ITGN235

Principles of Networking

Physical Layer
(Transmission Media)
Outline
1. Guided Media
a. Twisted pairs
b. Coaxial cable
c. Fiber optics
2. Unguided Media
a. Radio Waves
b. Microwaves
c. Infrared
3. Transmission
a. Time division multiplexing
b. Frequency division multiplexing
c. Code division multiplexing
Why is it important?

How can multiple hosts communicate

over the same wire at the same time?
How much bandwidth can I get out of a
specific transmission medium?
What limits the physical size of the
network?
How do the properties of copper, fiber,
and wireless compare?
Physical Components

The physical layer standards address three

functional areas:
Physical Components

Encoding

Signaling
Transmission medium(channel): the physical
path between the transmitter and the receiver.
Located below the physical layer
Controlled by the physical layer
1.a Twisted Pairs
 A twisted pair consists of: two insulated copper wires in a
regular spiral pattern
 A wire pair acts as a single communication link
 Twisted to reduce electrical interference from similar pairs
close by (more twists means better quality)
 Used in:
 Telephone network Between house and local exchange
(subscriber loop)
 LAN
Twist length of 7.5 cm to 10 cm

Twist length 0.6 cm to 0.85 cm

UTP: Unshielded Twisted Pair
STP: Shielded Twisted Pair
UTP Cabling
 Category 3 was originally used
for voice communication over
voice lines, but later used for
data transmission.
 Category 5 and 5e is used for
data transmission. Category 5
supports 100Mbps and Category
5e supports 1000 Mbps
 Category 6 has an added
separator between each wire
pair to support higher speeds.
Category 6 supports up to 10
Gbps.
 Category 7 also supports 10
Gbps.
Twisted pairs
Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)
 Used for telephone wire  Metal braid or covering that
 Cheapest type of cable reduces interference
 Easiest type to be installed  More expensive
 Suffers from external  Harder to handle (thick,
Electromagnetic (EM) heavy)
interference
RJ=Registered Jack
Ethernet Cabling

Crossover Cabling
1 1
Straight-Through Cabling
2 2

1 3 3
1
6 6
2 2
 PC to PC
3 3
 Hub to Hub
6 6  Switch to Switch
 PC to Switch/Hub  Hub to Switch
 Router to Switch/Hub  Router to PC
 Switch
Router

Hub
 1.b Coaxial Cable

◦used in bus technologyCopper wires (braid or foil)

conductor

External coat insulating

 Connectors

BNC BNC-T Terminator

1.c Optical Fiber
 consists of three concentric sections
plastic jacket glass or plastic
cover
Fiber core and
clading

 Core: consists of one or more very thin strands or fibers made of glass or
plastic
 Each fiber is surrounded by its own cladding, a glass or plastic coating that has
optical properties different from the core
 Jacket: a plastic or other material acts as a layer to protect against moisture,
crushing, and other environmental dangers.
Optical Fiber - Advantages
Greater capacity
◦Data rates of hundreds of Gbps
Smaller size & weight
Lower attenuation (signal loss)
◦ Greater repeater spacing
◦10s of km at least
No crosstalk (no light leaking)
Electromagnetic isolation
highly secure (no light leaking)
Optical Fiber - Disadvantages
Not easy to install and maintain
Unidirectional, two fibers are needed for
bidirectional
Cost: more expensive interfaces than
electrical interfaces used with other types
(twisted, coaxial)
Fiber-Optic Cabling Usage

Fiber-optic cabling is now being used in four types

of industry:
Enterprise Networks - Used for backbone
cabling applications and interconnecting
infrastructure devices
Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) - Used to provide
always-on broadband services to homes and
small businesses
Long-Haul Networks - Used by service
providers to connect countries and cities
Submarine Cable Networks - Used to provide
reliable high-speed, high-capacity solutions
capable of surviving in harsh undersea
environments at up to transoceanic distances.
Advantages
Fiber versus Copper
There are many advantages to using fiber-optic
cable compared to copper cables
Implementation
UTP Cabling Fiber-Optic Cabling
Issues
Bandwidth supported 10 Mb/s - 10 Gb/s 10 Mb/s - 100 Gb/s
Relatively short Relatively long ( 1 -
Distance
(1 - 100 meters) 100,000 meters)
Immunity to EMI and High (Completely
Low
RFI immune)
Immunity to electrical High (Completely
Low
hazards immune)
Media and connector
Lowest Highest
costs
Installation skills
Lowest Highest
required
Safety precautions Lowest Highest
2 Unguided Media

Unguided media: signals are transmitted through

air and are available to everyone who has a device
that can receive them
Bands
 2.a Radio waves
 30MHz to 1GHz
 Omnidirectional (signal propagates in all
directions)
 Easily interfere with other signals sent at

the same frequency range

 Can penetrate walls and can be received in the
building
 Does not require dish-shaped antennas
 Broadcast radio (AM,FM) ,TV, cordless phone,
Paging, cellular phones
Note

Radio waves are used for multicast

communications, such as radio and
television, and paging systems.
2.b Microwaves
 2GHz to 300GHz
 Highly directional (line-of-sight propagation = straight
lines)
 Requires dish-shaped antennas
 Point to point (sending and receiving antennas need to
be aligned)
 Very high frequency microwaves, usually, cannot
penetrate walls (disadv. if receivers are inside
buildings)
 Used in long distance telephone communications
 Used for short point-to-point transmission between
buildings to connect their LANs
 Used in Wireless networks, satellite communication
Note

Microwaves are used for unicast

communication such as cellular
telephones, satellite networks,
and wireless LANs.
2.c Infrared
 300GHz to 400THz
 Have a very large bandwidth that is not yet completely
utilized
 Local- short distance communication
 Line-of-sight propagation (directional)
 Used in local point-to-point Transmission or Multipoint
within a very limited area (single room)
 Used in Remote control, IrDA (Infrared Data
Association) port (wireless keyboard, mouse)
 Cannot be used under the sun because of the
interference with the sun infrared rays
 IrDA operates at 75kbps up to 8 meters, and 1.15Mbps –
4Mbps over a distance of 1 meter
Note

Infrared signals can be used for short-

range communication in a closed area
using line-of-sight propagation.
Wireless Media
Wireless media carry electromagnetic signals that represent
the binary digits of data communications using radio or
microwave frequencies.
These are some of the limitations of wireless:
Coverage area - Wireless data communication
technologies work well in open environments.
Interference - Wireless is susceptible to interference and
can be disrupted by such common devices as household
cordless phones, some types of fluorescent lights,
microwave ovens, and other wireless communications.
Security - Wireless communication coverage requires no
access to a physical strand of media. Therefore, devices and
users, not authorized for access to the network, can gain
access to the transmission. Network security is a major
component of wireless network administration.
Shared medium - WLANs operate in half-duplex, which
means only one device can send or receive at a time. The
Types of Wireless Media
The IEEE and telecommunications industry standards for
wireless data communications cover both the data link and
physical layers.
These are the wireless standards:
Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) - Wireless LAN (WLAN) technology,
commonly referred to as Wi-Fi
Bluetooth (IEEE 802.15) - This is a wireless personal area
network (WPAN) standard, commonly known as “Bluetooth.”
It uses a device pairing process to communicate over
distances from 1 to 100 meters
WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) - Commonly known as Worldwide
Interoperability for Microware Access (WiMAX), this wireless
standard uses a point-to-multipoint topology to provide
wireless broadband access
Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4) - Zigbee is a specification used for
low-data rate, low-power communications. It is intended for
applications that require short-range, low data-rates and
Bandwidth
 Different physical media support the transfer of
bits at different rates
 Data transfer is usually discussed in terms of
bandwidth. Bandwidth is the capacity at which a
medium can carry data
 Digital bandwidth measures the amount of data
that can flow from one place to another in a
Unit of Abbreviati
given amounton
Bandwidth of time Equivalence
1 bps = fundamental unit of
Bits per second bps
bandwidth
Kilobits per
Kbps 1 Kbps = 1,000 bps = 103 bps
second
Megabits per 1 Mbps = 1,000,000 bps =
Mbps
second 106 bps
Gigabits per 1 Gbps = 1,000,000,000 bps =
Bandwidth Terminology

Terms used to measure the quality of bandwidth

include:
 Latency
Latency refers to the amount of time, including
delays, for data to travel from one given point
to another
 Throughput
Throughput is the measure of the transfer of
bits across the media over a given period of
time
 Goodput
There is a third measurement to assess the
transfer of usable data; it is known as goodput
3. Signal Transmission

 Time division multiplexing

 Frequency division multiplexing

 Code division multiplexing

Supporting Multiple Channels

Multiple channels can coexist if they

transmit at a different frequency, or at a
different time, or in a different part of the
space.
◦Three dimensional space: frequency, space,
time
Space can be limited using wires or using
transmit power of wireless transmitters.
Frequency multiplexing means that
different users use a different part of the
spectrum.
◦Again, similar to radio: 95.5 versus 102.5
3.a Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA)
 Different users use the wire at different points in
time.
 Aggregate bandwidth also requires more spectrum.

Frequency

Frequency
 3.b Frequency Division Multiple
access (FDMA)

Determines Bandwidth of Link

Amplitude

Determines
Bandwidth
of Channel
Different Carrier
Frequencies
Frequency versus
Time-division Multiplexing
 Withfrequency-division
multiplexing different users

Frequency
use different parts of the
frequency spectrum.
◦ I.e. each user can send all the
time at reduced rate Frequency
◦ Example: roommates Bands
 Withtime-division
multiplexing different users
send at different times.
◦ I.e. each user can sent at full
speed some of the time
◦ Example: a time-share condo
 The
two solutions can be Slot Frame
combined.

Time
3.c Code Division Multiple Access
(CDMA)
Unique “code” assigned to each user; i.e.,
code set partitioning
Used mostly in wireless broadcast
channels (cellular, satellite, etc…)
All users share same frequency, but each
user has own “chipping” sequence (i.e.,
code) to encode data
Allows multiple users to “coexist” and
transmit simultaneously with minimal
interference (if codes are “orthogonal”)