Computer Networks: Maarten Van Steen

Computer Networks
Chapter 02
(version April 27, 2007)
Maarten van Steen

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Sciences
Dept. Computer Science
Room R4.20. Tel: (020) 598 7784
E-mail: steen@cs.vu.nl, URL: www.cs.vu.nl/∼steen/
01 Introduction
02 Physical Layer
03 Data Link Layer
04 MAC Sublayer
05 Network Layer
06 Transport Layer
07 Application Layer
08 Network Security
00 – 1 /
Physical Layer
Essence: Provide the means to transmit bits from

sender to receiver ⇒ involves a lot on how to use
(analog) signals for digital information
• Theoretical background: signal transmission and

Fourier analysis
• Transmission media (wires and no wires)
• Modulation techniques (the actual encoding), mul-

tiplexing, and switching
02 – 1 Physical Layer/
Transmitting Signals (1/2)
• We’re living in a digital world, meaning that we’d

preferably want to send digital (i.e. two-valued)
signals through wires.
• Wires are pretty much physical, meaning that Mother

Nature will probably impose a few constraints here
and there.
Observation: Signals are not entirely transmitted through

a wire as you would expect:
+5
-5
distance --->
02 – 2 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

Transmitting Signals (2/2)
Effect of frequency-dependent transmission delays:
+5
-5
distance --->
Effect of frequency-dependent attenuation:

+5
-5
distance --->
Overall effect including noise:

+5
-5
distance --->

Fourier Analysis (1/2)
To understand what’s going on, we need Fourier Anal-
ysis. A periodic function with period T (and frequency
f = 1/T ) g(t) can be written as:
1 ∞ ∞
g(t) = c + ∑ an sin(2πn f t) + ∑ bn cos(2πn f t)
2 n=1 n=1
1 sin[(2k − 1)t] (n is the num-

Example: g(t) = ∑nk=1 2k−1
ber of harmonics we take into account)
1 n=2
0.5
-0.5
n = 50
-1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Fourier Analysis (2/2)
rms amplitude
0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0
1 0.50
0.25
0 Time T 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Harmonic number
(a)
1 harmonic
0 1
(b)
1 2 harmonics
0 1 2
(c)
1 4 harmonics
0 1 2 3 4
(d)
1 8 harmonics
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Time Harmonic number
(e)
Note: root mean squares (on the right) reflect the dis-
persed energy at the given frequency.
Bandwidth (1/2)
What does this all mean?
• Digital signal transmission can be thought of as

being constructed as an infinite number of peri-
odic analog signals.
• The quality of transmission is frequency depen-

dent ⇒ not all parts of the digital signal get through
the wire as you would expect.
• Digital signal transmission is subject to attenu-

ation, distortion, etc. This is partly caused by
disallowing high-frequency components to pass
through (bandwidth).

Bandwidth (2/3)
Example: (We are trying to transmit a single byte):
• With a bit rate of b bits/sec, it takes 8/b seconds
to send a byte.
• The frequency f1 of the first harmonic is b/8 Hz;
Assume maximum supported frequency is 3000
Hz.
bps T (ms) f1 # har.
300 26.67 37.5 80
600 13.33 75.0 40
1200 6.67 150.0 20
2400 3.33 300.0 10
4800 1.67 600.0 5
9600 0.83 1200.0 2
19200 0.42 2400.0 1
38400 0.21 4800.0 0
Assumption: We are using a simple encoding tech-

nique based on the fact that the line supports only two
signal values.
Observation: Most telephone carriers cut off the high-

est frequency at 3000 Hz ⇒ we can never transmit at
a higher speed than 9600 bps.
Bandwidth (3/3)
Improvement: If there are four signal values avail-

able, we could encode 2 bits at a time:
00 → 0 volt 01 → 2 volt
10 → 4 volt 11 → 6 volt
The number changes in a signal per second is called

the baud.
Example 2: A 2400 bauds line (modem) can make

a bit rate of 9600 bps provided it uses 16 (24) signal
values:
S bits S bits S bits S bits

0 0000 4 0100 8 1000 12 1100
1 0001 5 0101 9 1001 13 1101
2 0010 6 0110 10 1010 14 1110
3 0011 7 0111 11 1011 15 1111

Nyquist & Shannon
Nyquist showed that if the cut-off frequency is H Hz,

the filtered signal can be reconstructed by making 2H
samples. No more, no less. Consequence:
maximum transmission rate = 2H log2 V bps
(where V is the number of signal values)
Shannon showed that a noisy channel with a signal-

to-noise ration S/R, has a limit with respect to the bit
rate:
maximum transmission rate = H log2(1 + S/R) bps
Example: A telephone line with H = 3000 and

10 log10(S/R) = 30 dB, can do no better than 30 kbps,
no matter how you do your encoding (excluding com-
pression).

Transmission Media
Magnetic Tape
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a sta-

tion wagon full of tapes hurtling down the high-
way
• Take a standard videotape that can carry about 7

gigabytes of data.
• A box of 50 × 50 × 50 cm can hold about 1000

tapes, which corresponds to 7000 gigabytes.
• Sending such a box can be done within 24 hours,

worldwide.
We’ve got a transmission rate of 648 Mbps!
Question: What is overlooked in this reasoning?
02 – 10 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Copper Wires (1/2)
Twisted pair: Two insulated copper wires, twisted like

a DNA string (reduces electrical inference). Often,
twisted pairs go by the bundle. Comparable to tele-
phone wiring at home.
(a) (b)
Further distinction between shielded (STP) and un-

shielded (UTP) versions, but the shielded ones used
to be primarily used only with IBM installations; now
also for local networks (Cat7).

Copper Wires (2/2)
Coax cable: Like the one you use for your TV Set:
Coax is better than twisted pair when you need more

bandwidth, but is now rapidly being replaced with fiber.

Fiber Optics (1/2)
Principle: Rather than using electrical signals, we

use optical ones that are passed through optical fiber.
Principal working is based on the refraction property
of light:
Air
Air/silica Total internal
boundary β1 β2 β3
reflection.
α1 α2 α3
Silica Light source
(a) (b)

Fiber Optics (2/2)
As it turns out, attenuation is extremely well in opti-

cal fiber. This means that they can be used for long
distances. In addition, the bandwidth is enormous.
0.85µ 1.30µ 1.55µ

2.0 Band Band Band
1.8
1.6
Attenuation (dB/km)
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8
Wavelength (microns)

Fiber Connections
Observation: An interface consists of a receiver (pho-

todiode) which transforms light into electrical signals,
and/or a transmitter (LED or laserdiode)
Passive interface: A computer is directly connected

to the optical fiber
Active interface: There’s an ordinary electrical re-

peater connected to two fiber segments and the com-
puter:
To/from computer
Computer
Copper wire
of interface
etail
D
Direction
of light
propagation
Fiber Optical Signal Optical

receiver regenerator transmitter
Optical fiber Interface (photodiode) (electrical) (LED)

Optical Fiber vs Copper Wire
Bandwidth: Fiber can support enormous bandwidths,

exactly what we need with upcoming image-based
applications (video-on-demand).
Attenuation: Because the attenuation in fiber is less

than in copper (can you imagine why?), we don’t
need to boost the signal as often. In practice, fiber
requires an active repeater every 30 km, copper
every 5 km.
External influences: That’s right, no more interfer-

ence from other cables, radios, power failures,
etc. Crosstalk (you hearing another conversation)
is out of the question.
Weight: Fiber simply doesn’t weigh as much. Good

for backs, bones, and the use of heavy mainte-
nance equipment.

Wireless Transmission (1/3)
Wireless transmission is really great for all of us who

can’t sit still, or feel they have to be on-line all the time.
It’s also convenient when wiring is needed where it
can’t be done, or isn’t really worth the trouble (jun-
gles, islands, mountains), or because it’s just user-
unfriendly (homes).
Wireless transmissions travel at the speed of light (c),

uses a frequency ( f ) which has a wavelength (λ):
c = λ· f
The larger the wavelength is, the longer the distance
it can travel without attenuation. Also, the dispersion
of higher frequencies is much lower.
02 – 17 Physical Layer/2.3 Wireless Transmission

f (Hz) 100 102 104 106 108 1010 1012 1014 1016 1018 1020 1022 1024
Radio Microwave Infrared UV X-ray Gamma ray
Visible
light
f (Hz) 104 105 106 107 108 109 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016
Satellite Fiber
Twisted pair
Coax optics
Terrestrial
AM FM microwave
Maritime radio radio
TV
Band LF MF HF VHF UHF SHF EHF THF
Note: We can encode only a few bits per Hertz in

the low frequency range, but much more in the higher
ranges. This means that wireless transmission will
generally have a much lower bandwidth (in practice:
50-100 Mbps maximum).
Observation: Fiber optics operate in the high fre-

quency range, which explains the transmission rates
of gigabits per second.
c = λ · f ⇒ ddλf = − c2 ⇒ ∆ f = − c·∆λ
λ λ2
Conclusion: the wider the range, and the shorter

the wavelength, the higher the bandwidth. Example:
Fiber optics often work at λ = 1.3 × 10−6 with ∆λ =
0.17 × 10−6 leading to 30 THz bandwidth!
Frequency hopping: Use a wide band, but let the

transmitter hop from frequency to frequency (hun-
dreds of times per second). Good for avoiding
continuous interference and reducing the effect of
reflected signals (you won’t be listening to them).
Direct sequence: Simply spread the signal over a wide

frequency band (and allow several signals with
different encoding/modulation techniques to be trans-
mitted simultaneously).

Observation: Radio transmission (VLF–VHF) is ex-

tremely popular for its cheapness and range. Also,
waves just go all over the place.
ere
Ground osph
wave Ion
Earth's surface Earth's surface

(a) (b)
Observation: Microwave transmission is also popu-

lar and is good for long distances, as long as it’s di-
rected. Problem is the density in the spectrum, re-
quiring higher frequency ranges (which are hard for
unguided transmissions)

Communication Satellites
Observation: Satellites are attractive because they
provide a relatively simple model of communication:
one signal up can be broadcast to many receivers
downwards.
Taking Mother Nature into account (i.e., avoiding belts

around the earth consisting of highly-charged parti-
cles that would destroy a satellite), there are three
types of satellites:
Altitude (km) Type Latency (ms) Sats needed
35,000 GEO 270 3
30,000
25,000
20,000
Upper Van Allen belt
15,000
10,000 MEO 35–85 10
5,000
Lower Van Allen belt
0 1–7 50
LEO
02 – 21 Physical Layer/2.4 Communication Satellites

Geostationary Orbit Satellites
Feature: GEO satellites are placed at 35,800 km above
the earth where their rotational speed is the same as
that of the earth. The effect is that they appear to re-
main motionless in the sky.
VSATs: Very Small Aperture Terminals – simple sys-

tems that output 1 Watt at 19.2 kbps but can download
as much as 512 kbps. To allow the VSATs to commu-
nicate with each other, hubs are used:
Communication
satellite
1 4
3 2
VSAT
Hub

Medium-Earth Orbit Satellites
Example: The Global Positioning System (GPS) orbit

at 18,000 km. It takes about 6 hours for a satellite to
circle the earth. They are not used for telecommuni-
cations.

Low-Earth Orbit Satellites (1/2)
Essence: We throw in a relatively large number of
low-orbit satellites which jointly cover the surface of
the earth; when you are out of your current satellite’s
spot beam, you should be in that of the next satellite
(Iridium):
(a) (b)
Note: Iridium uses 66 satellites, each having a maxi-

mum of 48 cells (i.e., spot beams), totaling 1628 cells.
Observation: This approach is virtually the same as

that of cellular radio, except that the cells are moving
instead of the subjects.
Low-Earth Orbit Satellites (2/2)
Alternative: In Globalstar, much of the complexity is

handled by ground stations that pick up a connection
from a satellite, and pass it on to the one closest to
the receiver:
Satellite switches Bent-pipe

in space satellite
Switching
on the
ground
(a) (b)
Observation: This scheme avoids much of the com-

plexity for (managing) inter-satellite communication.

Where (not) to use Satellites
Bandwidth: Fiber wins, but not everyone has access

to all the available bandwidth. Satellites may make
it easier to transfer data anyway
Mobility and remote locations: Satellites win, although

it isn’t clear whether simple cellular techniques
may do just fine
Broadcasting: Satellites win easily: broadcasting es-

sentially comes for free
Fast and reliable: Give credits to fiber: satellites are

pretty bad due to inherent high latency (230 ms
round-trip for geostationary satellites), and too much
Mother Nature (rain!)

The Local Loop
Observation: When it comes the telephone system,

from a networking perspective the local loop is the
most interesting to look at. The general structure is
as follows:
Computer ISP 2
Local loop Medium-bandwidth Digital line

(analog, trunk Toll
twisted pair) (digital, fiber) office Up to 10,000
local loops
Modem Codec
Toll Toll Modem bank

office office
Codec
End office High-bandwidth trunk
(digital, fiber)
ISP 1
02 – 27 Physical Layer/2.5 Telephone System

Modulation Techniques (1/3)
Problem: How can we encode our signals when we

can effectively use only a single frequency (or better:
small frequency range)? Answer: Apply modulation
techniques:
• Change the amplitude (strength) of the signal: chang-

ing amplitude means a binary 1, constant ampli-
tude a binary 0.
• Use different frequencies to encode your bits (these

frequencies can be put “on top” of your base fre-
quency).
• Change the phase of the wave (cf. sine and co-

sine) to do signal encoding.

Modulation techniques (2/3)
0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Phase changes

Modulation techniques (3/3)
Observation: Modulation is strongly related to not

being able to set a (wide-frequency-ranges) DC signal
value on the wire as direct encoding of binary signals:
+5
-5
distance --->
becomes
+5
-5
distance --->

Increasing Transmission Rates
Observation: An important issue is to use low-baud
modems for high transmission rates, by increasing the
number of signal values ⇒ Combine different modu-
lation techniques
90 90
180 0 180 0
270
270
(b) (c)
Example: V.32 uses phase-shifting combined with am-

plitude modulation
Observation: We have to be extremely accurate in

being able to detect changes in a signal value. Further
improvements are made by also using compression
techniques
Digital Subscriber Lines
Observation: Traditional telephone modems are arti-

ficially limited to a 3000 Hz bandwidth, used to carry
voice over analog lines. If we can direct signals to a
different switch that does not narrow the bandwidth,
much higher transmission rates can be achieved.
Snag: The actual bandwidth capacity that a copper

wire can support, is dependent on the distance that a
signal needs to be carried:
50
40
30
Mpbs
20
10
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
Meters

Asymmetric DSL (1/3)
Essence: Considering that the local loop has a 1.1

MHz spectrum, we can divide the spectrum into 256
4kHz channels (like in traditional telephone systems),
and divide these into several logical channels:
256 4-kHz Channels

Power
0 25 1100 kHz
Voice Upstream Downstream
Note: It is up to the provider to decide how it will ar-

range its channels. Different combinations are possi-
ble.

Voice
switch Telephone
Codec
Splitter Telephone Splitter

line
NID
Computer
DSLAM
ADSL Ethernet
modem
To ISP
Telephone company end office Customer premises
NID Network Interface Device

DSLAM DSL Access Multiplexer

4: CPU 5: JTAG interface

6: 8 Mb RAM 7: Flash memory
13: Ethernet port 16: USB port
17: Telephone port

ADSL2(+)
Observation: The bandwidth of the local loop has

been expanded to 2.2 MHz (i.e., you push a 2.2 MHz
signal through the wire). Supported by ADSL2+.
• ADSL2 allows to a maximum of 12 Mbps down-

load speed
• ADSL2+ allows to a maximum of 25 Mbps, with a

3–7 km distance to be crossed by copper.
• Maximum upload speed is 1.2–3.5 Mbps

Wireless Local Loop
Problem: Suppose you want to start an ISP but us-
ing the local loop is out of the question because it is
owned by your competitor.
Solution: Set up a wireless direct connection between

one of your antennas and your subscribers (in a so-
called sector):
Telephone
Network ISP
Note: A sector can operate at 36 Gbps downstream

bandwidth and 1 Mbps upstream, to be shared by
subscribers. The range is about 2–5 km. Practice:
single users get 10 Mbps over 10 km.
Multiplexing: FDM
Problem: Considering that the bandwidth of a chan-
nel can be huge, wouldn’t it be possible to divide the
channel into sub-channels?
Frequency Division Multiplexing: Divide the avail-

able bandwidth into channels through frequency filter-
ing, and apply modulation techniques per channel:
Channel 1
Channel 2
Attenuation factor
Channel 2
Channel 1 Channel 3
1
60 64 68 72
Channel 3 Frequency (kHz)
1 (c)
300 3100 60 64 68 72
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (kHz)

(a) (b)

Multiplexing: WDM
Wavelength Division Multiplexing: Actually the same

as FDM, but used for fiber optics.
Fiber 1 Fiber 2 Fiber 3 Fiber 4 Spectrum

spectrum spectrum spectrum spectrum on the
shared fiber
Power
Power
Power
Power
Power
λ λ λ λ λ
Filter
λ1
Fiber 1 λ2
λ2
Fiber 2 λ1+λ2+λ3+λ4 λ4
λ3 Combiner Splitter
Fiber 3 λ1
λ4 Long-haul shared fiber
Fiber 4 λ3
Observation: Light waves have their own frequency

range; they are simply combined and separated using
standard (de)fraction properties

Multiplexing: TDM (1/3)
Time Division Multiplexing: Simply merge/split streams

of digital data into a new stream. Data is handled in
frames – a fixed series of consecutive bits:
sender-1 buffer frame

sender-2 buffer
sender-3 buffer
receiver-1 buffer
receiver-2 buffer
receiver-3 buffer
Observation: This is full-digital solution in contrast to

FDM and WDM

Example: The T1 system samples at 8000 Hz, and

encodes each sample as a 7-bit number (i.e. 128 dif-
ferent values). With some extra control bits, we merge
samples into 193-bit frames, every 125 µsec:
193-bit frame (125 µsec)
Channel Channel Channel Channel Channel

1 2 3 4 24
Bit 1 is 7 Data Bit 8 is for

a framing bits per signaling
code channel
per sample
1 × 106 =
Observation: T1 supports a total of 193 × 125
1.544 Mbps

Observation: TDM also makes it easy to offer individ-

ual senders higher bandwidth, by simply putting more
data into a frame, or to combine several trunks into
higher-bandwidth trunks:
sender-1 buffer frame

sender-2 buffer
4 T1 streams in 7 T2 streams in 6 T3 streams in
40 1 T2 stream out
51
4:1 6 5 4 32 10 7:1 6:1
62
73
1.544 Mbps 6.312 Mbps 44.736 Mbps 274.176 Mbps
T1 T2 T3 T4

Switching (1/2)
Circuit switching: Make a true physical connection

from sender to receiver. This is what happens in
traditional telephone systems.
Packet switching: (1) Split any data (i.e. message)

into small packets, (2) route those packets sepa-
rately from sender to receiver, and (3) assemble
them again.
Physical (copper)
connection set up
when call is made
(a)
Switching office
Computer Packets queued

for subsequent
transmission
Computer
(b)

Switching (2/2)
Variation: Store-and-forward switching – a message
is completely received at a router, stored, and then
put into an outgoing queue for further routing
Call request signal
Pkt 1
Propagation
delay Msg
Pkt 2
Pkt 1
Pkt 3
Pkt 2
Msg Queuing Pkt 1
delay Pkt 3
Time Pkt 2
spent
Time
hunting
for an Pkt 3
outgoing
Msg
trunk
Call
accept
signal
Data
AB BC CD
trunk trunk trunk
A B C D A B C D A B C D
(a) (b) (c)
(a) circuit-switching; (b) store-and-forward; (c) packet-switching

Switching: Comparison

Advanced Mobile Phone System
Cells: The whole idea is to break up an area into
small regional cells, each having their own frequency
range, and such that no two adjacent cells have the
same frequency.
Observation: The approach is pretty good for han-

dling different densities; the problem is frequency allo-
cation and energy emission (you can’t “stop” a signal
at a cell border)
B
B G C
G C A
A F D
F D E
E B
G C
A
F D
E
(a) (b)
02 – 46 Physical Layer/2.6 Mobile Telephone System

GSM (1/2)
GSM: Global System for Mobile communications, is a
full-blown digital cellular radio transmission system. A
cell has one or more base stations, and uses a unique
set of frequencies.
GSM uses 124 downlink channels, and 124 uplink

channels per cell, each channel multiplexed by TDM
(GSM-900):
TDM frame
Channel
959.8 MHz 124

●
●
●
Base
2 to mobile
935.4 MHz
935.2 MHz 1
Frequency
914.8 MHz 124

●
●
●
Mobile
to base
890.4 MHz 2
890.2 MHz 1
Time
Note: this gives 8 × 124 = 992 full duplex channels.

A lot of them are not used to avoid interference with
neighboring cells.
GSM (2/2)
There are also separate channels for:
• broadcasting cell info (so that a mobile station can

see whether it has changed cells).
• cell maintenance (the base station has to know

who’s in its cell).
• call setup (incoming, and outgoing).

CDMA (1/2)
Code Division Multiple Access allows transmissions
to be interleaved, but avoids interference. Note that
this means inherently no message collision.
Principle: Assign a chip sequence to a station, which

is just an m-bit code. Make sure that all chip sequences
are pairwise orthogonal:
• rewrite a binary 0 as -1, and a binary 1 as +1.
• for every two chip sequences S and T:

1 m
m ∑i=1 SiTi = 0.
• send a 1 bit as your chip sequence (S), and a 0
bit as the inverse (S̄).
• just transmit your bits when a new bit time slot

starts ⇒ the (possibly inversed) chip sequences
are just added.
• getting the original value means taking the inner

product of the original chip sequence with the sig-
nal sent.

CDMA (2/2)
A: 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 A: (–1 –1 –1 +1 +1 –1 +1 +1)
B: 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 B: (–1 –1 +1 –1 +1 +1 +1 –1)
C: 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 C: (–1 +1 –1 +1 +1 +1 –1 –1)
D: 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 D: (–1 +1 –1 –1 –1 –1 +1 –1)
(a) (b)
Six examples:
––1 – C S1 = (–1 +1 –1 +1 +1 +1 –1 –1)

–11– B+C S2 = (–2 0 0 0 +2 +2 0 –2)
10–– A+B S3 = ( 0 0 –2 +2 0 –2 0 +2)
101– A+B+C S4 = ( –1 +1 –3 +3 +1 –1 –1 +1)
1111 A+B+C+D S5 = (–4 0 –2 0 +2 0 +2 –2)
1101 A+B+C+D S6 = ( –2 –2 0 –2 0 –2 +4 0)
(c)
S1 ● C = (1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 +1)/8 = 1
S2 ● C = (2 +0 +0 +0 +2 +2 +0 +2)/8 = 1
S3 ● C = (0 +0 +2 +2 +0 –2 +0 –2)/8 = 0
S4 ● C = ( 1 +1 +3 +3 +1 –1 +1 –1)/8 = 1
S5 ● C = (4 +0 +2 +0 +2 +0 –2 +2)/8 = 1
S6 ● C = (2 –2 +0 –2 +0 –2 –4 +0)/8 = –1
(d)
Question: Doesn’t this look a lot like linear algebra?

Cable Television
High-bandwidth
fiber
Switch Coaxial
trunk
cable
Fiber node
Head-
end
Tap
House
Fiber
(a)
House
Toll High-bandwidth End Local
office fiber trunk office loop
Fiber
Copper
twisted pair
(b)
Observation: Cable requires sharing whereas the tele-

phone system does not.
02 – 51 Physical Layer/2.7 Cable Television
Cable Television: Principle
Essence: It’s quite simple: there’s a lot of unused

bandwidth that can be allocated to sending bits over
the wire:
5 42 54 88
0 108 550 750 MHz
Upstream
data
TV FM TV Downstream data
frequencies
Upstream
Downstream frequencies
Note: Because downstream (television) starts at 54

MHz, there is limited bandwidth that can be used for
upstream data. Practice: Data Over Cable Service
Interface Specification (DOCSIS):
version 1 38 Mbps download 9 Mbps upload

Example: Casema
Station Channel Frequency
Nederland 1 22 479,25
RTL 4 28 527,25
RTL 5 36 591,25
SBS 6 37 599,25
RTL 7 38 607,25
Veronica / Jetix 39 615,25
Net 5 40 623,25
Tien 41 631,25
Casema Service Kanaal 29 535,25
TV West 44 655,25
Eén 42 639,25
Ketnet / Canvas 43 647,25
Discovery Channel 46 671,25
National Geographic / CNBC 47 679,25
Animal Planet 48 687,25
Eurosport 54 735,25
MTV 50 703,25
Nickelodeon / The BOX 51 711,25
TMF 53 727,25
BBC 1 55 743,25
BBC 2 56 751,25
Question: What happened?

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Computer Networks

Maarten van Steen

Essence: Provide the means to transmit bits from

• Theoretical background: signal transmission and

• Transmission media (wires and no wires)

• Modulation techniques (the actual encoding), mul-

• We’re living in a digital world, meaning that we’d

• Wires are pretty much physical, meaning that Mother

Observation: Signals are not entirely transmitted through

02 – 2 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

Effect of frequency-dependent attenuation:

Overall effect including noise:

02 – 3 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

1 sin[(2k − 1)t] (n is the num-

02 – 4 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

What does this all mean?

• Digital signal transmission can be thought of as

• The quality of transmission is frequency depen-

• Digital signal transmission is subject to attenu-

02 – 6 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

Assumption: We are using a simple encoding tech-

Observation: Most telephone carriers cut off the high-

Improvement: If there are four signal values avail-

The number changes in a signal per second is called

Example 2: A 2400 bauds line (modem) can make

S bits S bits S bits S bits

02 – 8 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

Nyquist showed that if the cut-off frequency is H Hz,

maximum transmission rate = 2H log2 V bps

(where V is the number of signal values)

Shannon showed that a noisy channel with a signal-

maximum transmission rate = H log2(1 + S/R) bps

Example: A telephone line with H = 3000 and

02 – 9 Physical Layer/2.1 Theoretical Background

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a sta-

• Take a standard videotape that can carry about 7

• A box of 50 × 50 × 50 cm can hold about 1000

• Sending such a box can be done within 24 hours,

We’ve got a transmission rate of 648 Mbps!

Question: What is overlooked in this reasoning?

02 – 10 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Twisted pair: Two insulated copper wires, twisted like

Further distinction between shielded (STP) and un-

02 – 11 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Coax is better than twisted pair when you need more

02 – 12 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Principle: Rather than using electrical signals, we

02 – 13 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

As it turns out, attenuation is extremely well in opti-

0.85µ 1.30µ 1.55µ

02 – 14 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Observation: An interface consists of a receiver (pho-

Passive interface: A computer is directly connected

Active interface: There’s an ordinary electrical re-

Fiber Optical Signal Optical

02 – 15 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Bandwidth: Fiber can support enormous bandwidths,

Attenuation: Because the attenuation in fiber is less

External influences: That’s right, no more interfer-

Weight: Fiber simply doesn’t weigh as much. Good

02 – 16 Physical Layer/2.2 Transmission Media

Wireless transmission is really great for all of us who