UNIT – II

Chapter 2: Transmission Media

Media are roughly grouped into two:

I. Guided media, the transmission takes place using wires such as copper wire and fiber
optics
II. Unguided media, the transmission takes place without using wires such as radio and
lasers through the air.

I. Guided Transmission Media

The purpose of the physical layer is to transport a raw bit stream from one machine to another.
Various physical media can be used for the actual transmission. Each one has its own niche in
terms of bandwidth, delay, cost, and ease of installation and maintenance.

1. Magnetic Media
2. Twisted Pair
3. Coaxial Cable
4. Fiber Optics
5. Fiber Cables

1.Magnetic Media
One of the most common ways to transport data from one computer to another is to write them
onto magnetic tape or removable media (e.g., recordable DVDs), physically transport the tape or
disks to the destination machine, and read them back in again.

This method is not as sophisticated as using a geosynchronous communication satellite, it is often

more cost effective, especially for applications in which high bandwidth or cost per bit
transported is the key factor.

Although the bandwidth characteristics of magnetic tape are excellent, the delay characteristics
are poor. Transmission time is measured in minutes or hours, not milliseconds.

2.Twisted Pair
One of the oldest and still most common transmission media is twisted pair. A twisted pair
consists of two insulated copper wires, typically about 1 mm thick. The wires are twisted together

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in a helical form, just like a DNA molecule. Twisting is done because two parallel wires constitute
a fine antenna. When the wires are twisted, the waves from different twists cancel out, so the wire
radiates less effectively.

The most common application of the twisted pair is the telephone system. Nearly all telephones
are connected to the telephone company (telco) office by a twisted pair. Twisted pairs can run
several kilometers without amplification, but for longer distances, repeaters are needed.

Twisted pairs can be used for transmitting either analog or digital signals. The bandwidth
depends on the thickness of the wire and the distance traveled, but several megabits/sec can be
achieved for a few kilometers in many cases. Due to their adequate performance and low cost,
twisted pairs are widely used.

Fig: (a) Category 3 UTP. (b) Category 5 UTP.

Category 3 twisted pairs consist of two insulated wires gently twisted together. Four such pairs
are typically grouped in a plastic sheath to protect the wires and keep them together.

Category 5 twisted pairs are similar to Category 3 pairs, but with more twists per centimeter,
which results in less crosstalk and a better-quality signal over longer distances, making them
more suitable for high-speed computer communication.

All of these wiring types are often referred to as UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair)

3. Coaxial Cable
It has better shielding than twisted pairs, so it can span longer distances at higher speeds. Two
kinds of coaxial cable are widely used.

 50-ohm cable, is commonly used when it is intended for digital transmission.

 75-ohm cable, is commonly used for analog transmission and cable television.

A coaxial cable consists of a stiff copper wire as the core, surrounded by an insulating material.
The insulator is encased by a cylindrical conductor, often as a closely-woven braided mesh. The
outer conductor is covered in a protective plastic sheath.

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 Fig: A coaxial cable

The construction and shielding of the coaxial cable give it a good combination of high bandwidth
and excellent noise immunity. The bandwidth possible depends on the cable quality, length, and
signal-to-noise ratio of the data signal. Coaxial cables used to be widely used within the telephone
system for long-distance lines but have now largely been replaced by fiber optics on long-haul
routes. Coax is still widely used for cable television and metropolitan area networks.

4. Fiber Optics
An optical transmission system has three key components:

 Light source
 Transmission medium
 Detector

A pulse of light indicates a 1 bit and the absence of light indicates a 0 bit. The transmission
medium is an ultra-thin fiber of glass. The detector generates an electrical pulse when light falls
on it. By attaching a light source to one end of an optical fiber and a detector to the other, we have
a unidirectional data transmission system that accepts an electrical signal, converts and transmits
it by light pulses, and then reconverts the output to an electrical signal at the receiving end.

Transmission system would leak light and be useless in practice except for an interesting
principle of physics. When a light ray passes from one medium to another, for example, from fused
silica to air, the ray is refracted (bent) at the silica/air boundary.

A light ray incident on the boundary at an angle a1 emerging at an angle b1. The amount of
refraction depends on the properties of the two media (in particular, their indices of refraction).
For angles of incidence above a certain critical value, the light is refracted back into the silica;
none of it escapes into the air. Thus, a light ray incident at or above the critical angle is trapped
inside the fiber.

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Fig (a) Three examples of a light ray from inside a silica fiber impinging on the air/silica boundary
at different angles. Fig (b) Light trapped by total internal reflection.

Any light ray incident on the boundary above the critical angle will be reflected internally, many
different rays will be bouncing around at different angles. Each ray is said to have a different
mode, so a fiber having this property is called a multimode fiber. The light can propagate only
in a straight line, without bouncing, yielding a single-mode fiber.

Transmission of Light through Fiber

Optical fibers are made of glass, which, in turn, is made from sand, an inexpensive raw material
available in unlimited amounts. The attenuation of light through glass depends on the
wavelength of the light. Light pulses sent down a fiber spread out in length as they propagate.
This spreading is called chromatic dispersion. The amount of it is wavelength dependent.
Sending the pulses for thousands of kilometers without appreciable shape distortion. These
pulses are called solitons.

5. Fiber Cables
Fiber optic cables are similar to coax, except without the braid. At the center is the glass core
through which the light propagates. In multimode fibers, the core is typically 50 microns in
diameter, about the thickness of a human hair. In single-mode fibers, the core is 8 to 10 microns.

Fibers can be connected in three different ways:

1. They can terminate in connectors and be plugged into fiber sockets. Connectors lose about
10 to 20 percent of the light, but they make it easy to reconfigure systems.
2. They can be spliced mechanically. Mechanical splices just lay the two carefully-cut ends
next to each other in a special sleeve and clamp them in place. Alignment can be improved
by passing light through the junction and then making small adjustments to maximize the
signal.

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 3. Two pieces of fiber can be fused (melted) to form a solid connection. A fusion splice is
almost as good as a single drawn fiber, but even here, a small amount of attenuation
occurs.

Fig (a) Side view of a single fiber. (b) End view of a sheath with three fibers.

The core is surrounded by a glass cladding with a lower index of refraction than the core, to keep
all the light in the core. Next comes a thin plastic jacket to protect the cladding. Fibers are typically
grouped in bundles, protected by an outer sheath.

Two kinds of light sources are typically used to do the signaling, LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes)
and semiconductor lasers.

Fiber Optic Networks

Fiber optics can be used for LANs as well as for long-haul transmission. One way around the
problem is to realize that a ring network is really just a collection of point-to-point links. The
interface at each computer passes the light pulse stream through to the next link and also serves
as a T junction to allow the computer to send and accept messages.

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Two types of interfaces are used.
1. Passive interface
2. Active interface / repeater

Fig: A fiber optic ring with active repeaters

A passive interface consists of two taps fused onto the main fiber. One tap has an LED or laser
diode at the end of it (for transmitting), and the other has a photodiode (for receiving). The tap
itself is completely passive and is thus extremely reliable because a broken LED or photodiode
does not break the ring. It just takes one computer off-line.

Active repeater, the incoming light is converted to an electrical signal, regenerated to full
strength if it has been weakened, and retransmitted as light. The interface with the computer is
an ordinary copper wire that comes into the signal regenerator.

If an active repeater fails, the ring is broken and the network goes down. On the other hand, since
the signal is regenerated at each interface, the individual computer-to-computer links can be
kilometers long, with virtually no limit on the total size of the ring. The passive interfaces lose
light at each junction, so the number of computers and total ring length are greatly restricted.

It is also possible to have hardware broadcasting by using the passive star construction. In this
design, each interface has a fiber running from its transmitter to a silica cylinder, with the
incoming fibers fused to one end of the cylinder. Similarly, fibers fused to the other end of the
cylinder are run to each of the receivers. Whenever an interface emits a light pulse, it is diffused
inside the passive star to illuminate all the receivers, thus achieving broadcast.

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 Fig: A passive star connection in a fiber optics network

The passive star combines all the incoming signals and transmits the merged result on all lines.
Since the incoming energy is divided among all the outgoing lines, the number of nodes in the
network is limited by the sensitivity of the photodiodes.

Comparison of Fiber Optics and Copper Wire

 Fiber can handle much higher bandwidths than copper. This alone would require its use
in high-end networks.
 In fiber, due to the low attenuation, repeaters are needed only about every 50 km on long
lines, versus about every 5 km for copper, a substantial cost saving.
 Fiber also has the advantage of not being affected by power surges, electromagnetic
interference, or power failures. Nor is it affected by corrosive chemicals in the air, making
it ideal for harsh factory environments.
 Fibers do not leak light and are quite difficult to tap. These properties give fiber excellent
security against potential wire tappers.
 Fibers can be damaged easily.
 Since optical transmission is inherently unidirectional, two-way communication requires
either two fibers or two frequency bands on one fiber.
 Finally, fiber interfaces cost more than electrical interfaces.

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 II. Unguided Transmission Media
Two kinds of communication: fiber and wireless. All fixed (i.e., non-mobile) computers,
telephones, faxes, and use fiber, and all mobile ones will use wireless. The transmission takes
place without using wires such as radio and lasers through the air.

I. Wireless Communication
II. Communication Satellites

The wireless communication was divided into,

1. The Electromagnetic Spectrum
2. Radio Transmission
3. Microwave Transmission
4. Infrared and Millimeter Waves
5. Lightwave Transmission

I. Wireless Communication
1. The Electromagnetic Spectrum
When electrons move, they create electromagnetic waves that can propagate through space. The
number of oscillations per second of a wave is called its frequency, f, and is measured in Hz (in
honor of Heinrich Hertz). The distance between two consecutive maxima (or minima) is called
the wavelength, which is universally designated by the Greek letter l (lambda). When an antenna
of the appropriate size is attached to an electrical circuit, the electromagnetic waves can be
broadcast efficiently and received by a receiver some distance away.

In vacuum, all electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed. This speed, usually called the
speed of light, c, is approximately 3 x 108 m/sec. The fundamental relation between f, l, and c (in
vacuum) is,

The radio, microwave, infrared, and visible light portions of the spectrum can all be used for
transmitting information by modulating the amplitude, frequency, or phase of the waves.
Ultraviolet light, X-rays, and gamma rays would be even better, due to their higher frequencies,
but they are hard to produce and modulate, do not propagate well through buildings, and are
dangerous to living things.

The terms LF, MF, and HF refer to low, medium, and high frequency, respectively and higher
bands were Very, Ultra, Super, Extremely, and Tremendously High Frequency bands (VHF, UHF,
EHF and THF).

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The amount of information that an electromagnetic wave can carry is related to its bandwidth.

Fig: The electromagnetic spectrum and its uses for communication

2. Radio Transmission
Radio waves are easy to generate, can travel long distances, and can penetrate buildings easily,
so they are widely used for communication, both indoors and outdoors. Radio waves also are
omnidirectional, meaning that they travel in all directions from the source, so the transmitter and
receiver do not have to be carefully aligned physically.

The properties of radio waves are frequency dependent. At low frequencies, radio waves pass
through obstacles well. At high frequencies, radio waves tend to travel in straight lines and
bounce off obstacles. They are also absorbed by rain.

In the VLF, LF, and MF bands, radio waves follow the ground
level. These waves can be detected for perhaps 1000 km at the
lower frequencies, less at the higher ones.

In the HF and VHF bands, the ground waves tend to be

absorbed by the earth. However, the waves that reach
the ionosphere, a layer of charged particles circling the
earth at a height of 100 to 500 km, are refracted by it and
sent back to earth. Under certain atmospheric
conditions, the signals can bounce several times.

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Amateur radio operators (hams) use these bands to talk long distance. The military also
communicate in the HF and VHF bands.

3. Microwave Transmission
Above 100 MHz, the waves travel in nearly straight lines and can therefore be narrowly focused.
Concentrating all the energy into a small beam by means of a parabolic antenna gives a much
higher signal-to-noise ratio, but the transmitting and receiving antennas must be accurately
aligned with each other. In addition, this directionality allows multiple transmitters lined up in a
row to communicate with multiple receivers in a row without interference. Microwaves formed
the heart of the long-distance telephone transmission system.

Since the microwaves travel in a straight line. Microwaves do not pass through buildings well. In
addition, even though the beam may be well focused at the transmitter, there is still some
divergence in space. Some waves may be refracted off low-lying atmospheric layers and may take
slightly longer to arrive than the direct waves. The delayed waves may arrive out of phase with
the direct wave and thus cancel the signal. This effect is called multipath fading.

Microwave communication is so widely used for long-distance telephone communication, mobile

phones, television distribution, and other uses that a severe shortage of spectrum has developed.

4. Infrared and Millimeter Waves

Unguided infrared and millimeter waves are widely used for short-range communication. The
remote controls used on televisions, VCRs, and stereos all use infrared communication. They are
relatively directional, cheap, and easy to build but have a major drawback: they do not pass
through solid objects.

Security of infrared systems against eavesdropping is better than that of radio systems precisely
for this reason. Therefore, no government license is needed to operate an infrared system, in
contrast to radio systems, which must be licensed outside the ISM (Industrial Scientific and
Medical) bands. Infrared communication has a limited use on the desktop, for example,
connecting notebook computers and printers.

5. Lightwave Transmission
A more modern application is to connect the LANs in two buildings via lasers mounted on their
rooftops. Coherent optical signaling using lasers is inherently unidirectional, so each building
needs its own laser and its own photodetector. This scheme offers very high bandwidth and very
low cost. It is also relatively easy to install.

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A disadvantage is that laser beams cannot penetrate rain or thick fog, but they normally work
well on sunny days.

Fig: Convection currents can interfere with laser communication systems. A bidirectional
system with two lasers

II. Communication Satellites

Communication satellite can be thought of as a big microwave repeater in the sky. It contains
several transponders, each of which listens to some portion of the spectrum, amplifies the
incoming signal, and then rebroadcasts it at another frequency to avoid interference with the
incoming signal. The downward beams can be broad, covering a substantial fraction of the earth's
surface, or narrow, covering an area only hundreds of kilometers in diameter. This mode of
operation is known as a bent pipe.

1. Geostationary Satellites
2. Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) Satellites
3. Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellites

1. Geostationary Satellites
The high-flying satellites are often called GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit) satellites. With a
spacing of 2 degrees, there can only be 360/2 = 180 of these satellites in the sky at once. However,
each transponder can use multiple frequencies and polarizations to increase the available
bandwidth.

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  The C band was the first to be designated for commercial satellite traffic. Two frequency
ranges are assigned in it, the lower one for downlink traffic (from the satellite) and the
upper one for uplink traffic (to the satellite). To allow traffic to go both ways at the same
time, two channels are required, one going each way. These bands are already
overcrowded because they are also used by the common carriers for terrestrial
microwave links.
 The L and S bands were added by international agreement in 2000. However, they are
narrow and crowded.
 The next highest band available to commercial telecommunication carriers is the Ku (K
under) band. This band is not congested, and at these frequencies, satellites can be spaced
as close as 1 degree. However, another problem exists: rain. Water is an excellent
absorber of these short microwaves.
 Bandwidth has also been allocated in the Ka (K above) band for commercial satellite
traffic, but the equipment needed to use it is still expensive. In addition to these
commercial bands, many government and military bands also exist.

Each transponder operates as a bent pipe, but recent satellites have some on-board processing
capacity, allowing more sophisticated operation. The division of the transponders into channels
was static: the bandwidth was simply split up into fixed frequency bands. Each transponder beam
is divided into time slots, with various users taking turns.

The first geostationary satellites had a single spatial beam that illuminated about 1/3 of the
earth's surface, called its footprint. Each satellite is equipped with multiple antennas and
multiple transponders. Each downward beam can be focused on a small geographical area, so
multiple upward and downward transmissions can take place simultaneously. Typically, these
so-called spot beams are elliptically shaped, and can be as small as a few hundred km in diameter.

A new development in the communication satellite world is the development of low-cost

microstations, sometimes called VSATs (Very Small Aperture Terminals). In many VSAT systems,
the microstations do not have enough power to communicate directly with one another (via the
satellite, of course). Instead, a special ground station, the hub, with a large, high-gain antenna is
needed to relay traffic between VSATs. In this mode of operation, either the sender or the receiver

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has a large antenna and a powerful amplifier.

Fig. VSATs using a hub

Communication satellites have several properties that are radically different from terrestrial
point-to-point links. To begin with, even though signals to and from a satellite travel at the speed
of light (nearly 300,000 km/sec), the long round-trip distance introduces a substantial delay for
GEO satellites. Depending on the distance between the user and the ground station, and the
elevation of the satellite above the horizon, the end-to-end transit time is between 250 and 300
msec. A typical value is 270 msec (540 msec for a VSAT system with a hub).

Another important property of satellites is that they are inherently broadcast media. It does not
cost more to send a message to thousands of stations within a transponder's footprint than it does
to send to one.

Satellites also have the property that the cost of transmitting a message is independent of the
distance traversed. Satellites also have excellent error rates and can be deployed almost instantly,
a major consideration for military communication.

2. Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO) Satellites

At much lower altitudes, between the two Van Allen belts, we find the MEO (Medium-Earth Orbit)
satellites. As viewed from the earth, these drift slowly in longitude, taking something like 6 hours
to circle the earth. MEOs lower than the GEOs, have a smaller footprint on the ground and require
less powerful transmitters to reach them. Currently they are not used for telecommunications.
The 24 GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites orbiting at about 18,000 km are examples of
MEO satellites.

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3. Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellites
The satellites are so close to the earth, the ground stations do not need much power, and the
round-trip delay is only a few milliseconds.

Iridium
Iridium's business is providing worldwide telecommunication service using hand-held devices
that communicate directly with the Iridium satellites. It provides voice, data, paging, fax, and
navigation service everywhere on land, sea, and air. Customers include the maritime, aviation,
and oil exploration industries, as well as people traveling in parts of the world lacking a
telecommunications infrastructure.

Fig (a) The Iridium satellites form six necklaces around the earth. (b) 1628 moving cells
cover the earth.
Each satellite has a maximum of 48 cells (spot beams), with a total of 1628 cells over the surface
of the earth. Each satellite has a capacity of 3840 channels, or 253,440 in all. Some of these are
used for paging and navigation, while others are used for data and voice. The property of Iridium
is that communication between distant customers takes place in space, with one satellite relaying
data to the next one.

Example: A caller at the North Pole

contacting a satellite directly overhead.
The call is relayed via other satellites and
finally sent down to the callee at the
South Pole. The call is relayed via other
satellites and finally sent down to the
callee at the South Pole.

Fig (a) Relaying in space.

(b) Relaying on the ground

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Globalstar
An alternative design to Iridium is Globalstar. It is based on 48 LEO satellites but uses a different
switching scheme than that of Iridium. Whereas Iridium relays calls from satellite to satellite,
which requires sophisticated switching equipment in the satellites, Globalstar uses a traditional
bent-pipe design.

The advantage of this scheme is that it puts much of the complexity on the ground, where it is
easier to manage. Also, the use of large ground station antennas that can put out a powerful signal
and receive a weak one means that lower-powered telephones can be used. After all, the
telephone puts out only a few milliwatts of power, so the signal that gets back to the ground
station is fairly weak, even after having been amplified by the satellite.

Teledesic
The goal of the Teledesic system is to provide millions of concurrent Internet users with an uplink
of as much as 100 Mbps and a downlink of up to 720 Mbps using a small, fixed, VSAT-type antenna,
completely bypassing the telephone system. To telephone companies, this is pie-in-the-sky.

Transmission occurs in the relatively uncrowded and high-bandwidth Ka band. The system is
packet-switched in space, with each satellite capable of routing packets to its neighboring
satellites. When a user needs bandwidth to send packets, it is requested and assigned dynamically
in about 50 msec.

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