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Basic Blocks Coverage and Topology

 Three basic  Coverage (public
components network)
◦ Source and Transmitter ◦ LAN
◦ Destinations and Receiver ◦ MAN
◦ Communication channel ◦ WAN
(medium)
 Communication  Topology
channel ◦ Bus
◦ Wired ◦ Ring
◦ Wireless ◦ Mesh
◦ Glass ◦ Star
◦ Water and or materials

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• Network characteristics
• Full redundancy
• Fast restoration
• High availability (99.999 %)
• Low latency
• High bandwidth
• Dynamic allocation and high bandwidth efficiency
• Support various services
• More providers and equipment builders
• Providers are expected to provide more services at
higher capacity at lower prices!

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 Two basic service types (switching technologies)
◦ Connection-oriented
◦ Connectionless
 Connection-oriented
◦ Based on circuit switching (setup, connect, tear-down)
◦ Example: Public Switching Telephone Network (PSTN)
◦ Originally only supported voice
◦ Not good for bursty traffic
 Connectionless
◦ Based on packet switching (sending datagrams)
◦ Examples: Packet, massage, burst switching
◦ Improves bandwidth and network utilization

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• Transmitting several signals over a single
communications channel
• Multiplexing technologies
• Frequency Division Multiplexing (modulating data into different
carrier frequencies)
• Wavelength Division Multiplexing
• Time division Multiplexing (dividing available time among
various signals)
• Statistical Multiplexing (dynamic allocation of time spaces
depending on the traffic pattern)
• Statistical Multiplexing
• Requires buffering resulting in variable delay
• Many packets will have to be buffered
• Packets will have to be delayed
• Some packets may be lost
• Guarantee of Service (QoS)

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• Allowing transmission of information using pulses of light

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 In 20th Century, it was used for limited line of sight
mobile communication link as it was badly affected due
to rain, fog, dust and sub optimum sources/detectors
 With the advent of laser, usage was increased but
attenuation losses were 1000dB/km as compared to
10dB/km in coaxial
 In the late 70s, lasers and LEDs on the transmission side
and photodiodes and phototransistors on the reception
side were improved
 Lifetime of semiconductor laser was increased from 5-7
hours to 1000 hours
 Initially the optical fiber was operated in the range of
0.8-0.9µm which was extended to 1.1-1.6µm

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Enhanced Bandwidth
◦ Optical carrier freq 10^13 to 10^16 hz

◦ RF Signal operates at max 10^12 hz

◦ Max achievable bandwidth in RF is from 20Mhz upto

10km till 70Mhz upto few hundreds of meters

◦ By the year 2000, bandwidth length product for coaxial

was 100Mhz-km whereas for fiber it was 5000Ghz-km

◦ WDM offers larger scale bandwidths as perceived with

single optical signal

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Size and Weight

◦ Optical fiber has diameter comparable to human hair

◦ Even with protective coating the size and weight of optical

fiber strands are much lesser than copper bundles

◦ It has helped congestion of ducting in urban areas

◦ It has also helped in signal propagation within aircrafts,

satellites and sea ships

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Electrical Isolation

◦ Optical fiber fabricated from glass or plastic polymer

◦ It doesn't exhibit earth loop or interface problems

◦ It creates no arcing or spark hazards at abrasion or short

circuits

◦ Ideally suited for communication in electrically hazardous

environment

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Interference and Cross Talk Immunity

◦ Optical fiber is a dielectric waveguide and is hence

immune from electromagnetic interference, radio
frequency interference and electromagnetic pulses

◦ It is not susceptible to lighting strikes

◦ Cross talk is negligible even when many fibers are cabled

together

◦ Ideally suited for overhead installations

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Signal Security

◦ RF signal can be tapped or intercepted easily without even

being noticed

◦ Optical signal is a light signal and cannot be obtained

from the fiber in non-invasive manner

◦ Any attempt to acquire optical signal will not go unnoticed

◦ Ideally suited for military, banking and classified data

transmission

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Low transmission loss

◦ Now a days fibers have losses in the range of 0.15dB/km

◦ Less losses warrants wide repeaters and amplifier spacing

resulting in less cost and complexity

◦ Low loss have increased the system reliability to 25-30

years

◦ Ideal replacement to copper in long haul

telecommunications

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Ruggedness and Flexibility

◦ Very high tensile strength optical fibers are manufactured

now a days.

◦ Fibers may also be bent to quite small radii

◦ Fibers can also be twisted without any damage

◦ Cable structures are flexible, compact and rugged

◦ Ideal for storage, transportation, handling and installation

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Potential Low Cost
◦ Optical Fiber medium is very cost effective but
transmitters(lasers and LEDs) and connection
technology(couplers, joints etc) are still not economical as
compared to other competitors

◦ Overall system cost for long haul communication favours

fiber optical but it is otherwise for short haul
communication

◦ Microwave and millimeter wave radio transmission

systems suffer badly due to line of sight and optical fiber
offers potential for long term in industrialized cities

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Refractive Index
◦ Ratio i.e. n=c/v, varies with
wavelength

◦ Speed of light in vacuum(c) to speed

of light in any medium(v)

◦ Refractive index of water is 1.333

which means light travels 1.333 times
faster in vacuum as compared to Thomas Young
water

◦ Refractive index of vacuum is 1

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Reflection

◦ Returning of wave into

the same medium from
the interface boundary

◦ Common examples are

light(image),
sound(echo), VHF(radar)
and water(surface)

◦ Reflection of light can be

specular (mirror) or
diffuse (shinning
surfaces, paper, plaster)
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Specular Reflection

◦ Variables affecting reflection are:-

 Material
 Wavelength
 Angle of incidence

◦ Angle of incidence is equal to angle of

reflection. All rays incident on same
angle will follow the same reflected
paths

◦ Incident, reflected and normal

directions are co planner
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Diffuse Reflection
◦ Some of the classics:-
 Visibility of objects
(Myself)
 Blue sky

◦ Angle of incidence is
equal to angle of
reflection but all rays
having same incident
angle will not follow the
same reflected paths

◦ Incident, reflected and

normal directions are co
planner
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Refraction

◦ Bending of wave once it

enters in different medium

◦ Snell’s law says:

 Sinθ1/Sinθ2 = n2/n1 =
v1/v2

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Refraction
◦ Refraction
accompanies
reflection First Refraction
◦ Classic examples are:
 Rainbow (change in
Reflection
refractive index from
air to water drop)
 Mirage (change in
refractive index of air
due to temperature)
 Weak eye sights
(change in lens Second Refraction
refractive index due
to lens cell
multiplication)
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 light travels slower in an optically dense Page 66
medium than optically rare medium
 If n1 is always greater than n2, then angle of
incidence is always lesser than angle of
refraction.
 Critical angle: that angle of incidence for which the
angle of refraction becomes 90degrees. It is the
limiting case of refraction.
Fig 2.3
 Sinφ1/Sinφ2=n2/n1
 For φ2=90, φ1= φc
 Then sinφc = n2/n1

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Meridional Ray
◦ Shallow Grazing Angle Page 68
◦ Conical half angle
◦ Acceptance cone at air core interface
◦ Light energy is maximum at the axis
and gradually fades away from the
center once light exit the core axis
◦ Numerical Aperture(NA)
 Defines relationship between
acceptance angle and refractive
indices
 Measure of light collection
efficiency of the fiber
 Large NA dictates better light
collection
 Independent of fiber core diameter
with 8µm lower limit

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 Skew Rays Page 72
 Acceptance angle of skew ray
is different than meridional
ray
 Exhibits TIR
 Light energy is confined to
annular region around the axis
and it is minimum at the axis
 They have larger acceptance
angle as compared to
meridional rays
 They have increased light
gathering efficiency
 They have increased losses as
compared to meridional rays Red: Meridional
Green: Skew
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Maxwell Equations
Page 75
 Electric Field E
 Magnetic Field H
 Electric Flux Density D
 Magnetic Flux Density B

 Phase Velocity
◦ Velocity of propagation
◦ Point of constant phase
◦ Space wave number
◦ Optical wavelength

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 Started in 1980
 Limited to fiber optic transmission systems – the
rest of the system was electrical
◦ Thus, the electronics was the major bottleneck!
◦ The received optical data had to be dropped and then
transmitted – this was a point-to-point system
◦ Example: Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) and
Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), Fiber Distributed
Data Interface (FDDI), Fiber Channel
◦ These systems were based on Optical TDM (10Gb/s and
40Gb/s)
◦ Higher capacity systems were build using WDM technology
(1 Tb/s) – remember a single phone line is only 60 Kb/s!
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• Incoming optical signals could be
switched in optical domain (optical
switching)
• No longer limited to point-to-point
• Underlying technologies included
• Optical Add-Drop Multiplexers
(OADM)
WADM
• Optical crossconnets (OXC)
• Optical line terminals (OLT)
• Wavelength Add/Drop Multiplexer
(WADM)
• Dense WDM (DWDM)
• Examples OXC
• FTTH, FTTC, ROADM

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 All optical packet switching
 All packets are processed in optical domain
◦ Transparent to the service
◦ Handle any arbitrary bit rate
 Underlying technologies
◦ Optical buffering!
◦ Fast switching

So far, no optical networks have been

available!

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Open Systems
Interconnection
(OSI) Seven-
Layer Reference
Model

The layering Model for the IP

 Physical Layer (Layer 1)
◦ specify details about the underlying transmission medium
and hardware
◦ all specifications related to electrical properties, radio
frequencies, and signals belong in layer 1

 Network Interface (or Data Link) Layer (Layer 2)

◦ Network (physical) addresses
◦ maximum packet size that a network can support
◦ protocols used to access the underlying medium

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 Internet Layer (Layer 3)
◦ protocols specifying communication across the Internet &
routing specifications (spanning multiple interconnected
networks)
◦ Logical addressing and path determination

 Transport Layer (Layer 4)

◦ Includes specifications on
 controlling the maximum rate a receiver can accept data (flow
control)
 mechanisms to avoid network congestion
 techniques to insure that all data is received in the correct
order
Remember: Each layer contains its own specifications & protocols!
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 Application Layer (Layer 5)
◦ specify how a pair of applications interact when they
communicate
◦ specify details about
 the meaning of messages that applications can exchange
 the procedures to be followed to execute the application
◦ Some examples of network applications in layer 5
 email exchange
 file transfer
 web browsing
 telephone services
 video teleconferencing

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How Data Passes Through Layers

Each computer has a

layered protocols
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