Chapter Four Transmission Media and Network Devices

his chapter covers various transmission media available in Hong Kong for transferring information, the characteristics and the ways to carry data during its transmission are also included. Network configurations between two ends including point-to-point and multi-point are also covered. The final section of this chapter is about the supporting communications devices in a network to facilitate the transportation of data. Upon completion of this chapter, you should Understand different transmission media including telephone wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber and microwave link List the different network configuration methods List the different communication devices such as PABX, patch panel, switch, frontend processor etc.

Transmission Media
Transmission media used to provide a connection between sender and receiver to exchange information are generally grouped into two major categories namely guided and unguided. Type Guided Description Signals are transmitted via a physical and tangible guide between the communicating points. These include twisted pair telephone cable, optical fiber, waveguide, and coaxial cable. Physically, there is no direct physical connection between two points such as microwave and satellite links. Your mobile phone also uses unguided transmission medium.

Unguided

Can you classify Light Frequency Infrared?

Unguided

Guided transmission media

Wire pairs or telephone wire Wire pairs are the most common medium in short distance such as connecting computer port to modem or telephone set to telephone exchange. The modular telephone jack installed in your house makes use of telephone wires. The wires are made of copper and coated with insulating material like PVC. The cable is highly reliable if it is protected by telephone duct. The transmitted signal relies on the movement of electronics. It is manufactured in twisted wire pairs in order to reduce crosstalk. You usually experience this effect while talking to your friends over the phone and hear a very low background voice. The bandwidth of an ordinary telephone wire is limited to 10KHz and is further limited to 3300 Hz if it is used in Public Switching Telephone Network(PSTN). Higher bandwidth will be chopped by the Switch. That is to say, even the telhone line can support up to 10 Mbps, the CODER (switch coder and decoder) will convert the analogue signal into 8K (sampling rate) x 8 bits (256 levels) = 64 Kbps signal internally. It is the cheapest transmission medium and costs around 2 dollars per meter depending on the quality, shielding and number of wires. The typical number of wires in the cable is two (Twist) or four(Quad). To support wider area, Using the Shannons theory, the maximum transmission speed per link can be over 10Mbits per second, which of course depends on the medium bandwidth and the distance between two end points. Figure shows a few examples of wire pairs.

Local Area Network (LAN) can support transmission rates over 16 Mbps or even 100 Mbps over twisted telephone wires. This type of telephone cable is Category 5 cable, which supports this speed at a short distance. If you subscribe Interactive TV (ITV), they will replace your telephone cable by quad Category 5 cable to support voice and video. Can you figure out the unused bandwidth compared with a modem operating at the speed of 56k bps? Coaxial cable

It is basically a single wire surrounded by a tube-shaped conductor of solid copper. The signal is transmitted by use of of microwave rather than electronics. Because of high bandwidth (up to 350 MHZ with theoretical data rate up to 4~500 Mbps), it can support very high speed for data travelling. Coaxial cable is used for long distance communication such as Ethernet (CSMA/CD) and TV system between the antenna and TV set. Coaxial cable can be grouped into two types: broadband and baseband. In baseband transmission, digital signal like Manchester Code will be used to carry data along the channel, which relies on voltage fluctuations. In Broadband transmission, the digital data is modulated into different frequency channels separated by frequency guardbands. Because of wider bandwidth and more frequency channels, broadband transmission can support a mixture of signals such as voice and video. The cost of coaxial cable is more expensive than telephone wire and costs around a few Hong Kong dollars per meter. Figure shows the male and female coaxial cables. Baseband coaxial cable also allows the DC voltage to pass, which is necessary for collision detection in Ethernet network. Four-wire telephone cable is regarded as quad with individually insulated and housed in a jacket. In Local Area Network, coaxial cable is called Thick Wire and Telephone Wire is Thin Wire. If the coaxial cable is damaged, the signal will attenuate sharply. This prevents the third party to tap information.

Optical Fiber It is a popular high bandwidth transmission medium and is used in backbone communication as shown in Figure . Signal is transmitted by use of light through the glass fiber. It provides an electrical isolation and totally reduces electromagnetic interference or noise by surrounding equipment. Unlike telephone wire, installing and connecting the fibers requires special equipment. The transmission rate can exceed 2 G bps, nowdays around 6 ~8G bps and is the highest transmission medium in the world. Recently, Hong Kong Telecom is laying fiber optic cables to provide data superhighway to support personal video services. It is expected that the future communications network in Hong Kong will consist of one optical fiber with coaxial cable as the backbone within the building. The terminator erected around each three stories will provide a transmission bandwidth to each household at 20 M bps. At that you can use it to watch movie, shopping, a real e-commerce world. Figure shows a typical circuit that converts the digital signal to light travelling along the optical fiber. Here, the electronic signals are converted into light signals passing along the optical fibre and received by the remote. The remote then converts the light

signals into electronic signals. Note that light emitting diode and photo diode are used to convert the electronics signal and accept the light signal.

Unguided transmission media

Microwave relays It consists of transmission tower responsible for transmitting or repeating the signal for each hop (the distance is around 30 Kilometers to 50 Kilometers). The microwave in Figure uses the line of sight (the received tower can be visual by the transmitted tower) transmission. The transmission rate can be up to 250M bps. The transmission quality however is subject to weather changes. The use of microwave is ideal for short-haul and high bandwidth applications due to no cabling cost once the transmission tower is built. In Hong Kong, a lot of large public utilities such as China Light and Power and Hong Kong Electric use microwave in transmitting signal for power protection.

Satellite The use of Satellite is to extend the coverage area. Signal is transmitted up and down between ground stations. The satellite is therefore used as a repeater for re-generating the signal. Figure shows how it works. Here, a transmit signal is reflected by the satellite to cover a region on the earth. The characteristics are: Microwave transmission (above 1000 MHz). It uses bandwidth between 4-6 GHZ, C-band, 12-14 GHz, Ku-band and also the 20-30 GHz Signal requires amplification due to attenuation after travelling from the ground station to the satellite and vice versa. Similar to microwave, the transmission quality is also subject to weather changes. There will be a time delays between the sender and receiver and is typical 70 ms for a single hup.

Comparison amongst all transmission media

Type Advantages Disadvantages

Network Configurations
This is about the network configuration between two or more nodes within a large network topology. These are commonly used between terminal-to-computer configurations in order to fully utilize the physical channel.

Point-to-point configuration
This is the simplest way of connecting a terminal to a computer or computer to computer. It makes use of switched, leased line or hard-wired service. Using Switched Circuit such as PSTN It is a dial-up line using two-wire. It is usually used for low volume traffic such as Bulletin Board. Different communication path is formed by the telephone exchanges. The transmission speed is limited speed ( usually up to 9600 bits/s for FAX or 2400 bits/s for an ordinary link like dial-link being offered by CPHK). It is quite flexible in terms of data transportability. Using Leased line such as cluster controller (in a branch bank ) to front end processor in the central office. It is a private line and leased from Hong Kong Telecom. Form voice grade channels with speed up to 1.54Mbits/s (T1 link) It is regarded as semipermanent as there is no set up time required. It is ideal for high usage and high volume application like linking two computers by use of T1 link. It is less flexible once it is installed. Hardwired (direct connection between terminal and computer) It is about the short distance between two computing machines. Independent of other links Less intelligent equipment Figure shows various connection methods.

Multidrop configuration
In this configuration as shown in Figure , a number of terminals/computers are connected to the same line at different locations. A master modem is connected to the main computer while a few slave modems are connected to other computers. The characteristics are:

Usually using leased line rather than switched line Centralized for the master unit De-centralized for the slave units Poll/Selection to pass messages to the desired device Requires intelligence in equipment to handle polling request The last slave modem requires different stripping to absorb the reflection of electronic signals.

Multiplexing
This uses a high speed link to share a few terminals in order to optimize the line usage and reduce the operating cost of using multiple separate telecommunication lines as shown in Figure Here, three terminals are shared with a multiplexer through a common medium. The characteristics are: High speed channel shared by multiple devices Reduces line costs (only one high speed line is required in Figure ) Reduces modem costs by using a pair of modems only Can you figure out how many modems are required if multiplexer is not used? Increases telecommunication line utilization Transparent to the end users (no specific software required)

Cluster/terminal controller
This is also termed terminal multiplexer and is used to increase efficiency of the high speed line and to offload the terminal handling mechanisms. Logical connection is introduced rather than physical connection.

Terminal Connection Methods

Figure shows various connection methods through PSTN(switched line), leased line or direct-wire to the computer at a short distance:-

Comparison amongst all the configurations

Type Advantage Disadvantage

Point to point

inefficient requires additional control software to send/receive Multidrop messages from the master unit to individual slave units requires a pair of multiplexer to a reasonable compromise assemble/reassemble the Multiplexing between cost and line efficiency messages from individual terminals maximize the use of high speed relatively expensive to install a Cluster controller line controller

simple fully utilizes the bandwidth of the transmission line by supporting a few more communication devices

Communications Devices Modem

Modems are devices that convert a signal into an analog tone for transmission on an analog network and demodulate that analog signal into a digital signal on the receiving end as shown in Figure . Modems are broadly classified into asynchronous and synchronous type. Asynchronous Modem The characteristics of Asynchronous modem are: Operate at lower speeds when compared to synchrnous modem, 64 K bis/s No transmit or receive clocks (Data rate is configured by the user and is sampled by DTE) Clocking on data, the receiver must configure to sample the incoming data Variable data rates (from 50 to 56K bits/s) Usually use FSK modulation for low speed device and PSK for medium speed device. Usually used for interactive terminals

If the incoming data rate is 2400 bps and the receiver is configured at 4800 bps, what will be the result?

Synchronous modem The characteristics as shown in Figure are: Operate at higher speeds (up to 64 kbits/s) Require transmit and receive clocks to trigger the computer to process the data Data derived receive timing (driven by the internal or external clock, which depends on the source of clock. If the clock source is from modem, it is called external clock or vice versa) Fixed data rates as it is controlled by the clock Usually use Phase Shift Keying (PSK) or QAM (combining the amplitude and phase together) modulation Other factors to be considered for selecting the right modem include the following: Whether it is switched, leased or multidrop for the modem Full duplex or half duplex transmission mode Two wire or four wire between a pair of modems Maximum available transmission speed Availability of error recovery and data compression 4 wire full duplex is usually leased by companies for high speed transmission.

CCITT (ITU-T) Recommended Modem Types

CCITT Type V.17 V.21 V.23 V.26 Description Asynchronous; 14400 bit/s; Full duplex; 2-wire; dial-up; FAX send and receive Asynchronous; 300 bit/s; Full duplex; 2-wire; dial-up; low speed Asynchronous; 1200 bit/s; Half-duplex; 2-wire; dial-up; full-duplex or full-duplex; 4-wire; leased; low speed Synchronous; 2400 bit/s; 4-wire; leased lines; medium speed

V.27 V.29 V.32bits V.34 V.34 V.42 V.42bis MNP2-4 MNP5 V.90 X.20 X.20bis

X.21

Synchronous; 4800 bit/s; FDX; leased lines; 8 phase @ 1800 HZ; high speed Synchronous; 9600 bit/s; auto-equalized; FDX; 4-wire lines; high speed 12000 bit/s; FAX; 2-wire 28800 bit/s; FDX; 2-wire; high speed 33600 bit/s; FDX; 2-wire; high speed with data compression error correction data compression: therefore v.34 modem using v.42 would transmit 28800*4 = 115200 bps error correction Data compression receiving at up to 56K bit/s and sending at up to 31.2K bit/s; FDX; 2wire; very high speed Interface between data terminal equipment and data circuit-terminating equipment for start-stop transmission services on public data networks V.21-compatible interface between data terminal equipment and data circuit terminating equipment for start-stop transmission services on public data networks General purpose interface between data terminal equipment and data circuit-terminating equipment for synchronous operation data networks. X.25 level 1 uses X.21 as the physical layer to send/receive data bit-bybit.

Example of a 56Kbps modem Zoltrix 56K is used as an example to demonstarte the operating speed, features, FAX and voice support only. You dont have to memorise the details as it is product oriented. The Zoltrix 56K Fax/Data/Voice with Speaker Phone Modem (internal) Model FMVSP56i3 and (external) Model FMVSP56e3 are a virtual communications center. Download data from compatible sites at an incredible 56,000 bps* for fast Internet and LAN access and provide up to 33,600 bps uncompressed data transmission over conventional telephone lines, using the V.34 protocol. The DualMode modem can automatically select either V.90 or K56Flex. There is no need to update the modem to V.90 when the userr ISP upgrades from K56Flex to V.90. With Dual-Mode, the modem automatically connects at K56Flex or V.90, to achieve download speeds nearly twice as fast as any conventional analog modem.

The Zoltrix 56K Fax/Data/Voice with Speaker Phone Modem (internal) Models FMVSP56i3 and FM-VSP56e3 also supports Flash ROM. This means that whenever there is an update to the modem code, the user can download it from the internet, and upload the new code into the modems Flash ROM. The FMVSP56i3 and FM-VSP56e3 also provides 14,400 bps send/receive fax. The fully-integrated phonebook ensures easy-to-use faxing. The user can even broadcast your faxes to multiple recipients, schedule fax transmission, or forward them to another number. The simple and intuitive interface even allows quickdialing of up to 80 entries. Incoming calls are automatically detected as fax, data or voice. And any detected voice call is routed to the voice mail module which allows the caller to leave any messages in individual mailboxes. The incoming voice call can also be monitored to allow the user an option to record the message or by a simple click of your mouse, to answer the call. And with Caller ID, the user can tell who is calling before answering the call. This kit includes the fax/modem, easy-to-read manuals, a microphone for hands-free Full Duplex speakerphone operation along with fax, data, voice and speakerphone software. The Zoltrix 56K model FM-VSP56i3 and FM-VSP56e3 uses the Rockwell 56 K chipset, and incorporates all of the industry standard protocols (V.90, K56Flex, V.34+, V.34, V.32bis, V.32, V.22bis, V.22, and V.21) with speeds ranging from 56,000 bps* down to 300 bps. On the Fax side it communicates with all ITU-T Group 3 FAX machines and is compatible with ITU-T V.27ter and V.29, V.17, T.4 and T.30. The software bundled with the Zoltrix 56K modem includes Cheyennes Bitware lite or Thought Communications Faxtalk. Also with the FREE Internet Software and extensive on-line service package youll be surfing the net, sending e-mail messages and going on-line in no time at all. Fax Features include" Send and Receive Fax Messages to or from any Group 3 Fax Machine/Fax card", Automatic Fax/Data Detection etc. Modem Features include Send and receive files, exchange E-mail and access online services, Supports ASCII, Xmodem, Ymodem, Zmodem and Kermit Data transfer protocols Voice Mail Features include Automatically detects and routes incoming voice, fax and data calls to the proper module of integrated fax, data or voice, Creates up to 999 voice mailboxes, each with a personalized mailbox greeting Speaker Phone Features include Turns your computer into a full-function speakerphone (speakers required),

Places and answers telephone calls directly from your computer. Technical specification include Caller ID (Requires Caller ID service from the phone compay), Data throughput up to 224,000 bps, Max DTE rate of 230,400 bps, Modem Operating Modes, and V.90 56,000 bps* receive/33,600 bps* send K56flex 56,000 bps* receive/33,600 bps* send V.34+ 33,600/31,200 bps V.34 28,800/26,400/24,000/21,600/19,200/16,800 bps V.32bis 14,400/12,000/7,200 bps V.32 9,600/4,800 bps V.22bis 2,400 bps V.22 & Bell 212A 1,200 bps V.21 & Bell 103 300 bps V.29 & V.27ter & V.17 Fax Transmission 14,400/9600 send and receive; Group III Send and Receive fax compatible V.42 & MNP 4,10 Hardware based Error Correction V.42bis(4-1) & MNP 5(2-1) Hardware based Data Compression For details, please refer to http://www.zoltrix.com. If the distance between two computers is short, it is preferable to replace the modems by a single Modem Eliminator which provides all the required clocking and interface lead protocol. This will significantly reduce the implementation cost especially when synchronous mode is used. When two ports are operating at asynchronous mode such as DEC DDCMP, it is simply to twist the Transmit and Receive pins. What is the difference amongst X, V and I series?

X refers to the communication components in digital network, V in analog network, and I in Integrated Services Digital Network.

Multiplexers
The function of a multiplexer is to combine several low-speed data either from terminals to computer ports to a high speed communication channels over long distance. It is extremely cost-effective when a pool of terminals are required to connect to respective computer outputs to run different application programs through

a commonly shared channel as shown in Figure . The advantages offered by using multiplexing include: Channel shared by multiple devices Reduces line costs Reduces modem costs Increased line utilization Transparent - this configuration is invisible to the users. There are currently two types of multiplexing techniques namely time division multiplexing and frequency division multiplexing. Frequency Division Multiplexing It is to divide the whole frequency bandwidth into a number of sub-bandwidths to be used by individual users. The characteristics are: Partitions bandwidth into parallel channels Guard bands (frequencies) to prevent subchannel interference Subchannel bandwidth allocated is proportional to speed Channel capacity is limited by the bandwidth Time Division Multiplexing Figure shows the comparison between time division multiplexing and frequency division multiplexing. Here, for TDM, the channel is shared amongst the signals and for FDM, a cable is divided into a number of sub-channels. The characteristics are: Digital techniques to support a few communication devices Partitions time into slots to different devices Samples multiple lines Guard time is provided to prevent interference Forms composite digital output between a pair of multiplexer Requires modems for analog channels if the distance is over the RS232C limitation Figure shows how a pair of TDMs work. The transmssion is divided into a number frames each of which is used to support different devices. Under what condition, a pair of modems is required.

For long distance communication.

Time Division Multiplexing is further classified into: Synchronous- means the transmission is synchronous between data and clock Bit TDM- sending the data as a series of bits Character TDM - sending the data as a series of bytes Asynchronous - there is no clocking signal and the transmission of data is random Statistical TDM Both Bit TDM and Character TDM use fixed frame format, which in certain cases will not optimize the channel usage when the traffic for each device is significantly different. The Statistical multiplexer is designed to eliminate this wastage. In this device, the allocation of bandwidth is dynamic. Channels that are idle are simply skipped as shown in Figure .

Micro/Mainframe Link
Three are three types of micro/mainframe links: terminal emulation data downloading and uploading distributed processing Terminal emulation: a terminal emulation software is run in a micro so that it presents to the mainframe as a particular terminal that the mainframe supports. Data from mainframes are downloaded to micros for particular processing, then the results are uploaded from micros to mainframes. Distributed processing is different from the above two methods as data are processed by both the micros and mainframes; this is hard because of the immense number of computers and software that the complete integration process should consider.

Communications front end processor

It is designed to relieve the hosts loading and is dedicated to support various communications protocols and multiple physical lines without borrowing machines cycles from the host as shown in Figure . It performs the scanning and the byte assembly/disassembly process and passes the data to the host by interrupting the host. The characteristics are: As there may be a number of computers and terminals in a network, each of them should be assigned with a unique address so that messages can be directed to the right destinations; this also implies every message has been tagged with the destination nodes address. Two communication nodes may be connected by more than one way; thus, a decision must be made to choose one of the communication paths. In order to ensure the communication is fine, messages are usually packed with control information for error detection (or sometimes for error recovery as well) and the encoding and decoding of this control information take processor time. To reduce communication cost, messages are often compressed before it is transmitted; for data security, messages are sometimes encrypted before transmission and decrypted at the receiving end. as one can see, there are a number of extra workload when data is to be communicated; to relieve the host processor of communications-related tasks, frontend processors or data communications controllers are introduced.

Protocol converter
It is designed to form a bridge between two incompatible communications protocols. One of the common application is in Synchronous to Asynchronous conversion. A/S-3 manufactured by Black Box is used for connection of asynchronous terminals, printers and personal computers onto an IBM BSC or SNA/SDLC network. Figure shows the connection. Here, three asynchronous terminals are connected to an IBM Mainframe 3090 through this converter.

Data Switch
This is designed to connect a few terminals to computers. Connections can be made at each users terminal such as Devecon data switch. It is extremely cost-effective when different brands of incompatible computers are used. Figure shows how a switch is used to conncet between a printer and two PCs. This is a manual switch set by the user.

Patch panel
It is principally similar to a data switch except it is operated manually. The connection has to be made by using a short wire jumper. By default, the DTE and DCE port is connected together. The user can also connect any DTE to one of the DCE ports at will. So long as a wire jumper is presented, the default connection between two adjacent DTE/DCE connection is broken. Type DTE DCE Monitor Figure shows how a patch panel works. Here, a patch panel is connected to a few terminals locally. The user can change the connection by re-connecting the short-wire jumpers. Channel Channel Channel Channel Channel Channel Channel7 1 2 3 4 5 6

Private branch exchange

PBX is a telephone exchange. The latest PBX cannot just support voice but also data. The terminal user can connect to a specific computer by calling the associated telephone number. As cabling cost could be expensive, efforts have been made to effectively use the existing telephone network. Figure shows a Data switch is used to conncet a mainframe and a few terminals through a set of leased lines. The characteristics are: a PBX is a computer that electronically connects computers and terminals much as telephone operators manually connected telephone lines on the old PBX switchboards two principal types of PBX are used:
one type was designed mainly for voice transmission (in analog form) with the capability of transmitting digital signals. the other type is designed for digital signal transmission with the capability of approximating analog signal by digital signals using built-in codec.

several advantages of the digital approach over the traditional approach: (1) control data encryption can be easily accommodated with digital signals, (2) TDM can be applied for handling digital signals easily, (3) control signals are inherently digital

and can easily be integrated into a digital transmission path, and (4) digital PBX can take advantage of low-cost LSI and VLSI components.

Self-examined Questions Short questions

Power stations are usually linked up with microwave, explain why several 100-pair submarine cables are still required.

List THREE advantages and disadvantages of Frequency Division Multiplexing.

List TWO advantages and disadvantages of Statistical Time Division Multiplexing

True or False
Telephone wire can carry more information than a coaxial cable Coaxial cable supports video signals only Optical fiber relies on electronics to carry information Point-to-point configuration is only valid in terminal to host communication Multidrop configuration can reduce the line cost for low volume traffic For band limited signal, a guard band is required for timing division multiplexing