COMPUTER NETWORKS

Course Code: 21CS52

• Physical Layer: Guided transmission media, Wireless transmission
Physical Layer Issues
• Media: wires, fiber, satellites, radio
• Signal propagation: bandwidth, attenuation, noise
• Modulation: how bits are represented as voltage signals
• Fundamental limits: Nyquist, Shannon
Abstract Model of a Link
• Bit rate: bits/sec depends on the channel’s bandwidth
• Delay: how long does it take a bit to get to the end?
• Error rate: what is the probability of a bit flipping?
• In industry-standard Ultrium tape can hold 800 gigabytes.
• A box 60 × 60 × 60 cm can hold about 1000 of these tapes, for a total
capacity of 800 terabytes, or 6400 terabits (6.4 petabits).
• A box of tapes can be delivered anywhere in the United States in 24
hours by Federal Express and other companies.
• The effective bandwidth of this transmission is 6400 terabits/86,400 sec,
or a bit over 70 Gbps.
• If the destination is only an hour away by road, the bandwidth is
increased to over 1700 Gbps.
• No computer network can even approach this!!!
• The cost of an Ultrium tape is around $40 when bought in bulk.
• A tape can be reused at least 10 times.
• Tape cost is maybe $4000 per box per usage.
• Add to this another $1000 for shipping (probably much less), and we
have a cost of roughly $5000 to ship 800 TB.
• This amounts to shipping a gigabyte for a little over half a cent.

• Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes

hurtling down the highway.
Electro magnetic Waves
Wireless medium
• People who need to be online all the time!!!!
• For these mobile users, twisted pair, coax, and fiber optics are of no
use.

• They need to get their ‘‘hits’’ of data for their laptop, notebook, shirt
pocket, palmtop, or wristwatch computers without being tethered to
the terrestrial communication infrastructure.
• For these users, wireless communication is the answer
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
• When electrons move, they create electromagnetic waves that can
propagate through space (even in a vacuum).
• These waves were predicted by the British physicist James Clerk
Maxwell in 1865 and first observed by the German physicist Heinrich
Hertz in 1887.
• The number of oscillations per second of a wave is called its
frequency, f, and is measured in Hz (in honor of HeinrichHertz). The
distance between two consecutive maxima (or minima) is called the
wavelength, which is universally designated by the Greek letter λ
(lambda).
• When an antenna of the appropriate size is attached to an electrical
circuit, the electromagnetic waves can be broadcast efficiently and
received by a receiver some distance away.
• All wireless communication is based on this principle
• In a vacuum, all electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed, no matter
what their frequency.
• This speed, usually called the speed of light, c, is approximately 3 × 108
m/sec, or about 1 foot (30 cm) per nanosecond.
• In copper or fiber the speed slows to about 2/3 of this value and becomes
slightly frequency dependent.
• The speed of light is the ultimate speed limit. No object or signal can ever
move faster than it.

• The fundamental relation between f, λ, and c (in a vacuum) is λf = c

• f=c/ λ
• Since c is a constant, if we know f, we can find λ, and vice versa. As a
rule of thumb, when λ is in meters and f is in MHz, λf ≈300.
• For example, 100-MHz waves are about 3 meters long, 1000-MHz
waves are 0.3 meters long, and 0.1- meter waves have a frequency of
3000 MHz.
Tremendously High Frequency THF 0-3THz Micro meter
• The bands listed at the bottom of the Figure are the official ITU
(International Telecommunication Union) names and are based on
the wavelengths, so the LF band goes from 1 km to 10 km
(approximately 30 kHz to 300 kHz).The terms LF, MF, and HF refer to
Low, Medium, and High Frequency, respectively.
• Clearly, when the names were assigned nobody expected to go above
10 MHz, so the higher bands were later named the Very, Ultra, Super,
Extremely, and Tremendously High Frequency bands.
• Beyond that there are no names, but Incredibly, Astonishingly, and
Prodigiously High Frequency (IHF, AHF, and PHF) would sound nice.
• Radio waves are easy to generate, can travel long distance, and
penetrate buildings easily, so they are widely used for
communication, both indoors and outdoors.
• Radio waves are also omnidirectional, meaning that they travel in all
directions from the source, so that the transmitter and receiver do
not have to be carefully aligned physically.
• In frequency hopping spread spectrum, the transmitter hops from
frequency to frequency hundreds of times per second.
• It is popular for military communication because it makes
transmissions hard to detect and next to impossible to jam.
• It also offers good resistance to multipath fading and narrowband
interference because the receiver will not be stuck on an impaired
frequency for long enough to shut down communication.

• This technique is used commercially, for example, in Bluetooth and

older versions of 802.11
FHSS-Frequency Hop Spread Spectrum
CDMA
• Direct sequence spread spectrum, uses a code sequence to spread
the data signal over a wider frequency band.
• It is widely used commercially as a spectrally efficient way to let
multiple signals share the same frequency band.
• These signals can be given different codes, a method called CDMA
(Code Division Multiple Access)
• It forms the basis of 3G mobile phone networks and is also used in
GPS (Global Positioning System). Even without different codes, direct
sequence spread spectrum, like frequency hopping spread spectrum,
can tolerate narrowband interference and multipath fading because
only a fraction of the desired signal is lost.
UWB (Ultra- Wide Band) communication
• UWB sends a series of rapid pulses, varying their positions to
communicate information.
• The rapid transitions lead to a signal that is spread thinly over a very
wide frequency band.
• UWB is defined as signals that have a bandwidth of at least 500 MHz
Radio frequency (RF)
• Radio frequency (RF) waves are easy to generate, can travel long
distances, and can penetrate buildings easily, so they are widely used
for communication.
• Radio waves also are omnidirectional, meaning that they travel in all
directions from the source, so the transmitter and receiver do not
have to be carefully aligned physically
Case study
• Sometimes omnidirectional radio is good, but sometimes it is bad. In the
• 1970s, General Motors decided to equip all its new Cadillacs with
computer-controlled antilock brakes.
• When the driver stepped on the brake pedal, the computer pulsed the
brakes on and off instead of locking them on hard.
• One fine day an Ohio Highway Patrolman began using his new mobile
radio to call headquarters, and suddenly the Cadillac next to him began
behaving like a bucking bronco.
• When the officer pulled the car over, the driver claimed that he had done
nothing and that the car had gone crazy.
• The properties of radio waves are frequency dependent.
• At low frequencies, radio waves pass through obstacles well, but the
power falls off sharply with distance from the source—at least as fast
as 1/r2 in air—as the signal energy is spread more thinly over a larger
surface.
• This attenuation is called path loss.
• At high frequencies, radio waves tend to travel in straight lines and
bounce off obstacles.
• Path loss still reduces power, though the received signal can depend
strongly on reflections as well.
• High-frequency radio waves are also absorbed by rain and other
obstacles to a larger extent than are low-frequency ones.
• At all frequencies, radio waves are subject to interference from
motors and other electrical equipment.
• With fiber, coax and twisted pair, the signal drops by the same fraction
per unit distance, for example 20 dB per 100m for twisted pair.
• With radio, the signal drops by the same fraction as the distance
doubles, for example 6 dB per doubling in free space.
• This behavior means that radio waves can travel long distances, and
interference between users is a problem
Microwaves Transmission
• Microwaves have much bandwidth and are widely used indoors
(WiFi) and outdoors (3G, satellites)
• Signal is attenuated/reflected by everyday objects
• Strength varies with mobility due multipath fading, etc.
Microwave Transmission
• Above 100 MHz, the waves travel in nearly straight lines and can
therefore be narrowly focused.
• Concentrating all the energy into a small beam by means of a
parabolic antenna (like the familiar satellite TV dish) gives a much
higher signal-to-noise ratio, but the transmitting and receiving
antennas must be accurately aligned with each other.
• In addition, this directionality allows multiple transmitters lined up in
a row to communicate with multiple receivers in a row without
interference, provided some minimum spacing rules are observed.
• Before fiber optics, for decades these microwaves formed the heart
of the long-distance telephone transmission system.
• Microwaves travel in a straight line, so if the towers are too far apart,
the earth will get in the way.
• Thus, repeaters are needed periodically.
• The higher the towers are, the farther apart they can be.
• The distance between repeaters goes up very roughly with the square
root of the tower height.
• For 100-meter-high towers, repeaters can be 80 km apart
• Microwaves - electromagnetic waves with a frequency between 1GHz
(wavelength 30cm) and 12GHz (wavelength 1mm)
• microwaves frequency are further categorized into frequency bands:
L (1-2 GHz), S (2-4 GHz), C (4-8 GHz), X (8-12 GHz)
• Receivers need an unobstructed view of the sender to successfully
receive microwaves
• Micro waves are ideal when large areas need to be covered and there
are no obstacles in the path
Light Transmission
• Line-of-sight light (no fiber) can be used for links
• Light is highly directional, has much bandwidth
• Use of LEDs/cameras and lasers/photodetectors
Wireless vs. Wires/Fiber
• Wireless:
• + Easy and inexpensive to deploy
• + Naturally supports mobility
• + Naturally supports broadcast
• − Transmissions interfere and must be managed
• − Signal strengths hence data rates vary greatly
• Wires/Fiber:
• + Easy to engineer a fixed data rate over point-to-point links
• − Can be expensive to deploy, esp. over distances
• − Doesn’t readily support mobility or broadcast