Transmission Media

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Transmission Media
Transmission medium: the physical path between transmitter and
receiver.
• Repeaters or amplifiers may be used to extend the length of the
medium.
Electromagnetic Spectrum for Transmission Media
•

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Guided Media and Unguided Media
Communication of electromagnetic waves is guided or
unguided.

Guided media:
•Waves are guided along a physical path
•Use a conductor such as a wire or a fiber optic cable to move
the signal from sender to receiver
•Transmission capacity depends on the distance and on
whether the medium is point-to-point or multipoint

Unguided media:
•Use radio waves of different frequencies and do not need a
wire or cable conductor to transmit signals (e.g., the
atmosphere and outer space). 3
Design Factors for transmission media

Bandwidth: All other factors remaining constant, the greater

the band-width of a signal, the higher the data rate that can be
achieved.
Transmission impairments: Limit the distance a signal can
travel.
Interference: Competing signals in overlapping frequency
bands can distort or wipe out a signal.
Number of receivers: Each attachment introduces some
attenuation and distortion, limiting distance and/or data rate.

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Guided Transmission Media-Twisted Pair

•Twisted Pair consists of two insulated copper wires arranged

in a regular spiral pattern to minimize the electromagnetic
interference between adjacent pairs.
•The signal is transmitted through one wire and a ground
reference is transmitted in the other wire.
•Usually installed in building during construction.

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Types of twisted pair

•STP (shielded twisted pair)

the pair is wrapped with metallic foil to insulate the pair
from electromagnetic interference
•UTP (unshielded twisted pair)
each wire is insulated with plastic wrap, but the pair is
encased in an outer covering

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Advantages and Disadvantages

•Twisted Pair Advantages

Inexpensive and readily available

Flexible and light weight
Easy to work with and install

•Twisted Pair Disadvantages

Susceptibility to interference and noise

Attenuation problem
For analog, repeaters needed every 5-6km
For digital, repeaters needed every 2-3km
Relatively low bandwidth (3000Hz

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Coaxial Cable

•Used for cable television, LANs, telephony

•Has an inner conductor surrounded by a braided mesh
•Both conductors share a common center axial, hence the term “co-
axial”

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Coaxial Cable

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Advantages

•Higher bandwidth
•400 to 600Mhz
•up to 10,800 voice conversations
•Can be tapped easily (pros and cons)
•Much less susceptible to interference than twisted pair

Disadvantages
•More expensive to install compare to twisted pair cable.
•The thicker the cable, the more difficult to work with.

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Fiber Optical Cable
Optical fiber is a thin flexible medium capable of conducting optical
rays. Optical fiber consists of a very fine cylinder of glass (core)
surrounded by concentric layers of glass (cladding).

•Relatively new transmission medium used by telephone companies in

place of long-distance trunk lines
•Also used by private companies in implementing local data
communications networks
•Require a light source with injection laser diode (ILD) or light-emitting
diodes (LED)
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Fiber Optical Cable

Optical fibers use reflection to guide light through a channel. A glass or

plastic core surrounded by a cladding of less dense glass or plastic. The
difference in density of the two materials must be such that a beam of
light moving through the core is reflected off the cladding instead of
being refracted into it. Information is encoded onto a beam of light as a
series of on-off flashes that represent 1 and 0.

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Fiber Optical Cable

A signal-encoded beam of light (a fluctuating beam) is transmitted by

total internal reflection. (The complete reflection of a light ray reaching
an interface with a less dense medium when the angle of incidence
exceeds the critical angle.)

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Fiber Optical Cable
•Total internal reflection occurs in the core because it has a higher
optical density (index of refraction) than the cladding.
•Attenuation in the fiber can be kept low by controlling the impurities in
the glass.

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What is Critical Angle?
•Total internal reflection (TIR) is the phenomenon that involves the
reflection of the entire incident light off the boundary. TIR only takes
place when both of the following two conditions are met:
•A light ray is in the denser medium and approaching the less dense
medium..
•The angle of incidence for the light ray is greater than the so-called
critical angle.

•Let us consider the example of light travelling through water towards

the boundary with a less dense material such as air. When the angle of
incidence in water reaches a certain critical value, the refracted ray lies
along the boundary, having an angle of refraction of 90-degrees. This
angle of incidence is known as the critical angle; it is the largest angle
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of incidence for which refraction can still occur.
What is Critical Angle?

So the critical angle is defined as the angle of incidence that

provides an angle of refraction of 90-degrees. Make particular
note that the critical angle is an angle of incidence value. For
the water-air boundary, the critical angle is 48.6-degrees. For
the crown glass-water boundary, the critical angle is 61.0-
degrees. The actual value of the critical angle is dependent
upon the combination of materials present on each side of the
boundary.

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Propagation Modes

Multimode

Multimode is so named because multiple beams from a light

source move through the core in different paths. How these
beams move within the cable depends on the structure of the
core.
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Multimode step index

•In multimode step-index fiber, the density of the core remains

constant from the centre to the edges.
•A beam of light moves through this constant density in a
straight line until it reaches the interface of the core and the
cladding.
•At the interface, there is an abrupt change to a lower density
that alters the angle of the beam’s motion.
•The term step-index refers to the suddenness of this change.

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Multimode step index

•Some beams in the middle travel in straight lines through the

core and reach the destination without reflecting and
refracting.
•Some beams strike the interface of the core and cladding at
an angle smaller than the critical angle; these beams
penetrate the cladding and are lost.
•Still other hit the edge of the core at angles greater than the
critical angle and reflect back into the core and off the other
side, bouncing back and forth down the channel until they
reach the destination.
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Multimode graded index
•Multimode graded-index fiber, decreases the distortion of the
signal through the cable.

•A graded-index fiber is one with varying densities.

•Density is highest at the centre of the core and decreases

gradually to its lowest at the edge.
•
•The impact of this variable density on the propagation of
light beams is shown below:

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Single Mode
•Single mode uses step-index fiber and a highly focused source
of light that limits beams to a small range of angles and close
to the horizontal.
•The single mode fiber itself is manufactured with a smaller
diameter than that of multimode fibers, with substantially
lower density.
•The decrease of density results in a critical angle that is close
enough to 90 degrees to make the propagation of beams
almost horizontal.
•In this case propagation of different beams is almost identical
and delays are negligible.
•All of the beams arrive at the destination “together" and can
be recombined without distortion to the signal.
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Single Mode

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Advantages
•greater capacity (bandwidth of up to 2 Gbps)
•smaller size and lighter weight
•lower attenuation
•immunity to environmental interference
•highly secure due to tap difficulty and lack of signal radiation

Disadvantages
•expensive over short distance
•requires highly skilled installers
•adding additional nodes is difficult

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Wireless Transmission

Transmission and reception are achieved by means of an

antenna
•directional
•transmitting antenna puts out focused beam
•transmitter and receiver must be aligned
•omnidirectional
•signal spreads out in all directions
•can be received by many antenna

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Wireless Example

•Radio Wave
•Microwave
•Infrared

Electromagnetic spectrum for wireless communication

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Propagation method

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Radio Wave

•Used for multicast communications, such as radio and

television.
•Can penetrate through walls.
•Highly regulated.
•Use omnidirectional antennas

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Microwave
•Microwaves are used for unicast communication such as
cellular telephones, satellite networks and wireless LANs.
•Higher frequency ranges cannot penetrate walls.
•Use directional antennas - point to point line of sight
communications.

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Terrestrial Microwave

•used for long-distance telephone service

•uses radio frequency spectrum, from 2 to 40 Ghz
•parabolic dish transmitter, mounted high
•used by common carriers as well as private networks
•requires unobstructed line of sight between source and
receiver
•curvature of the earth requires stations (repeaters) ~30 miles
apart

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Satellite Microwave Transmission
•a microwave relay station in space
•can relay signals over long distances
•geostationary satellites
•remain above the equator at a height of 22,300 miles
(geosynchronous orbit)
•travel around the earth in exactly the time the earth takes
to rotate
•earth stations communicate by sending signals to the satellite
on an uplink
•the satellite then repeats those signals on a downlink
•the broadcast nature of the downlink makes it attractive for
services such as the distribution of television programming

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Satellite Transmission Process

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Principal Satellite Transmission Bands

C band: 4(downlink) - 6(uplink) GHz

•the first to be designated
Ku band: 12(downlink) -14(uplink) GHz
rain interference is the major problem
Ka band: 19(downlink) - 29(uplink) GHz
•equipment needed to use the band is still very expensive

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Satellite Microwave Application

•Television distribution
•Long-distance telephone transmission
•Private business networks

Satellite Microwave Disadvantages

•line of sight requirement

•expensive towers and repeaters
•subject to interference such as passing airplanes and rain

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Infrared

•Signals can be used for short-range communication in a

closed area using line-of-sight propagation.
•Unlike microwaves, infrared does not penetrate walls.

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