Week 3

Transmission Media

Week 3: Physical Media

A Transmission medium is a material substance (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) that can
propagate energy waves. Broadly it is defined as anything that can carry signal (information)
from a source to a destination.

GUIDED MEDIA

Guided: Energy waves (signals) are guided along a solid medium such as a transmission line.
 Unguided (Wireless)—transmission and reception of energy waves are achieved by means of an
antenna.

Twisted-pair cable: type of wiring in which two conductors of a single circuit are twisted
together for the purposes of improving electromagnetic compatibility.

The two wires in each pair carry opposite signals, i.e., one of the wires is used to carry signals to
the receiver, and the other is used only as a ground reference.

Why twists?: a twisted pair:

• reduces electromagnetic radiation,

• reduces crosstalk between neighboring pairs and
• improves rejection of external electromagnetic interference.

UTP cable
Unshielded twisted pair (UTP) is a ubiquitous type of copper cabling used in telephone wiring and local
area networks (LANs). It is called unshielded due to the lack of metallic shielding around the copper
wires. There are seven types of UTP cables -- identified with the prefix CAT, as in category -- each
supporting a different amount of bandwidth.
UTP cable Structure:

Each wire in the UTP cable model has four parts.

a) The conductor
b) The insulator parts of the wire itself

c) Twisted unit. This twisted unit will have two wires, each one will have a conductor and an
insulator.
d) The sheath covers the sets of twisted wires, keeping the whole unit from cuts, scrapes, burns,
etc.

Wiring the UTP cables: How twisted pairs are designed

There are two wiring standards for UTP cables, called "T568A" (also called "EIA") and "T568B" (also
called "AT&T"). The only difference between the two standards is the wiring of two out of four pairs,
which are swapped as shown below.
 Note: in both figures above, just replace green pair with brown to get 568B standard.

Note: Pairs 2 and 3 are used for normal 10/100 Mbps networks, while pairs 1 and 4 are reserved. In
Gigabit Ethernet, all four pairs are used.

UTP Cable Categories

UTP is graded according to its data carrying ability as classified in the following table.
CAT1 is typically used for telephone wire. This type of wire is not capable of supporting computer
network traffic.

CAT2 to CAT7 are network wire specifications. This type of wire can support computer network and
telephone traffic.

CAT3, CAT4 and CAT5 cables are actually 4 pairs of twisted copper wires and CAT5 has more twists per
inch than CAT3 therefore can run at higher speeds and greater lengths. The "twist" effect of each pair in
the cables ensures any interference presented/picked up on one cable is cancelled out by the cable's
partner which twists around the initial cable.

CAT6 wire was originally designed to support gigabit Ethernet. It is similar to CAT5e wire, but contains a
physical separator between the four pairs to further reduce electromagnetic interference.

CAT7 is a newer copper cable specification designed to support speeds of 10Gbps at lengths of up to 100
meters. To achieve this, the cable features four individually shielded pairs plus an additional cable
shield to protect the signals from crosstalk and electromagnetic interference (EMI).

UTP wire connection types

Straight-thru Cable - standard Ethernet cables are "straight-thru". Pin 1 on one end connects to Pin 1
on the far end, Pin2 to Pin2, and so on.
Crossover cable, the wires connected to Pins 1-2 on one end are "crossed over" and connected to Pins
3-6 on the far end. The same is done with the wires connected to Pins 3-6 - they are crossed over and
connected to Pins 1-2 on the far end.

Note: DTE (Data Terminating Equipment e.g., computer), DCE (Data Circuit-terminating
Equipment, e.g., hub, router, switch)

Pin Configuration for Standard/Fast Ethernet.

“+TD” wire standards for “Transmitting Data” and “+RD” wire standards for “Receiving Data”. “-TD” and
“-RD” are the “mirrored” versions of the same signal being transmitted on “+TD” and “+RD”, respectively.

Pin Configuration for Gigabit Ethernet.

“BI” stands for bi-directional, while DA, DB, DC and DD stand for “Data A”, “Data B”, “Data C” and
“Data D”, respectively.

How EM noise cancellation is obtained in Ethernet?

By transmitting a signal twice, i.e., mirrored signal. The receiver compare the two signals, which
must be equal but “mirrored”. The difference between the two signals is noise, making it very
simple to the receiving device to know what is noise and to discard it.
 Week 4

Coaxial cable

Coaxial cable categories

RG (Radio Guide) number denotes a unique set of physical specifications, including the wire
gauge of the inner conductor, the thickness and type of the inner insulator, the construction of the
shield, and the size and type of the outer casing.

Impedance is the amount of resistance that a component (e.g. conductor) offers to current flow in
a circuit at a specific frequency.
The most common type of connector used today is the Bayone-Neill-Concelman (BNC),
connector. Figure shows three popular types of these connectors: the BNC connector, the BNC T
connector, and the BNC terminator.
 Fiber optic cable

A fiber-optic cable is made of glass or plastic and transmits signals in the form of light.

Transmission of Light Through Fiber

To understand optical fiber, we first need to explore several aspects of the nature of light.

Light travels in a straight line as long as it is moving through a single uniform substance.

If a ray of light traveling through one substance suddenly enters another substance (of a different
density), the ray changes direction. Following Figure shows how a ray of light changes direction
when going from a more dense to a less dense substance.

◼ Light travels in a straight line as long as it is moving through a single uniform

substance.
◼ If a ray of light traveling through one substance suddenly enters another substance
(of a different density), the ray changes direction.
◼ As the figure shows, if the angle of incidence I (the angle the ray makes with the line
perpendicular to the interface between the two substances) is less than the critical
angle, the ray refracts and moves closer to the surface.
◼ If the angle of incidence is equal to the critical angle, the light bends along the
interface.
◼ If the angle is greater than the critical angle, the ray reflects (makes a turn) and
travels again in the denser substance.
◼ Note that the critical angle is a property of the substance, and its value differs from
one substance to another.
◼ The light is transmitted through optical fiber using Total Internal Reflection (TIR)
principle: TIR is the reflection of the total amount of incident light at the boundary
between two media. This phenomenon occurs when a propagated wave strikes a
medium boundary (usually less dense) at an angle larger than a particular critical
angle with respect to the normal to the surface.

Bending of light ray

 Fiber-optic transmission modes

In multimode step-index fiber, the density of the core remains constant from the center to the
edges. A beam of light moves through this constant density in a straight line until it reaches the
interface of the core and the cladding. At the interface, there is an abrupt change due to a lower
density; this alters the angle of the beam's motion. The term step index refers to the suddenness
of this change, which contributes to the distortion of the signal as it passes through the fiber.

Note that the modes in an optical fiber refer to the “transverse modes” of electromagnetic waves
traveling down the fiber. In other words, the mode of an optical fiber is nothing but the pattern of
how light propagates inside it. The first mode means light passes straight along the axis of the fiber
and so on for different modes.

Multimode graded-index fiber, decreases this distortion of the signal through the cable. The word
index here refers to the index of refraction. As we saw above, the index of refraction is related to
density. A graded-index fiber, therefore, is one with varying densities. Density is highest at the
center of the core and decreases gradually to its lowest at the edge. Figure below shows the impact
of this variable density on the propagation of light beams.

Single-mode uses step-index fiber and a highly focused source of light that limits beams to a small
range of angles, all close to the horizontal. The single mode fiber itself is manufactured with a
much smaller diameter than that of multimode fiber, and with substantially lower density (index
of refraction). The decrease in density results in a critical angle that is close enough to 90° to make
the propagation of beams almost horizontal.
Attenuation is loss in signal strength as signal travels down the wire. It is measured in
decibel per linear kilometer of the wire. For example, a factor of two loss of signal power
gives an attenuation of 10 log10 2 = 3 dB.

What is the maximum length we can use a multimode fiber between two nodes?

This depends on what type of multimode fiber, how many connection points, number of splices,
the type of transmitter (LED or laser) and the transmission speed.
There are three types of multimode fiber: 62.5/125micron (known as OM1), 50/125micron
(OM2) and 50/125micron high bandwidth (OM3). Moreover, there are two basic types of
transmitters that work with multimode fiber: 850nm LED and 1300 nm Laser.

However, in a best-case scenario -- assuming you are using OM3 fiber, laser transmitters with
only two connection points and no splices -- you can achieve 1Gb Ethernet up to 1000 meters
and 10Gb Ethernet up to 300 meters.

On the other hand, in single-mode fiber case: using LASER transmitted waves, the maximum
fiber-length is 80 Kilometers.