 The Frame Relay switch is a DCE device.

 Network switches move frames from one DTE across the network
and deliver frames to other DTEs by way of DCEs.

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Cont’
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Frame Relay Layers

 Frame Relay operates at the physical layer and the Data link

layer.

 Physical Layer: No specific protocol is defined for the

physical layer in Frame Relay. Instead, it is left to the

implementer to use whatever is available.

 Data Link Layer: At the data link layer, Frame Relay uses a

simple protocol that does not support flow or error control.

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Cont’
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Frame-relay frame format

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Cont’
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Data link connection identifier (DLCI):

 The first 6 bits of the first byte makes up the first part of the
DLCI.
 The second part of the DLCI uses the first 4 bits of the
second byte.
Command/response (C/R):
 The command/response (C/R) bit is provided to allow upper
layers to identify a frame as either a command or a
response.
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Cont’
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Extended address (EA):

 The extended address (EA) bit indicates whether the current
byte is the final byte of the address.
Forward explicit congestion notification (FECN):
 This bit informs the destination that congestion has occurred.

Backward explicit congestion notification (BECN):

 This bit informs the sender that congestion has occurred

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Cont’
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Discard eligibility (DE):

 This bit indicates the priority level of the frame.

Assembler/disassembler (FRAD):

 Used to handle frames arriving from other protocols.

By Lake F.
ATM vs Frame Relay
59

ATM Frame Relay

 Frame Relay used a much
 ATM uses 53 byte fixed cell
longer cell and the frame
 Error Checking is only done
may vary in length
on the header of ATM.
(variable).

 Error Checking done on the

whole cell or frame.

By Lake F.
 Frame relay Vs X.25
60
Frame Relay X.25
 Much more simplified  If a frame error is
 No hop-by-hop, node-to-node detected, retransmitted.
Flow and Error Control.
 X.25 uses all in-channel
 If a frame error is detected it is
just dropped.
control.
 Call control signaling separate  Layer 3
from user data. Multiplexing/Switching.
 Frame relay uses out-of-channel  Still in use for low
signaling.
bandwidth applications.
 Layer 2 Multiplexing/Switching.

By Lake F.
 …
61

Note:

 Many X.25 networks have been replaced by Frame Relay.

 It is likely that ATM Networks will ultimately replace both

Frame Relay and X.25 Networks.

By Lake F.
ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network)
62

 ISDN is a method to transfer voice data with some

particular services accessible for data.

 Is another alternative to use analog telephone lines to

establish a connection.

 It is s a set of communications standards for simultaneous

digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network

services over the traditional circuits of the public switched
telephone network.

By Lake F.
 Cont’
63

 ISDN network is a switched digital network consisting of

ISDN Switches.

 The main element of ISDN services are the ability to deliver

maximum data within the combination of voice, data, video,

fax, over a single line while it provides at least two
instantaneous connections.

 User can attach several devices to the line according to their

need instead of purchasing many analog phone lines.

By Lake F.
Cont’
64
 In ISDN, two types of user access are defined :

 Basic Access : Consists of two 64Kbps user channels (B

channel) and one 16Kbps signal channel (D channel).

 Primary access : Consists of thirty 64Kbps user channels

(B channels) and a 64 Kbps signal channel (D channel).

By Lake F.
Cont’
65
Features of ISDN

 Put together speech and information on the same line which

were not presented in classic telephone system.

 Uses Digital Signal and existing telephone wiring.

 Can transport many types of Network traffic (Voice, Data,

Video, Text, Graphics etc).

 Faster Data transfer rate and call setup than modems.

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Cont’
66
Advantages

 Facilitate the user with multiple digital channels.

 These channels can operate concurrently through the same copper

wire pair.

 Provides high data rate.

 ISDN network lines are able to switch various devices on the

single line such as faxes, computers, and many other devices.

 These devices can work together and directly connected to a single

line.
By Lake F.
Cont’
67
Disadvantages

 More expensive than the other typical telephone system.

 Requires specialized digital devices just like Telephone

Company.

By Lake F.
By Lake F.