BCENT - Basic Cisco Entry

Networking Technician
Chapter 7
Introducing Wide-Area Networks

FOUNDATION TOPICS

WAN Properties
WAN Technologies

INTRODUCING WIDE-AREA NETWORKS

What are the categories of WAN connections?
How are data rates measured on various WAN technologies?

Which types of media might be used in WAN connections?

What are the characteristics of different WAN technologies?

INTRODUCING WIDE-AREA NETWORKS

In the early 1990s, computer-networking design guides commonly
invoked the Pareto Principle which stated that 80% of your traffic stays
local while only 20% of your traffic leaves the local network. This was
called the 80-20 rule.
Today, network traffic patterns are more closely approximated with a 2080 rule, meaning that most traffic leaves the LAN and travels across the
WAN.

WAN CONNECTION TYPES

There are three general categories of WAN connections:
Dedicated Leased Line
Circuit-switched connection
Packet-switched connection

DEDICATED LEASED LINE

CIRCUIT-SWITCHED CONNECTION

PACKET-SWITCHED CONNECTION

WAN DATA RATES

WAN bandwidth can be measured in kbps, Mbps, and Gbps, just like LAN
bandwidth. It can also be measured using optical carrier (OC) levels.

OC Level

Bandwidth

OC-1

51.84 Mbps

OC-3

155.52 Mbps

WAN DATA RATES

WAN Technology

Typical Available Bandwidth

Frame Relay

56 kbps 1.544 Mbps

T1

1.544 Mbps

T3

44.736 Mbps

E1

2.048 Mbps

E3

34.4 Mbps

ATM

155 Mbps 622 Mbps

SONET

51.84 Mbps (OC-1)

159.25 Gbps (OC-3072)

WAN MEDIA TYPES

Physical Media
Unshielded twisted pair (UTP)
Coaxial Cable
Fiber-optic cable
Electric power lines

WAN MEDIA TYPES

Wireless Media
Cellular phone
o Mobile hot spots

Satellite
WiMAX: Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
HSPA+: Evolved High-Speed Packet Access
o Wireless broadband

Radio

WAN TECHNOLOGIES
Dedicated Leased Line
Typically a point-to-point connection between two sites.
All the bandwidth on that line is available to those sites.
Common digital circuits are:
o T1, E1, T3 and E3 circuits

These digital circuits are usually measured in 64-kbps channels called

Digital Signal 0 (DS0)

T-CARRIER SIGNAL LEVELS

Carrier

Signal Level

# of T1 signals

# of Voice
Channels

Speed

T1

DS1

24

1.544 Mbps

T1c

DS1c

48

3.152 Mbps

T2

DS2

96

6.312 Mbps

T3

DS3

28

672

44.736 Mbps

T4

DS4

168

4032

274.760 Mbps

CHANNEL SERVICE UNIT /

DATA SERVICE UNIT (CSU/DSU)

CSU/DSU Terminating a Synchronous Circuit

POINT-TO-POINT PROTOCOL (PPP)

PPP is commonly used as a Layer 2 protocol on dedicated leased lines.
Simultaneously transmit multiple Layer 3 protocols.
Each Layer 3 Control Protocol runs an instance of PPPs Link Control
Protocol (LCP).

POINT-TO-POINT PROTOCOL (PPP)

Four primary features of LCP:
Multilink interface (bonding/load balancing)
Looped link detection
Error detection
Authentication
o PAP (password in cleartext bad)
o CHAP (password is hashed better)
o MS-CHAP (Microsoft enhanced with additional features)

PAP

PAP Authentication

CHAP

CHAP Authentication

PPPOE

DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (DSL)

DSL is common in many residential and small office/home office (SOHO)
locations
DSL provides high-speed data transmission over existing telephone
wiring.
DSL has several variants, which differ in data rate and distance
limitations.
Asymmetric DSL (ADSL)
Symmetric DSL (SDSL)
Very High Bit-Rate DSL (VDSL)

ADSL SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

CABLE MODEM
Cable television infrastructure contains both coaxial and fiber-optic
cabling, which is called a hybrid fiber-coax (HFC) distribution network.
Specific frequency ranges are used for upstream and downstream data
transmission.
The device in the home or office that transmits and receives over those
frequencies is a cable modem.

CABLE MODEM SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

SYNCHRONOUS OPTICAL NETWORK (SONET)

SONET is a Layer 1 technology that uses fiber-optic cabling as its media.
It can be used for different Layer 2 technologies like Asynchronous
Transfer Mode (ATM).

The physical topology can be linear (like a bus network), but it is typically
configured in a ring topology.

SONET SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

SATELLITE
In remote or rural locations, DSL and cable modem connections are not
always available. In those cases a satellite WAN connection can be an
option.

Two potential design problems should be considered:

Delay
Weather Conditions

SATELLITE

PLAIN OLD TELEPHONE SERVICE (POTS)

The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is comprised of multiple
telephone carriers from around the world.
Analog connections (voice and data) using the PSTN are called Plain Old
Telephone Service (POTS) connections.
Dial-up modems have a maximum bandwidth of 56-kbps because they
can only access one 64-kbps channel.

DIAL-UP MODEM SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

INTEGRATED SERVICES DIGITAL NETWORK (ISDN)

Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) supports multiple 64-kbps
channels on a single connection.
ISDN circuits are classified as either a basic rate interface (BRI) or
primary rate interface (PRI)
BRI Offers a 128-kbps data path
PRI Offers a 1.472 Mbps data path

INTEGRATED SERVICES DIGITAL NETWORK (ISDN)

FRAME RELAY
Frame Relay offers widespread availability and relatively low cost
compared to leased lines.
Frame Relay sites are connected via virtual circuits (VC).
Virtual circuits can be point-to-point or point-to-multipoint connections.

FRAME RELAY SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

ASYNCHRONOUS TRANSFER MODE (ATM)

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is a Layer 2 WAN technology that
operates using the concept of PVCs and SVCs.
ATM uses fixed-length cells as its protocol data unit (PDU).
An ATM cell contains a 48-byte payload and a 5-byte header.

5-Byte
Header

48-Byte Payload

ATM VIRTUAL CIRCUITS

ATM SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

MULTIPROTOCOL LABEL SWITCHING (MPLS)

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a WAN technology used by
service providers. MPLS is popular because it supports multiple
protocols on the same network.

MPLS can support both Frame Relay and ATM on the same MPLS
backbone.
MPLS also allows traffic to be dynamically routed based on load
conditions and path availability.

MPLS SAMPLE TOPOLOGY

SUMMARY

WAN Properties
WAN Connection Types
Dedicated Leased line
Circuit-switched connection
Packet-switched connection

WAN Media Types

Physical Media
Wireless Media

SUMMARY

WAN Technologies
Dedicated Leased Line
DSL
Cable Modem
SONET
Satellite
POTS
ISDN
Frame Relay
ATM
MPLS