1. Briefly describe the services provided by the data link layer.

Framing data bits: Divides the stream of bits received from the networklayer
into frames
Moving frames: from one hop (node) to the next
Physical addressing: Provides the physical addresses of the sender/receiver
Flow control: Avoids the sender host for not overflowing the receiver
host(excessive data and rapid transmission)
Error control: The data link layer adds reliability to the physical layer by
adding mechanisms to detect, correct and retransmit damaged or lost frames
Access control: When two or more devices are connected to the same link,
data link layer protocols determines which device has control over the link at
any given time.

2. Define framing and the reason for its need.

Bits are packed into frames of manageable size
Framing in the data link layer adds sender address and destination address,
as well as other control bits
A message can be packed in one or multiple frames
Frame size is kept such that flow and error control become efficient

3. Compare and contrast byte-oriented and bit-oriented protocols. Which

category has been popular in the past (explain the reason)? Which
category is popular now (explain the reason)?
In a byte-oriented protocol, data to be carried are 8-bit characters from a
coding system. Character-oriented protocols were popular when only text was
exchanged by the data link layers. In a bit-oriented protocol, the data second
of a frame is a sequence of bits. Bit-oriented protocols are more popular today
because we need to send text, graphic, audio, and video which can be beer
represented by a bit paern than a sequence of characters.

4. Compare and contrast byte-stuffing and bit-stuffing. Which technique is

used in byte-oriented protocols? Which technique is used in bit-oriented
protocols?

Byte stuffing is the process of adding 1 extra byte whenever there is a flag or
escape character in the text while bit stuffing is the process of adding one
extra 0 whenever five consecutive 1s follow a 0 in the data, so that the
receiver does not mistake the pattern 0111110 for a flag. Byte stuffing is used
at byte-oriented protocols and bit stuffing is used at bit-oriented protocols.

5. Compare and contrast flow control and error control.

Flow control and Error control are the control mechanism at data link layer
and transport layer. Whenever the sends the data to the receiver these two
mechanisms helps in proper delivering of the reliable data to the receiver. The
main difference between the flow control and error control is that the flow
control observes the proper flow of the data from sender to receiver, on the
other hand, the error control observes that the data delivered to the receiver
is error free and reliable. Lets study the difference between Flow control and
Error control with a comparison chart.