Data

Communications

Chapter 2
 What is data communication?
• When we communicate, we
are sharing information. This
sharing can be local or remote.
Between individuals, local
communication usually occurs
face to face, while remote
communication takes place
over distance.
• The term telecommunication, which
includes telephony, telegraphy, and
television, means communication at a
distance (tele is Greek for “far”).
• The word data refers to information
presented in whatever form is agreed
upon by the parties creating and using
the data.
• Data communications are the exchange of data between two devices via some
form of transmission medium such as a wire cable.
• For data communications to occur, the communicating devices must be part of
a communication system made up of a combination of hardware (physical
equipment) and software (programs).
• The effectiveness of a data communications system depends on four
fundamental characteristics: delivery, accuracy, timeliness, and jitter.
• Delivery.
• The system must deliver data to the correct destination.
• Data must be received by the intended device or user and only by that
device or user.
• Accuracy.
• The system must deliver the data accurately.
• Data that have been altered in transmission and left uncorrected are
unusable.
• Timeliness.
• The system must deliver data in a timely manner.
• Data delivered late are useless.
• In the case of video and audio, timely delivery means delivering data as
they are produced, in the same order that they are produced, and without
significant delay.
• This kind of delivery is called real-time transmission.
• Jitter.
• Jitter refers to the variation in the packet arrival time.
• It is the uneven delay in the delivery of audio or video packets.
• For example, let us assume that video packets are sent every 30
ms.
• If some of the packets arrive with 30-ms delay and others with
40-ms delay, an uneven quality in the video is the result.
 Components of data communication

 Message. - The message is the information (data) to be communicated. Popular forms of information include text,
numbers, pictures, audio, and video.
 Sender. - It can be a computer, workstation, telephone handset, video camera, and so on.
 Receiver. - The receiver is the device that receives the message. It can be a computer, workstation, telephone handset,
television, and so on.
 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.
 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.
Data Flow
Analog and Digital Data Transmission
• The term analog data refers to information that is continuous; digital data refers
to information that has discrete states.
• For example, an analog clock that has hour, minute, and second hands gives
information in a continuous form; the movements of the hands are
continuous.
• On the other hand, a digital clock that reports the hours and the minutes will
change suddenly from one state to another.
• Analog data, such as the sounds made by a human voice, take on continuous
values. When someone speaks, an analog wave is created in the air.
• This can be captured by a microphone and converted to an analog signal or
sampled and converted to a digital signal.
• Digital data take on discrete values. For example, data are stored in
computer memory in the form of 0s and 1s.
 Periodic and non-periodic
• Both analog and digital signals can take one of two forms: periodic or non-
periodic.
• A periodic signal completes a pattern within a measurable time frame, called a
period, and repeats that pattern over subsequent identical periods.
• The completion of one full pattern is called a cycle.
• A non-periodic signal changes without exhibiting a pattern or cycle that repeats
over time. Both analog and digital signals can be periodic or non-periodic.
• In data communications, we commonly use periodic analog signals and non-
periodic digital signals.
• Periodic analog signals can be classified as simple or composite.
• A simple periodic analog signal, a sine wave, cannot be decomposed into
simpler signals.
• A composite periodic analog signal is composed of multiple sine waves.
• The sine wave is the most fundamental form of a periodic analog signal.
• When we visualize it as a simple oscillating curve, its change over the course of
a cycle is smooth and consistent, a continuous, rolling flow.
• Each cycle consists of a single arc above the time axis followed by a single arc
below it.
• A sine wave can be represented by three parameters: the peak amplitude,
the frequency, and the phase.
• Peak Amplitude
• The peak amplitude of a signal is the absolute value of its highest intensity,
proportional to the energy it carries.
• For electric signals, peak amplitude is normally measured in volts.
• Period and Frequency
• Period refers to the amount of time, in seconds, a signal needs to complete 1 cycle.
• Frequency refers to the number of periods in 1 s.
• Note that period and frequency are just one characteristic defined in two ways.
• Period is the inverse of frequency, and frequency is the inverse of period, as the following
formulas show.
• f=1/T T=1/f
• Period is formally expressed in seconds. Frequency is formally expressed in Hertz (Hz),
which is cycle per second.
• Wavelength
• The wavelength is the distance a simple signal can travel in one period.
𝑐
λ=
• Bandwidth 𝑓
• The range of frequencies contained in a composite signal is its bandwidth.
• The bandwidth of a composite signal is the difference between the highest and
the lowest frequencies contained in that signal.
• Example
• If a periodic signal is decomposed into five sine waves with frequencies of 100, 300, 500, 700,
and 900 Hz, what is its bandwidth?
• Solution
• Let fh be the highest frequency, fl the lowest frequency, and B the bandwidth. Then:
• B = fh - fl = 900 - 100 = 800 Hz
 Transmission impairment

• Signals travel through transmission media, which are not perfect.

• The imperfection causes signal impairment.
• This means that the signal at the beginning of the medium is not the
same as the signal at the end of the medium.
• What is sent is not what is received.
• Three causes of impairment are attenuation, distortion, and noise.
• Attenuation
• Attenuation means a loss of energy.
• When a signal travels through a medium, it loses some of its energy in
overcoming the resistance of the medium.
• That is why a wire carrying electric signals gets warm, if not hot, after a while.
• Some of the electrical energy in the signal is converted to heat.
• To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are used to amplify the signal.
• To show that a signal has lost or gained strength, engineers use the unit of the decibel.
• The decibel (dB) measures the relative strengths of two signals or one signal at two different
points.
• Note that the decibel is negative if a signal is attenuated and positive if a signal is amplified.
𝑃2
𝑑𝐵=10 𝑙𝑜𝑔10
Example 𝑃1
1. Suppose a signal travels through a transmission medium and its power is reduced to one-half. This means that P2 =1/2 P1.
A signal travels through an
In this case, the attenuation (loss of power) can be calculated as: amplifier, and its power is
increased 10 times. Calculate
the amplification (gain of
power).
• Distortion
• Distortion means that the signal changes its form or shape. Distortion can
occur in a composite signal made of different frequencies.
• Noise
• Noise is another cause of impairment. Several types of noise, such as thermal noise, induced
noise, crosstalk, and impulse noise, may corrupt the signal.
• Thermal noise is the random motion of electrons in a wire, which creates an extra signal not originally
sent by the transmitter.
• Induced noise comes from sources such as motors and appliances.
• These devices act as a sending antenna, and the transmission medium acts as the receiving antenna.
• Crosstalk is the effect of one wire on the other. One wire acts as a sending antenna and the other as the
receiving antenna.
• Impulse noise is a spike (a signal with high energy in a very short time) that comes from power lines,
lightning, and so on.
 Digital signals

• In addition to being represented by an analog signal, information can also be

represented by a digital signal.
• For example, a 1 can be encoded as a positive voltage and a 0 as zero voltage.
• A digital signal can have more than two levels.
• In this case, we can send more than 1 bit for each level. The following figure shows two
signals, one with two levels and the other with four. We send 1 bit per level in part a of
the figure and 2 bits per level in part b of the figure. In general, if a signal has L levels,
each level needs log2L bits. For this reason, we can send log24 = 2 bits in part b.
Example
If a digital signal has eight levels, how many bits are needed per level? Each signal
level is represented by 3 bits. (log28 = 3) (NB: logab = c is ac=b)
• Bit Rate
• Most digital signals are non-periodic, and thus period and frequency are not appropriate
characteristics. Another term—bit rate (instead of frequency)—is used to describe digital
signals. The bit rate is the number of bits sent in 1s, expressed in bits per second (bps).
• Example
• Assume we need to download text documents at the rate of 100 pages per second. What is the
required bit rate of the channel?
• Solution
• A page is an average of 24 lines with 80 characters in each line. If we assume that one character
requires 8 bits, the bit rate is:
• 100 x 24 x 80 x 8 = 1,536,000 bps = 1.536 Mbps
• Bit Length
• The bit length is the distance one bit occupies on the transmission medium.
• Bit length = propagation speed x bit duration
• Transmission of Digital Signals
• How can we send a digital signal from point A to point B?
• We can transmit a digital signal by using one of two different approaches:
baseband transmission or broadband transmission (using modulation).
• Baseband Transmission
• Baseband transmission means sending a digital signal over a channel without
changing the digital signal to an analog signal.
• Broadband transmission
• Broadband transmission or modulation means changing the digital signal to an
analog signal for transmission.
Performance
• Throughput
• The throughput is a measure of how fast we can actually send data through a network.
• Although, at first glance, bandwidth in bits per second and throughput seem the same,
they are different.
• A link may have a bandwidth of B bps, but we can only send T bps through this link with T
always less than B.
• In other words, the bandwidth is a potential measurement of a link; the throughput is an
actual measurement of how fast we can send data.
• For example, we may have a link with a bandwidth of 1 Mbps, but the devices connected
to the end of the link may handle only 200 kbps.
• This means that we cannot send more than 200 kbps through this link.
• Latency
• The latency or delay defines how long it takes for an entire message to completely arrive
at the destination from the time the first bit is sent out from the source.
• We can say that latency is made of four components: propagation time, transmission
time, queuing time and processing delay.
• Latency = propagation time + transmission time + queuing time + processing delay
• Propagation time measures the time required for a bit to travel from the source to the
destination.
• The propagation time is calculated by dividing the distance by the propagation speed.
• Propagation time = Distance / (Propagation Speed)
• The propagation speed of electromagnetic signals depends on the medium and on the frequency of the
signal.
• For example, in a vacuum, light is propagated with a speed of 3 × 108 m/s. It is lower in air; it is much lower
in cable.
• The transmission time of a message depends on the size of the message and the bandwidth of the
channel.
Transmission time = (Message size) / Bandwidth
• Queuing Time is the time needed for each intermediate or end device to hold the
message before it can be processed.
• The queuing time is not a fixed factor; it changes with the load imposed on
the network.
• When there is heavy traffic on the network, the queuing time increases.
• An intermediate device, such as a router, queues the arrived messages and
processes them one by one.
• If there are many messages, each message will have to wait.
 Components of the network
• In computer networking, the computers that we use on a daily basis are often
referred to as hosts or end systems.
• They are referred to as hosts because they host (run) application-level programs
such as a Web browser or server program, or an e-mail program. They are also
referred to as end systems because they sit at the edge of the Internet.
• Hosts are sometimes further divided into two categories: clients and servers.
Informally, clients often tend to be desktop PCs or workstations, whereas servers are
more powerful machines.
• But there is a more precise meaning of a client and a server in computer networking.
• In the so-called client/server model, a client program running on one end system
requests and receives information from a server running on another end system.
• This client/server model is undoubtedly the most prevalent structure for Internet
applications.
• Network Interface Card (NIC)
• A Network Interface Card (NIC) is a hardware components of computer network that
allows a computer to connect to a network.
• NICs come in various types, such as wired and wireless, and they can support different
network protocols, such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Fiber Channel.
• A wired NIC typically uses an RJ45 connector to connect to a network cable, while a
wireless NIC uses antennas to connect to a Wi-Fi network.
• A NIC contains a network controller that manages the communication between the
computer and the network.
• The controller uses software drivers to interpret the network protocols and to control the
flow of data between the computer and the network.
• The drivers are typically installed automatically when the NIC is connected to the
computer, but they can also be installed manually.
• NICs can provide various features and capabilities, such as bandwidth
management, quality of service (QoS), virtual LAN (VLAN) tagging, and network
booting.
• Bandwidth management allows the NIC to prioritize network traffic and allocate
bandwidth to different applications and users.
• QoS allows the NIC to ensure that certain types of traffic, such as voice and video,
receive higher priority than other traffic.
• VLAN tagging allows the NIC to separate network traffic into different virtual networks,
which can improve security and performance.
• Network booting allows the NIC to boot the computer from a network server, which can
simplify system management and deployment.
• Hub
• A hub is a basic networking device that allows multiple devices to communicate with
each other.
• Hubs receive data packets from one device and broadcast them to all the other devices
connected to the hub.
• This means that all devices on the network share the same bandwidth and receive all
data, regardless of whether it is intended for them or not.
• There are mainly three types of hubs: passive, active, and intelligent.
• Passive hub: A passive hub simply connects all devices together, without any signal amplification or
regeneration. It has no power source and does not boost the signal, so it is not suitable for long-
distance connections or large networks. A passive hub is mainly used to extend the number of ports
available on a network.
• Active hub: An active hub, also known as a powered hub, has a power source and can regenerate and
amplify the signal. This means that it can transmit data over longer distances and support more
devices than a passive hub. An active hub also has built-in circuitry that helps to prevent collisions,
which occur when two or more devices attempt to transmit data at the same time.
• Intelligent hub: An intelligent hub, also known as a managed hub, provides additional features and
capabilities beyond those of a passive or active hub. It can monitor and manage network traffic,
prioritize data transmission, and provide network security features. An intelligent hub can also
support VLANs, which allow a single physical network to be divided into multiple logical networks.
• Switch
• A switch is a networking device that connects multiple devices in a network, allowing them
to communicate with each other.
• Unlike a hub, which broadcasts data to all devices on the network, a switch forwards data
only to the intended recipient, which reduces network congestion and improves
performance.
• A switch can also provide additional security features and management capabilities, which
makes it ideal for larger networks.
• There are several types of switches, which include:
• Unmanaged switch: An unmanaged switch is a basic switch that does not have any management
features. It is simply plug-and-play, which means it can be connected to the network and used
immediately. An unmanaged switch is ideal for small networks where management features are not
required.
• Managed switch: It can be configured and managed using a web-based interface or a command-line
interface. A managed switch can provide features such as VLANs, Quality of Service (QoS), and Spanning
Tree Protocol (STP), which improve network management and security. STP prevents network loops and
associated network outage by blocking redundant links or paths. The redundant paths can be used to
keep the network operational if the primary link fails.
• PoE switch: A Power over Ethernet (PoE) switch is a switch that provides power to PoE-enabled devices,
such as IP cameras, wireless access points, and VoIP phones. This eliminates the need for separate
power supplies for these devices, which makes installation and management easier.
• A repeater
• A repeater is a networking device and of the components of computer network that is
used to regenerate and amplify signals in a network.
• When data is transmitted over a network, the signal weakens as it travels through the
network cables.
• A repeater receives the weak signal and regenerates it, amplifying the signal to its original
strength.
• This allows the signal to be transmitted over longer distances without loss of quality.
• There are mainly two types of repeaters: analog and digital.
• There are also specialized types of repeaters that are used in specific applications:
• Wireless repeater: A wireless repeater is used to extend the range of a wireless network. It receives
the wireless signal and rebroadcasts it, helping to improve coverage in areas where the signal is
weak.
• Ethernet repeater: An Ethernet repeater, also known as a hub, is used to extend the range of an
Ethernet network. It receives the Ethernet signal and broadcasts it to all devices on the network.
• Fiber optic repeater: A fiber optic repeater is used to extend the range of a fiber optic network. It
receives the optical signal and regenerates it, amplifying the signal strength and extending the signal
range.
• Router
• A router is a networking device or Components of computer network that
connects multiple networks together, allowing them to communicate with each
other.
• There are several types of routers, which include:
• Residential router:
• A residential router is a router that is designed for home use.
• It is typically provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and is used to connect devices in a home
network to the Internet.
• A residential router may provide features such as wireless connectivity, firewall protection, and
Quality of Service (QoS).
• Enterprise router:
• An enterprise router is a router that is designed for use in large organizations.
• It provides advanced features and capabilities, such as multiple WAN ports, Virtual Private Network
(VPN) connectivity, and traffic shaping.
• An enterprise router is typically managed by a network administrator and may be used to connect
multiple locations together.
• Core router:
• A core router is a router that is used to connect multiple networks together at the core of a large network,
such as an Internet Service Provider’s network.
• A core router is designed for high-speed data transfer and provides advanced features such as packet
filtering, load balancing, and routing protocols.
• Edge router:
• An edge router is a router that is used to connect a local network to an external network, such as the
Internet.
• It provides security features such as firewall protection, Network Address Translation (NAT), and Access
Control Lists (ACLs).
• Virtual router:
• A virtual router is a software-based router that is used in virtualized environments, such as cloud computing.
It provides the same routing functionality as a physical router but is hosted on a virtual machine.
• Wireless router:
• A wireless router is a router that provides wireless connectivity to devices in a network. It may use Wi-Fi or
Bluetooth technology to provide wireless connectivity.
• Modem
• A modem (short for modulator-demodulator) is a networking device or Components of computer
network that converts digital data to analog signals for transmission over a telephone line or
cable.
• It is used to connect a computer or network to the Internet through a service provider’s network.
• Server
• A server is a computer system or program that provides a service to other computers or
programs on a network.
• Servers can be used to store files, manage resources, provide access to applications, and host
websites.
• They are designed to handle multiple requests from client computers or other servers
simultaneously, and they may also have features such as redundancy and failover capabilities for
improved reliability.
• Bridge
• A bridge is a networking device or Components of computer network that connects two or more
network segments together, allowing devices on different segments to communicate with each
other. A bridge can be used to segment a network, improve network performance, and improve
network security.