TE211:

Data Communications and

Networking 1
 A Telecommunications Network
A telecommunications network is a collection of
terminals, links and nodes which connect together
to enable telecommunication between users of the
terminals.

Networks may use circuit switching or

message switching. Each terminal in the network
must have a unique address so messages or
connections can be routed to the correct
recipients.

The collection of addresses in the network is called

the address space.
 A Telecommunications Network
The links connect the nodes together and are
themselves built upon an underlying
transmission network which physically
pushes the message across the link.

Examples of telecommunications networks

are:
computer networks (LAN’s)
Internet
Telephone network
 Types of Networks
Communication Networks can be described by
the following criteria;

Scope or Scale; LAN’s , WAN’s , ISP’s

Connections; Point to Point Connections
Data Switching; Circuit Switched Networks
Message Switched Networks
Packet Switched Networks
 LAN’s , WAN’s and ISP’s
LAN ; Local Area Network
A communications system that links together electronic office
equipment, such as computers and word processors, and forms a
network within an office or building.

A LAN connects network devices over a relatively short distance.

A networked office building, school, or home usually contains a
Single LAN, though sometimes one building will contain a few
small LANs (perhaps one per room), and occasionally a LAN will
span a group of nearby buildings.
 WAN ; Wide Area Network
A WAN is a communications network that uses such devices as telephone lines, satellite
dishes, or radio waves to span a larger geographic area than can be covered by a LAN.

WAN - Wide Area Network

As the term implies, a WAN spans a large physical distance. The Internet is the
largest WAN, spanning the Earth.

A WAN is a combination of geographically-dispersed collection of LANs. A network

device called a router connects LANs to a WAN. In IP networking, the router maintains
both a LAN address and a WAN address.

A WAN differs from a LAN in several important ways. Most WANs (like the Internet) are
not owned by any one organization but rather exist under collective or distributed
ownership and management.

WAN’s also differ to LAN’S as they tend to use technology like ATM, Frame Relay and
X.25 for connectivity over the longer distances.
 ISP; Internet Service Provider
An ISP is a business providing its customers with connection to the
Internet and other related services.

An Internet service provider (ISP) is also sometimes referred to as an

Internet access provider (IAP) this a company that offers its customers
access to the Internet.

The ISP connects its customers using a data transmission technology

appropriate for delivering Internet Protocol services, such as dial-up, DSL,
cable modem, wireless or dedicated high-speed interconnections.

ISPs may provide Internet e-mail accounts to users which allow them to
communicate with one another by sending and receiving electronic
messages through their ISP's servers.

ISPs may also provide services such as remotely storing data files on behalf
of their customers, as well as other services unique to each particular ISP.
 LAN’s , WAN’s and ISP’s
Offices typically employ one LAN and connect to the Internet
WAN via an Internet Service Provider (ISP) using technologies
such as broadband modem, fibre optic links, wireless links,
etc.

The ISP provides a WAN IP address to the modem or terminal

device, and all of the computers on the office network use
LAN Private IP addresses. All computers on the Office LAN can
communicate directly with each other but must go through a
central gateway, typically a broadband router, to reach the
ISP.
 Other Network Types Derived from
LAN’s and WAN’s
While LAN and WAN are by far the most popular network types mentioned, you may
Also commonly see references to these others:

Wireless Local Area Network - A LAN based on WiFi - wireless network technology

Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) - A network spanning a physical area larger than a
LAN but smaller than a WAN, such as a city. A MAN is typically owned and operated by a
single entity such as a government body or large corporation.

Campus Area Network - A network spanning multiple LANs but smaller than a MAN,
such as on a university or local business campus.

Storage Area Network - connects servers to data storage devices through a technology
like Fibre Channel.

System Area Network - links high-performance computers with high-speed connections in a cluster
configuration. Also known as Cluster Area Network.
 Point-to-point Connections
Point-to-point in telecommunications generally refers to a connection restricted to
Two endpoints. Point-to-point is sometimes referred to as P2P or Pt2Pt

Basic point-to-point data link

A traditional point-to-point data link is a communications medium with exactly two
Endpoints and no data or packet formatting.

The host computers at either end had to take full responsibility for formatting the data
transmitted between them. The connection between the computer and the
Communications medium was generally implemented through an RS-232 interface, or
Similar technology.

Computers in close proximity may be connected by wires directly between their

interface cards When connected at a distance, each endpoint would be fitted with a
modem to convert analog telecommunications signals into a digital data stream.

When the connection used a telecommunications provider, the connections were

called a dedicated, leased, or private line.
 Modern point-to-point links
More recently (2003), the term point-to-point telecommunications relates to wireless
data communications for Internet or Voice over IP via radio frequencies in the multi-gigahertz
range.

It also includes technologies such as laser for telecommunications but in all cases
expects that the transmission medium is line of sight and capable of being fairly tightly
beamed from transmitter to receiver. Today (2010) there are online tools to help users
find if they have such line of sight, one example is the PTP estimator from AlphiMAX.

The telecommunications signal is typically bi-directional, either time division multiple access
(TDMA) or channelized.

In hubs and switches, a hub provides a point-to-multipoint (or simply multipoint) circuit which
divides the total bandwidth supplied by the hub among each connected client node.

A switch on the other hand provides a series of point-to-point circuits, via microsegmentation,
which allows each client node to have a dedicated circuit and the added advantage of having full-
duplex connections.
 Circuit Switched Networks
Circuit switching is a telecommunications technology by which two network nodes
establish a dedicated communications channel (circuit) connecting them for the
duration of the Communication session before the nodes may communicate. The circuit
functions as if the nodes were physically connected with an electrical circuit.

The bit delay is constant during a connection, as opposed to packet switching, where
Packet Queues may cause varying packet transfer delay. Each circuit cannot be used by
other callers until the circuit is released and a new connection is set up.

Even if no actual communication is taking place in a dedicated circuit that channel

Remains unavailable to other users. Channels that are available for new calls to be set
up are said to be idle.

Virtual circuit switching is a packet switching technology that may emulate circuit
switching, in The sense that the connection is established before any packets are
transferred, and that packets are delivered in order.
 Circuit Switched Networks
There is a common misunderstanding that circuit switching is used only for
connecting voice circuits (analog or digital).

The concept of a dedicated path persisting between two communicating

parties or nodes can be extended to signal content other than voice.

Its advantage is that it provides for non-stop transfer without requiring

Packets and without most of the overhead traffic usually needed, making
Maximal and optimal use of available bandwidth for that communication.

The disadvantage of inflexibility tends to reserve Circuit Switched Network

technology for specialized applications, particularly with the overwhelming
proliferation of internet-related technology.
 Circuit Switched Networks
Examples of circuit switched networks

PSTN -Public Switched Telephone Network

ISDN -channel Data and voice modems

Circuit Switched Data (CSD) and High-Speed Circuit-Switched

Data (HSCSD) service in cellular systems such as GSM

X.21 (Used in the German DATEX-L and Scandinavian DATEX

circuit switched data network
 
 Message Switched Networks
In telecommunications, message switching was the precursor of packet switching, where
Messages were routed in their entirety, one hop at a time. It was first introduced by Leonard
Kleinrock in 1961.

Message switching systems are nowadays mostly implemented over packet-switched or circuit-
Switched data networks each message is treated as a separate entity. Each message contains
Addressing information, and at each switch this information is read and the transfer path to the
next switch is decided.

Depending on network conditions, a conversation of several messages may not be transferred

over the same path. Each message is stored (usually on hard drive due to RAM limitations) before
Being transmitted to the next switch. Because of this it is also known as a 'store-and-forward'
network.

Email is a common application for Message Switching. A delay in delivering email is allowed unlike
Real time data transfer between two computers.
 Message Switching
Sometimes there is no need for a circuit to be established all the way from the source to the
destination. Consider a connection between the users (A and D) in the figure below (i.e. A and D) is
represented by a series of links (AB, BC, and CD).

A connection between two systems A & D formed from 3 links

When an email or telex message is sent from A to D, it first passes over a local connection (AB). It is
then
Passed at some later time to C (via link BC), and from there to the destination (via link CD). At each
Message switch, the received message is stored, and a connection is subsequently made to deliver the
Message to the neighboring message switch.

Message switching is also known as store-and-forward switching since the messages are stored at
intermediate nodes en route to their destinations.
 Packet switched Networks
Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted
data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably-sized blocks, called packets.
Packet switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams (sequences of packets)
over a shared network.

When traversing network adapters, switches, routers and other network nodes, packets are
buffered and queued, resulting in variable delay and throughput depending on the traffic
load in the network.

Packet switching contrasts with another principal networking paradigm, circuit switching, a
method which sets up a limited number of dedicated connections of constant bit rate and
constant delay between nodes for exclusive use during the communication session.

In case of traffic fees, for example in cellular communication, circuit switching is

characterized by a fee per time unit of connection time, even when no data is transferred,
while packet switching is characterized by a fee per unit of information.
 Packet switched Networks
Two major packet switching modes exist; connectionless packet switching, also known as datagram
switching, and connection-oriented packet switching, also known as virtual circuit switching. In the
first case each packet includes complete addressing or routing information.

In connectionless packet switching the packets are routed individually, sometimes resulting in
different paths and out-of-order delivery while in connection-oriented packet switching a
connection is defined and pre allocated in each involved node before any packet is transferred. The
packets include a connection identifier rather than address information, and are delivered in order.

Packet mode communication may be utilized with or without intermediate forwarding nodes
(packet switches). In all packet mode communication, network resources are managed by
statistical multiplexing or dynamic bandwidth allocation in which a communication channel is
effectively divided into an arbitrary number of logical variable-bit-rate channels or data streams.
Each logical stream consists of a sequence of packets, which normally are forwarded by the
multiplexers and intermediate network nodes asynchronously using first-in, first-out buffering.

Alternatively, the packets may be forwarded according to some scheduling discipline for
fair queuing or for differentiated or guaranteed quality of service, such as pipeline forwarding or
time-driven priority (TDP). Any buffering introduces varying latency and throughput in
transmission. In case of a shared physical medium, the packets may be delivered according to
some packet-mode multiple access scheme.
Modern Packet switched Networks
Most modern Wide Area Network (WAN) protocols, including TCP/IP, X.25
, and Frame Relay, are based on packet-switching technologies.

In contrast, normal telephone service is based on a circuit-switching

technology, in which a dedicated line is allocated for transmission
between two parties. Circuit-switching is ideal when data must be
transmitted quickly and must arrive in the same order in which it's sent.
This is the case with most real-time data, such as live audio and video.

Packet switching is more efficient and robust for data that can withstand
some delays in transmission, such as e-mail messages and Web pages.

A new technology, ATM, attempts to combine the best of both worlds --

the guaranteed delivery of circuit-switched networks and the robustness
and efficiency of packet-switching networks.
 Definition of Terms
Asynchronous Transfer Mode –ATM is a network transmission technology based on
transferring data in cells or packets of a fixed size. The cell used with ATM is relatively small
compared to units used with older technologies. The small, constant cell size allows ATM
equipment to transmit video, audio, and computer data over the same network, and assure that
no single type of data uses up the link.

Frame Relay is a standardized wide area networking technology that specifies the physical and
logical link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology.
Originally designed for transport across Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
infrastructure, it may be used today in the context of many other network interfaces. Network
providers commonly implement Frame Relay for voice (VoFR) and data as an encapsulation
technique, used between local area networks (LANs) over a wide area network (WAN).

X.25 is an standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network (WAN)
communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange (PSE) nodes as the
networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN
connections as physical links. X.25 is a family of protocols that was used especially during the
1980s by telecommunications companies and in financial transaction systems such as
automated teller machines. X.25 was originally defined by the International Telegraph and
Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT, now ITU-T) in a series of drafts and finalized in a
publication known as The Orange Book in 1976.
X.25 is today to a large extent replaced by less complex protocols, especially the Internet
protocol (IP)
 Definition of Terms
Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance that manufacturers may use to brand certified
products that belong to a class of wireless local area network (WLAN) devices based on the
IEEE 802.11 standards. 802.11 the most widely used WLAN technology. Because of the close
relationship with the underlying standards, the term Wi-Fi is often used as a synonym for IEEE
802.11 technology.

Cluster Config ; In a computer system, a cluster is a group of servers and other resources that
act like a single system and enable high availability and, in some cases, load balancing and
parallel processing.

Packet formatting; Packets must start with a start sequence; for component
interfaces (the only kind of serial digital interface in widespread use today), the start sequence
is 0 0x3FF 0x3FF. This sequence is otherwise illegal in the serial digital interface. (In the
obsolete composite versions of SDI, the ANC start sequence is a single word, 0x3FC).

RS-232 Interface
 Definition of Terms
Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a channel access method for
shared medium networks. It allows several users to share the same
frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots.

The users transmit in rapid succession, one after the other, each using his
own time slot. This allows multiple stations to share the same transmission
medium (e.g. radio frequency channel) while using only a part of its channel
capacity. TDMA is used in the digital 2G cellular systems such as Global
System for Mobile Communications

Channelized in a telecommunications environment means that the line that

communications have been transmitted over contains more than one
message thread, separated in some fashion. Typical channelization
methods include packetizing, frequency differentiation, time division
multiplexing
 Definition of Terms
A duplex communication system is a system composed of two connected
parties or devices that can communicate with one another in both
directions.

Full-duplex, or sometimes double-duplex system, allows communication in

both directions, and, unlike half-duplex, allows this to happen
simultaneously. Land-line telephone networks are full-duplex, since they
allow both callers to speak and be heard at the same time. A good analogy
for a full-duplex system would be a two-lane road with one lane for each
direction.

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communications

standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and
other network services over the traditional circuits of the public switched
telephone network.
 Definition of Terms
Datex is a circuit switched network for data communications in Scandinavia, interconnected
with similar networks around the world. It has been widely used in business since the early
1980s, especially for accounting, but its now limiting maximum transfer speed of 9600b/s under
ideal conditions has made most businesses switch to more efficient mediums like the Internet.
DATEX-L Equivalent.

Quality of service (QoS) refers to resource reservation control mechanisms rather than the achieved
service quality. Quality of service is the ability to provide different priority to different applications,
users, or data flows, or to guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow. For example, a
required bit rate, delay, jitter, packet dropping probability and/or bit error rate may be guaranteed.

Time-driven priority (TDP)[is a synchronous packet scheduling technique that implements UTC-based
pipeline forwarding[2] and can be combined with conventional IP routing to achieve the higher
flexibility than another pipeline forwarding implementation known as time-driven switching (TDS) or
fractional lambda switching Packets entering a switch from the same input port during the same
[time frame] (TF) can be sent out from different output ports, according to the rules that drive IP
packet routing. Operation in accordance to pipeline forwarding principles ensures deterministic
quality of service and low complexity packet scheduling. Specifically, packets scheduled for
transmission during a TF are given maximum priority; if resources have been properly reserved, all
scheduled packets will be at the output port and transmitted before their TF ends.
 Definition of Terms

Pipeline forwarding (PF) applies to packet forwarding in computer networks the

basic concept of pipelining, which has been widely and successfully used in
computing — specifically, in the architecture of all major central processing units
(CPUs) — and manufacturing — specifically in assembly lines of various industries
starting from automotive to many others. Pipelining is known to be optimal
independent of the specific instantiation.
 Review Questions
1. Define a LAN.
2. Define a WAN.
3. Define an ISP.
4. Define a MAN.
5. What is an address space.
6. What is a Communications Network.
7. Name 3 Data switching types.