Physical Layer

Outline of Physical Layer

• It defines the electrical, timing and their interfaces by
which bits are sent as signals over the channel.
• Foundation on which the network is built.

• The properties of different kinds of physical channel

determine the performance – throughput, latency, and
error rate.

• Data Transmission rate is limited

• Three types of transmission media:
– Guided (copper wire and fiber optics)
– Wireless (terrestrial radio), and
– Satellite
Outline of Physical Layer
• Digital Modulation: How analog signals are converted
into digital bits and back again.
• Multiplexing Schemes: Exploring how multiple conver-
sations can be put on the same transmission medium
at the same time without interfering with one another.

• Examples of communication systems used in practice

for wide area computer networks:
– The (fixed) telephone system
– The mobile phone system, and
– The cable television system.
he interaction between layers in the OSI mode

2.4
An exchange using the OSI model

2.5
Physical layer
The physical layer is responsible for move-
ments of
individual bits from one hop (node) to the
next.

2.6
Note

The physical layer is responsible for movements of

individual bits from one hop (node) to the next.

2.7
Transmission Fundamentals
 Data Communication Terms
• Data - entities that convey meaning, or information
• Signals - electric or electromagnetic representations of data
• Transmission - communication of data by the propagation
and processing of signals

• Analog
– Video
– Audio
• Digital
– Text
– Integers
From Signals to Packets
Analog Signal

“Digital” Signal

Bit Stream 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1
0100010101011100101010101011101110000001111010101110101010101101011010111001
Packets
Header/Body Header/Body Header/Body

Packet
Transmission Sender Receiver

Lecture 4: 9-6-01 10
 Analog Signals
• A continuously varying electromagnetic wave that
may be propagated over a variety of media, depend-
ing on frequency
• Examples of media:
– Copper wire media (twisted pair and coaxial cable)
– Fiber optic cable
– Atmosphere or space propagation
• Analog signals can propagate analog and digital data
 Digital Signals
• A sequence of voltage pulses that may be
transmitted over a copper wire medium
• Generally cheaper than analog signaling
• Less susceptible to noise interference
• Suffer more from attenuation( )
WEAKNING

• Digital signals can propagate analog and digi-

tal data
• Serial Cables and Ethernet
Analog Signaling
 Analog Transmission
• Transmit analog signals without regard to con-
tent
• Attenuation limits length of transmission link
• Cascaded amplifiers boost signal’s energy for
longer distances but cause distortion
– Analog data can tolerate distortion
– Introduces errors in digital data
 Digital Transmission
• Concerned with the content of the signal
• Attenuation(WEAKNING) endangers integrity of data
• Digital Signal
– Repeaters achieve greater distance
– Repeaters recover the signal and retransmit
• Analog signal carrying digital data
– Retransmission device recovers the digital data from ana-
log signal
– Generates new, clean analog signal
Transmission Media
 Transmission Media
Transmission medium:: the physical path
between transmitter and receiver.
• Repeaters or amplifiers may be used to
extend the length of the medium.
• Communication of electromagnetic
waves is guided or unguided.
Guided media :: waves are guided along a
physical path (e.g, twisted pair, coaxial cable
and optical fiber).
Unguided media:: means for transmitting but
not guiding electromagnetic waves (e.g., the
atmosphere and outer space).
Transmission Media 17
Transmission Media Choices

• Twisted pair
• Coaxial cable
• Optical fiber
• Wireless communications

Transmission Media 18
Transmission Media 19
 Twisted Pair
• Two insulated wires arranged in a spiral
pattern
• Copper or steel coated with copper
• The signal is transmitted through one wire
and a ground reference is transmitted in
the other wire.
• Typically twisted pair is installed in build-
ing telephone wiring.
• Local loop connection to central telephone
exchange is twisted pair.
Transmission Media 20
 Twisted Pair
• Limited in distance, bandwidth and data
rate due to problems with attenuation, in-
terference and noise
– Issue: cross-talk due to interference from other
signals
– “shielding” wire (shielded twisted pair (STP))
with metallic braid or sheathing reduces inter-
ference.
– “twisting” reduces low-frequency interference
and crosstalk.

Transmission Media 21
UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair)

Category 3 corresponds to ordinary voice-grade twisted pair

found in abundance in most office buildings.
Category 5 (used for Fast Ethernet) is much more tightly
twisted.

Transmission Media 22
Access net: digital subscriber line (DSL)

central office telephone

network

DSL splitter
modem DSLAM

ISP
voice, data transmitted
at different frequencies overDSL access
dedicated line to central office multiplexer

 use existing telephone line to central office DSLAM

 data over DSL phone line goes to Internet
 voice over DSL phone line goes to telephone net
 < 2.5 Mbps upstream transmission rate (typically < 1 Mbps)
 < 24 Mbps downstream transmission rate (typically < 10 Mbps)

Introduction 1-26
 10BASE-T

10 Mbps baseband transmission over twisted pair.

Two Cat 3 cables, Manchester encoding,
Maximum distance - 100 meters

Ethernet hub

    


Copyright ©2000 The McGraw Hill Companies Leon-Garcia & Widjaja: Communication Networks Figure 3.38

Transmission Media 27
 Coaxial Cable

Center
conductor

Dielectric Braided
material Outer
outer cover
conduc-
tor

Copyright ©2000 The McGraw Hill Companies Leon-Garcia & Widjaja: Communication Networks Figure 3.39

Transmission Media 28
 Coaxial Cable
• In general, coax has better noise immu-
nity for higher frequencies than twisted
pair.
• Coaxial cable provides much higher
bandwidth than twisted pair.
• However, cable is ‘bulky’.
• Discussion divided into two basic cate-
gories for coax used in LANs:
– 50-ohm cable [baseband]
– 75-ohm cable [broadband]

Transmission Media 29
 Baseband Coax
• Baseband refers to the original frequency range of a
transmission signal before it is converted, or modu-
lated, to a different frequency range.
• 50-ohm cable is used exclusively for digital transmis-
sions
• Uses Manchester encoding, geographical limit is a few
kilometers.
10Base5 Thick Ethernet :: thick (10 mm) coax
10 Mbps, 500 m. max segment length, 100 devices/seg-
ment, awkward to handle and install.
10Base2 Thin Ethernet :: thin (5 mm) coax
10 Mbps, 185 m. max segment length, 30 devices/seg-
ment, easier to handle, uses T-shaped connectors.
Transmission Media 30
 Broadband Coax
• 75-ohm cable (CATV system standard)
• Used for both analog and digital signal-
ing.
• Analog signaling – frequencies up to
500 MHZ are possible.
• When FDM used, referred to as broad-
band.
• For long-distance transmission of ana-
log signals, amplifiers are needed every
few kilometers.
Transmission Media 31
Access net: cable net-
work
cable headend
…

cable splitter
modem

C
O
V V V V V V N
I I I I I I D D T
D D D D D D A A R
E E E E E E T T O
O O O O O O A A L

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Channels

frequency division multiplexing: different channels transmitted

in different frequency bands

Introduction 1-32
 Optical Fiber
• Optical fiber :: a thin flexible medium capable
of conducting optical rays. Optical fiber con-
sists of a very fine cylinder of glass (core) sur-
rounded by concentric layers of glass
(cladding).
• a signal-encoded beam of light (a fluctuating
beam) is transmitted by total internal reflec-
tion.
• Total internal reflection occurs in the core be-
cause 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.
Transmission Media 33
 Optical Fiber

(a) Geometry of optical fiber

light
cladding jacke
t
core

(b) Reflection in optical fiber

c

Copyright ©2000 The McGraw Hill Companies Leon-Garcia & Widjaja: Communication Networks
Figure 3.44

Transmission Media 34
 Optical Fiber
• Optical fiber frequencies covers the visible and
part of the infrared spectrum.
• Three standard wavelengths : 850 nanometers
(nm.), 1300 nm, 1500 nm.
• First-generation optical fiber :: 850 nm, 10’s
Mbps using LED (light-emitting diode) sources.
• Second and third generation optical fiber ::
1300 and 1500 nm using ILD (injection laser
diode) sources, gigabits/sec.
• Attenuation loss is lower at higher wave-
lengths.

Transmission Media 35
 (a) Multimode fiber: multiple rays follow different paths

reflected path

direct path

(b) Single mode: only direct path propagates in fiber

Copyright ©2000 The McGraw Hill Companies Leon-Garcia & Widjaja: Communication Networks Figure 3.46

Transmission Media 38
 Encoding Techniques
• Digital data, digital signal
• Analog data, digital signal
• Digital data, analog signal
• Analog data, analog signal
What is modulation ?
• Modulation = Adding information to a carrier signal
• The sine wave on which the characteristics of the
information signal are modulated is called a carrier
signal
 Why is Modulation Required?

Modulation shifts the baseband signal to a higher

frequency band, centered at the so-called “carrier
frequency”.
• To achieve easy radiation: Dimensions of the
transmit/receive antennas are limited by the cor-
responding wavelength. The frequency conver-
sion allows the use of practical antenna lengths.
 Why is Modulation Required?
Contd…

• To accommodate for simultaneous transmis-

sion of several baseband signals: Simultane-
ous transmission of different baseband signals
which are possibly overlapping can be facilitated
by assigning slightly different frequency carriers
for each one.
• High-rate transmission requires larger
bandwidths (therefore, higher carrier fre-
quencies): According to Shannon Theorem,
channel capacity is defined as the maximum
achievable C
information rate that can be transmit-
B log2 1  SNR
ted over the channel.
Channel ca- Band- Signal-to-noise
pacity width ratio
Modulation
Digital-to-analog modulation

Types of digital-to-analog modulation

A binary signal

Amplitude
modulation

Frequency
modulation

Phase
modulation

46
Analog Data, Analog Signals
• Why modulate analog signals?
– Higher frequency can give more efficient
transmission
– Permits frequency division multiplexing
• Types of modulation
– Amplitude
– Frequency
– Phase
 Analog Data, Digital Signal
• Digitization
– Analog to digital conversion done using
a codec (coder decoder)
– Both hardware and software CODECs are
used
– The process of digitalizing an analog
signal requires sampling
 Lifecycle from Sound to Digital to Sound
Hearing: [20Hz – 20KHz]
Speech: [200Hz – 8KHz]

Digitizing a signal results in reduced distortion and improvement

in signal-to-noise ratios

ource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio
 CODEC
• Coding and Decoding
• The process of converting an analog
signal into PCM is called coding, the
inverse operation is called decoding
• Both procedures are accomplished in
a
CODEC

50