Unit 3 – Physical Layer------------------4 Hours

1. Transmission Media: Guided Media: Copper, Fiber cabling

and its capacity standards

Unguided Media: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi/ Wireless LAN, Satellite

Communication Basics (Micro waves, Radio waves)
2. Switching Techniques: Circuit/ Packet/ Message switching
3. ISON Signaling & Architecture
4. Network Performance: Bandwidth, throughput, Latency,
Bandwidth- Delay Product, Jitter
……………………………………………………………………

Transmission Media/ Communication Media:

• A transmission medium is a physical path between the transmitter

and the receiver
• i.e. it is the channel through which data is sent from one place to
another.
• The main functionality of the transmission media is to carry the
information in the form of bits through LAN (Local Area
Network).

NOTE
• In a copper-based network, the bits in the form of electrical
signals.
• In a fibre based network, the bits in the form of light pulses.
• The transmission media is available in the lowest layer of the
OSI reference model, i.e., Physical layer. Therefore, it is
considered to be as a Layer 1 component.
Factors affecting the Transmission Media:

The data transmission capabilities of various Medias vary

differently depending upon the various factors.

These factors are:

1. Bandwidth.
a. It refers to the data carrying capacity of a channel or medium.
b. Higher bandwidth communication channels support higher
data rates.
2. Radiation.

• It refers to the leakage of signal from the medium due to

undesirable electrical characteristics of the medium.

3. Noise Absorption.

o It refers to the susceptibility of the media to external

electrical noise that can cause distortion of data signal.

4. Attenuation.

o It refers to loss of energy as signal propagates outwards.

Types of Transmission Media
Transmission Media is broadly classified into the following types:

Guided Media:

• It is also referred to as Wired or Bounded transmission media.

• Signals being transmitted are directed and confined in a narrow
pathway by using physical links.

Features:

• High Speed
• Secure
• Used for comparatively shorter distances
Twisted pair:

• Twisted pair is a physical media made up of a pair of cables

twisted with each other.
• A twisted pair cable is cheap as compared to other transmission
media.
• Installation of the twisted pair cable is easy, and it is a lightweight
cable.
• The frequency range for twisted pair cable is from 0 to 3.5KHz

Types of Twisted pair:

Unshielded Twisted Pair:

An unshielded twisted pair is widely used in telecommunication.

Advantages of Unshielded Twisted Pair:

• It is cheap.
• Installation of the unshielded twisted pair is easy.
• It can be used for high-speed LAN.

Disadvantage:

• This cable can only be used for shorter distances because of

attenuation.
Shielded Twisted Pair

• A shielded twisted pair is a cable that contains the mesh

surrounding the wire that allows the higher transmission rate.

Characteristics of Shielded Twisted Pair:

• The cost of the shielded twisted pair cable is not very high and not
very low.
• An installation of STP is easy.
• It has higher capacity as compared to unshielded twisted pair
cable.
• It has a higher attenuation.
• It is shielded that provides the higher data transmission rate.

Disadvantages

• It is more expensive as compared to UTP and coaxial cable.

• It has a higher attenuation rate.

Note:
Attenuation

• Attenuation is the loss of signal strength in networking cables or

connections.
 • This typically is measured in decibels (dB) or voltage and can
occur due to a variety of factors.
• It may cause signals to become distorted or indiscernible.

Coaxial Cable

• Coaxial cable is very commonly used transmission media, for

example, TV wire is usually a coaxial cable.
• The name of the cable is coaxial as it contains two conductors
parallel to each other.
• It has a higher frequency as compared to Twisted pair cable.
• The inner conductor of the coaxial cable is made up of copper,
and the outer conductor is made up of copper mesh.
o The middle core is made up of non-conductive cover that

separates the inner conductor from the outer conductor.

• The middle core is responsible for the data transferring
whereas the copper mesh prevents from the EMI
(Electromagnetic interference).
•

•
Coaxial cable is of two types:

1. Baseband transmission:
➢ It is defined as the process of transmitting a single signal at
high speed.
2. Broadband transmission:
➢ It is defined as the process of transmitting multiple signals
simultaneously.

Advantages Of Coaxial cable:

• The data can be transmitted at high speed.

• It has better shielding as compared to twisted pair cable.
• It provides higher bandwidth.

Disadvantages Of Coaxial cable:

• It is more expensive as compared to twisted pair cable.

• If any fault occurs in the cable causes the failure in the entire
network.

Optical Fiber Cable –

• It uses the concept of refraction of light through a core made up

of glass or plastic.
• The core is surrounded by a less dense glass or plastic covering
called the cladding. It is used for the transmission of large volumes
of data.
• The cable can be unidirectional or bidirectional. The WDM
(Wavelength Division Multiplexer) supports two modes, namely
unidirectional and bidirectional mode.
Features:

• Extremely high throughput

• Very high resistance to noise
• Excellent security
• Ability to carry signals for much longer distances before requiring
repeaters than copper cable
• Industry standard for high-speed networking

Advantages:

• Increased capacity and bandwidth

• Lightweight
• Less signal attenuation
• Immunity to electromagnetic interference
• Resistance to corrosive materials
Disadvantages:

• Difficult to install and maintain

• High cost
• Fragile (Easily broken)
• Trained technician is required

Fiber cables rated at 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps, and 100 Gbps are standard.
Unguided Media:

• An unguided transmission transmits the electromagnetic waves

without using any physical medium.
o Therefore it is also known as wireless transmission.

• In unguided media, air is the media through which the

electromagnetic energy can flow easily.

Unguided transmission is broadly classified into three categories:

1. Radio waves
2. Microwaves
3. Infrared

Other:
WLAN (Wi-Fi)
Radio waves

• Radio waves are the electromagnetic waves

o That are transmitted in all the directions of free space.

• Radio waves are omnidirectional, i.e., the signals are propagated

in all the directions.
• The range in frequencies of radio waves is from 3Khz to 1 Ghz.
• In the case of radio waves, the sending and receiving antenna
are not aligned,
o i.e., the wave sent by the sending antenna can be received by

any receiving antenna.

• An example of the radio wave is FM radio.

What is Ionosphere?

• The layer of the earth's atmosphere which contains a high

concentration of ions and free electrons and is able to reflect
radio waves.
• It lies above the mesosphere and extends from about 80 to 1,000
km above the earth's surface
Applications of Radio waves:

• A Radio wave is useful for multicasting when there is one

sender and many receivers.
• An FM radio, television, cordless phones are examples of a radio
wave.

Advantages of Radio transmission:

• Radio transmission is mainly used for wide area networks and

mobile cellular phones.
• Radio waves cover a large area, and they can penetrate the
walls.
• Radio transmission provides a higher transmission rate.
Microwaves

• A type of electromagnetic radiation, as are radio waves,

ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma-rays.

Types:

• Terrestrial microwave
• Satellite microwave communication.

Terrestrial Microwave Transmission

• Transmission of focused beam of a radio signal from one

ground-based microwave transmission antenna to another.
• Microwaves are the electromagnetic waves having the frequency
in the range from 1GHz to 1000 GHz.
• Microwaves are unidirectional as the sending and receiving
antenna is to be aligned,
o i.e., the waves sent by the sending antenna are narrowly

focussed.
• It works on the line of sight transmission,
o i.e., the antennas mounted on the towers are the direct sight

of each other.

Characteristics of Microwave:

• Frequency range:
o The frequency range of terrestrial microwave is from 4-6

GHz to 21-23 GHz.

• Bandwidth:
o It supports the bandwidth from 1 to 10 Mbps.

o
• Short distance:
o It is inexpensive for short distance.

• Long distance:
o It is expensive as it requires a higher tower for a longer

distance.
• Attenuation:
o Attenuation means loss of signal.

o It is affected by environmental conditions and antenna size.

Satellite Microwave Communication

• A satellite is a physical object that revolves around the earth at a

known height.
• Satellite communication is more reliable nowadays as it offers
more flexibility than cable and fibre optic systems.
• We can communicate with any point on the globe by using satellite
communication.

How Does Satellite work?

• The satellite accepts the signal that is transmitted from the earth
station, and it amplifies the signal.
• The amplified signal is retransmitted to another earth station.
Infrared

• A wireless technology used for communication over short ranges.

• The frequency of the infrared in the range from 300 GHz to 400
THz.
• It is used for short-range communication such as data transfer
between two cell phones,
o TV remote operation, data transfer between a computer and

cell phone resides in the same closed area.

Characteristics of Infrared:

• It supports high bandwidth, and hence the data rate will be very
high.
• Infrared waves cannot penetrate the walls. Therefore, the infrared
communication in one room cannot be interrupted by the nearby
rooms.
• An infrared communication provides better security with
minimum interference.
• Infrared communication is unreliable outside the building
because the sun rays will interfere with the infrared waves.

WLAN definition

• WLAN stands for wireless local area network.

• It is a wireless connection that connects two or more devices in
LAN.
• WLAN uses access points and routers to make a connection
between devices.
o Wi-Fi is an example of WLAN where devices are connected
wirelessly within a limited range.
o WLAN is made within home, office building, computer
laboratory, school building or any college campus.
o For using Wi-Fi, users need to enter a password for making a
connection to the internet.
o Wi-Fi connection is made either by using mobile hotspots or
by using a wireless modem or wireless router.
WLAN vs LAN

• LAN involve wired and wireless connection while WLAN is an

only wireless connection.
• LAN is secured but WLAN is not secured.
• Mobile connectivity is limited in LAN. In the case of WLAN
mobile connectivity is good.
• LAN is less expensive while WLAN is expensive.
• LAN is secured from hackers while WLAN can be attacked by
hackers and information can be stolen.
• In LAN we need Ethernet cables while in case of WLAN Ethernet
cables are not required and devices can connect wirelessly.
• LAN depends upon connecting wires to switches and routers while
WLAN doesn’t need wires to connect to switches and routers.
• Example of LAN includes connecting workstations in a room or
office building. Example of WLAN is connecting nodes
(smartphones, tablets, mobile devices, laptops, and computers).
• LAN is faster than WLAN
Switching techniques

• In large networks such as telecom network, there can be multiple

paths from sender to receiver.
• The process of moving the data packets towards their destination
by forwarding them from one port to the other port is called
as switching.

Classification of Switching Techniques

Circuit Switching

• A technique that establishes a dedicated path between sender

and receiver.
o Once the connection is established then the dedicated

path will remain to exist until the connection is

terminated.
• Circuit switching in a network operates in a similar way as the
telephone works.
• A complete end-to-end path must exist before the communication
takes place.
• In case of circuit switching technique, when any user wants to
send the data, voice, video, a request signal is sent to the
receiver then the receiver sends back the acknowledgment to
ensure the availability of the dedicated path. After receiving
the acknowledgment, dedicated path transfers the data.
• Circuit switching is used in public telephone network.
o It is used for voice transmission.

3 phases of circuit switching communication:

• Circuit establishment
• Data transfer
• Circuit Disconnect
 Circuit Switching can use either of the two technologies:

Advantages-

Circuit switching has the following advantages-

• A well-defined and dedicated path exists for the data to travel.
• There is no header overhead.
• There is no waiting time at any switch and the data is transmitted
without any delay.
• Data always reaches the other end in order.

Disadvantages-

Circuit switching has the following disadvantages-

• Dedicated channels require more bandwidth.
• It is more expensive than other switching techniques.
• Routing decisions cannot be changed once the circuit is established.

Important Notes-

• Circuit switching is implemented at physical layer.

 Message Switching

In it,

• There exists no dedicated path to transfer data.

• The entire message is treated as a single data unit.
• The message is then forwarded from hop to hop.
• Store and Forward is an important characteristic of message
switching.
• The message carries a header that contains the full information
about the destination.
• When any intermediate switch receives the message, it stores the entire
message.
• When resources become available, the switch forwards the
message to the next switch.
Packet Switching

• In this technique, the message splits into smaller pieces known

as packets and packets are given a unique number to identify
their order at the receiving end.
o Every packet contains some information in its headers such

as source address, destination address and sequence

number.
• Packets will travel across the network, taking the shortest path as
possible.
• All the packets are reassembled at the receiving end in correct
order.
• If any packet is missing or corrupted, then the message will be sent
to resend the message.
• If the correct order of the packets is reached, then the
acknowledgment message will be sent.
Approaches of Packet Switching:

There are two approaches to Packet Switching:

Datagram packet switching?

• Datagram packet switching is also known as connectionless

switching and does not have a fixed path.
• The datagram (or message) contain destination information
• On the basis of destination information, the intermediary node
to take routing decisions and to forward the message.

Virtual packet switching?

• Virtual circuit packet switching is also known as connection-

oriented switching.
• A preplanned route (or logical path) is established before
messages can be sent.
• Virtual circuit packet switching is more reliable.
Differences

Datagram approach Virtual Circuit approach

Node takes routing decisions to Node does not take any routing
forward the packets. decision.

Congestion cannot occur as all Congestion can occur when the node is
the packets travel in different busy, and it does not allow other
directions. packets to pass through.

It is more flexible as all the

packets are treated as an It is not very flexible.
independent entity.

Advantage of packet switching

• In packet switching, there is an efficient use of channels.

• Packet switching is cost effective
1. switching devices do not require massive secondary
storage
• There is an improvement in delay characteristics as messages are
broken into chunks.
• If there is problem with a path, data can be rerouted.
Disadvantages of Packet Switching:

• The protocols used in a packet switching technique are very

complex
• It requires high implementation cost.
• If the network is overloaded or corrupted, then it requires
retransmission of lost packets.
• It can also lead to the loss of critical information if errors are nor
recovered.
Assignment
ISDN Signaling & Architecture
Earlier, the transmission of data and voice both were possible through
normal POTS, Plain Old Telephone Systems. With the introduction of
Internet came the advancement in telecommunication too. Yet, the
sending and receiving of data along with voice was not an easy task.
One could use either the Internet or the Telephone. The invention of
ISDN helped mitigate this problem.
The process of connecting a home computer to the Internet Service
Provider used to take a lot of effort. The usage of the modulator-
demodulator unit, simply called the MODEM was the essential thing to
establish a connection. The following figure shows how the model
worked in the past.

The above figure shows that the digital signals have to be converted into
analog and analog signals to digital using modem during the whole path.
What if the digital information at one end reaches to the other end in the
same mode, without all these connections? It is this basic idea that lead
to the development of ISDN.
As the system has to use the telephone cable through the telephone
exchange for using the Internet, the usage of telephone for voice calls
was not permitted. The introduction of ISDN has resolved this problem
allowing the transmission of both voice and data simultaneously. This
has many advanced features over the traditional PSTN, Public Switched
Telephone Network.

ISDN

ISDN was first defined in the CCITT red book in 1988.The Integrated
Services of Digital Networking, in short ISDN is a telephone network
based infrastructure that allows the transmission of voice and data
simultaneously at a high speed with greater efficiency. This is a circuit
switched telephone network system, which also provides access to
Packet switched networks.
The model of a practical ISDN is as shown below.

ISDN supports a variety of services. A few of them are listed below −

• Voice calls
• Facsimile
• Videotext
• Teletext
• Electronic Mail
• Database access
• Data transmission and voice
• Connection to internet
• Electronic Fund transfer
 • Image and graphics exchange
• Document storage and transfer
• Audio and Video Conferencing
• Automatic alarm services to fire stations, police, medical etc.

Types of ISDN

Among the types of several interfaces present, some of them contains

channels such as the B-Channels or Bearer Channels that are used to
transmit voice and data simultaneously; the D- Channels or Delta
Channels that are used for signaling purpose to set up communication.
The ISDN has several kinds of access interfaces such as −
• Basic Rate Interface (BRI)
• Primary Rate Interface (PRI)

• Narrowband ISDN

• Broadband ISDN

Basic Rate Interface (BRI)

The Basic Rate Interface or Basic Rate Access, simply called the ISDN
BRI Connection uses the existing telephone infrastructure. The BRI
configuration provides two data or bearer channels at 64
Kbits/sec speed and one control or delta channel at 16 Kbits/sec. This is
a standard rate.
The ISDN BRI interface is commonly used by smaller organizations or
home users or within a local group, limiting a smaller area.
Primary Rate Interface (PRI)
The Primary Rate Interface or Primary Rate Access, simply called the
ISDN PRI connection is used by enterprises and offices. The PRI
configuration is based on T-carrier or T1 in the US, Canada and Japan
countries consisting of 23 data or bearer channels and one control or
delta channel, with 64kbps speed for a bandwidth of 1.544 M bits/sec.
The PRI configuration is based on E-carrier or E1 in Europe, Australia
and few Asian countries consisting of 30 data or bearer channels
and two-control or delta channel with 64kbps speed for a bandwidth of
2.048 M bits/sec.
The ISDN BRI interface is used by larger organizations or enterprises
and for Internet Service Providers.
Narrowband ISDN
The Narrowband Integrated Services Digital Network is called the N-
ISDN. This can be understood as a telecommunication that carries voice
information in a narrow band of frequencies. This is actually an attempt
to digitize the analog voice information. This uses 64kbps circuit
switching.
The narrowband ISDN is implemented to carry voice data, which uses
lesser bandwidth, on a limited number of frequencies.
Broadband ISDN
The Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network is called the B-
ISDN. This integrates the digital networking services and provides
digital transmission over ordinary telephone wires, as well as over other
media. The CCITT defined it as, “Qualifying a service or system
requiring transmission channels capable of supporting rates greater than
primary rates.”
The broadband ISDN speed is around 2 MBPS to 1 GBPS and the
transmission is related to ATM, i.e., Asynchronous Transfer Mode. The
broadband ISDN communication is usually made using the fiber optic
cables.
As the speed is greater than 1.544 Mbps, the communications based on
this are called Broadband Communications. The broadband services
provide a continuous flow of information, which is distributed from a
central source to an unlimited number of authorized receivers connected
to the network. Though a user can access this flow of information, he
cannot control it.

Advantages of ISDN
ISDN is a telephone network based infrastructure, which enables the
transmission of both voice and data simultaneously. There are many
advantages of ISDN such as −
• As the services are digital, there is less chance for errors.
• The connection is faster.
• The bandwidth is higher.
• Voice, data and video − all of these can be sent over a single ISDN
line.

Disadvantages of ISDN
The disadvantage of ISDN is that it requires specialized digital services
and is costlier.
However, the advent of ISDN has brought great advancement in
communications. Multiple transmissions with greater speed are being
achieved with higher levels of accuracy.
ISDN is a network concept providing a integration of data, voice and
video.

• It is based on 64Kbps digital Communication channel.

• ISDN is a generic term for any network which connects homes and
business together with a service companies such as bank, air-lines,
stock market etc using a digital network.

From 1990 ISDN became a well convinced and planned area for
development in the field of telecommunication.

Telephone network requires two basic functions:

(i) Signaling –To establish and realize a call.

(ii) End-to-end transmission – To transfer the information between the

users
Network Performance:
Bandwidth, Throughput, Latency, Bandwidth- Delay Product, Jitter

Performance of a network pertains to the measure of service quality of a

network as perceived by the user. There are different ways to measure
the performance of a network, depending upon the nature and design of
the network. The characteristics that measure the performance of a
network are:

• Bandwidth
• Throughput
• Latency (Delay)
• Bandwidth – Delay Product
• Jitter

Network Performance measuring Parameters:

Bandwidth, Channel Capacity, Latency, Throughput, Transmission
Impairments

Performance of a network pertains to the measure of service quality of a

network as perceived by the user. The characteristics that measure the
performance of a network are:

• Bandwidth
• Channel Capacity
• Throughput
• Latency (Delay)
Bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the data-carrying capacity of a communication
channel or the range of frequencies available for transmitting data. It
can be expressed in hertz (Hz) or bits per second (bps).
• Bandwidth in Hertz: This measures the range of frequencies

contained in a composite signal or the range of frequencies a

channel can carry.
o For example, the bandwidth of a subscriber telephone

line is typically 4 kHz.

• Bandwidth in Bits Per Second: This measures the number of bits

a channel, a link, or a network can transmit per second.

o For instance, a Fast Ethernet network may have a

maximum bandwidth of 100 Mbps.

Throughput
• Throughput is a way to measure how fast data can flow through a

network.
• It's important to note that throughput and bandwidth are not the

same. Imagine bandwidth as the maximum capacity of a road, say

it's like having a road that can handle up to 100 cars at once.
However, the actual number of cars that can use the road at a
given time, which is the throughput, may be less than 100. So, if
the throughput is 70 cars, that means only 70 cars can go through
at once, even though the road can technically handle more.
• In simple terms, bandwidth is like the potential of a network

connection, while throughput tells you how much data is actually

being used in practice.
• For example, if a network connection has a bandwidth of 1 Mbps

(which means it can handle data at a speed of up to 1 million bits

per second), but the devices at the ends of the connection can only
 manage 200 kbps (200,000 bits per second), then the throughput of
that connection is limited to 200 kbps.

Latency (Delay)

• Latency, or delay, is all about how long it takes for a complete

message to travel from the sender to the receiver.
• Latency can be broken down into four parts:
1. Propagation time: This is the time it takes for a single bit to
travel from the sender to the receiver. It depends on the
distance between them and the speed at which the signal
travels.
Propagation Time = Distance / Propagation Speed
2. Transmission time: This depends on how big the message is
and how much data the network can carry.
Transmission Time = Message Size / Bandwidth
3. Queuing time: Sometimes, messages have to wait in a line
before they can be sent. The time a message spends waiting is
called queuing time. This waiting time can vary depending on
how busy the network is.
4. Processing Delay: When a message arrives at a network
device (like a router or switch), it takes some time to be
processed. This processing time depends on the device's
speed and how congested the network is. If there's a lot of
traffic, it might take longer to process messages.
Channel Capacity:

• It means the capacity of the transmission medium (wire or

link).
• Capacity is the number of bits the transmission medium can hold.

Basically, there are 2 types of channels –

Full duplex and half duplex

1. Half duplex – the transmission can happen in one direction at a

time.
2. Full duplex – the transmission can happen in both the direction
simultaneously.
The capacity of the channel depends on two parameters:
1. Bandwidth
2. Propagation delay

Capacity = bandwidth * propagation delay (in case of half

duplex)

Capacity =2* bandwidth * propagation delay (in case of full

duplex)
ASSIGNMENT:

Let’s study thoroughly and try to understand all the solved

numerical problems below:

BANDWIDTH
One of the most essential conditions of a website’s performance is the
amount of bandwidth allocated to the network. Bandwidth determines
how rapidly the webserver is able to upload the requested information.
While there are different factors to consider with respect to a site’s
performance, bandwidth is every now and again the restricting element.

Bandwidth is characterized as the measure of data or information that

can be transmitted in a fixed measure of time. The term can be used in
two different contexts with two distinctive estimating values. In the case
of digital devices, the bandwidth is measured in bits per second(bps) or
bytes per second. In the case of analogue devices, the bandwidth is
measured in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).

Bandwidth is only one component of what an individual sees as the

speed of a network. People frequently mistake bandwidth with internet
speed in light of the fact that internet service providers (ISPs) tend to
claim that they have a fast “40Mbps connection” in their advertising
campaigns. True internet speed is actually the amount of data you
receive every second and that has a lot to do with latency too.
“Bandwidth” means “Capacity” and “Speed” means “Transfer
rate”.

More bandwidth does not mean more speed. Let us take a case where we
have double the width of the tap pipe, but the water rate is still the same
as it was when the tap pipe was half the width. Hence, there will be no
improvement in speed. When we consider WAN links, we mostly mean
bandwidth but when we consider LAN, we mostly mean speed. This is
on the grounds that we are generally constrained by expensive cable
bandwidth over WAN rather than hardware and interface data transfer
rates (or speed) over LAN.

Bandwidth in Hertz: It is the range of frequencies contained in a

composite signal or the range of frequencies a channel can pass. For
example, let us consider the bandwidth of a subscriber telephone line as
4 kHz.

Bandwidth in Bits per Seconds: It refers to the number of bits per second
that a channel, a link, or rather a network can transmit. For example, we
can say the bandwidth of a Fast Ethernet network is a maximum of 100
Mbps, which means that the network can send 100 Mbps of data.

Note: There exists an explicit relationship between the bandwidth in

hertz and the bandwidth in bits per second. An increase in bandwidth in
hertz means an increase in bandwidth in bits per second. The
relationship depends upon whether we have baseband transmission or
transmission with modulation.

THROUGHPUT

Throughput is the number of messages successfully transmitted per unit

time. It is controlled by available bandwidth, the available signal-to-
noise ratio and hardware limitations. The maximum throughput of a
network may be consequently higher than the actual throughput
achieved in everyday consumption. The terms ‘throughput’ and
‘bandwidth’ are often thought of as the same, yet they are different.
Bandwidth is the potential measurement of a link, whereas throughput is
an actual measurement of how fast we can send data.
Throughput is measured by tabulating the amount of data transferred
between multiple locations during a specific period of time, usually
resulting in the unit of bits per second(bps), which has evolved to bytes
per second(Bps), kilobytes per second(KBps), megabytes per
second(MBps) and gigabytes per second(GBps). Throughput may be
affected by numerous factors, such as the hindrance of the underlying
analogue physical medium, the available processing power of the system
components, and end-user behaviour. When numerous protocol expenses
are taken into account, the use rate of the transferred data can be
significantly lower than the maximum achievable throughput.

Let us consider: A highway which has a capacity of moving, say, 200

vehicles at a time. But at a random time, someone notices only, say, 150
vehicles moving through it due to some congestion on the road. As a
result, the capacity is likely to be 200 vehicles per unit time and the
throughput is 150 vehicles at a time.

Example:

Input:A network with bandwidth of 10 Mbps can pass only an average

of 12, 000 frames
per minute where each frame carries an average of 10, 000 bits. What
will be the
throughput for this network?

Output: We can calculate the throughput as-

Throughput = (12, 000 x 10, 000) / 60 = 2 Mbps
The throughput is nearly equal to one-fifth of the bandwidth in this case.

For the difference between Bandwidth and Throughput, refer.

LATENCY
In a network, during the process of data communication, latency(also
known as delay) is defined as the total time taken for a complete
message to arrive at the destination, starting with the time when the first
bit of the message is sent out from the source and ending with the time
when the last bit of the message is delivered at the destination. The
network connections where small delays occur are called “Low-Latency-
Networks” and the network connections which suffer from long delays
are known as “High-Latency-Networks”.

High latency leads to the creation of bottlenecks in any network

communication. It stops the data from taking full advantage of the
network pipe and conclusively decreases the bandwidth of the
communicating network. The effect of the latency on a network’s
bandwidth can be temporary or never-ending depending on the source of
the delays. Latency is also known as a ping rate and is measured in
milliseconds(ms).

In simpler terms: latency may be defined as the time required to

successfully send a packet across a network.

• It is measured in many ways like round trip, one way, etc.

• It might be affected by any component in the chain which is
utilized to vehiculate data, like workstations, WAN links, routers,
LAN, servers and eventually may be limited for large networks, by
the speed of light.

Latency = Propagation Time + Transmission Time + Queuing Time +

Processing Delay

Propagation Time: It is the time required for a bit to travel from the
source to the destination. Propagation time can be calculated as the ratio
between the link length (distance) and the propagation speed over the
communicating medium. For example, for an electric signal, propagation
time is the time taken for the signal to travel through a wire.

Propagation time = Distance / Propagation speed

Example:

Input: What will be the propagation time when the distance between
two points is
12, 000 km? Assuming the propagation speed to be 2.4 * 10^8 m/s in
cable.

Output: We can calculate the propagation time as-

Propagation time = (12000 * 10000) / (2.4 * 10^8) = 50 ms

Transmission Time: Transmission time is a time based on how long it

takes to send the signal down the transmission line. It consists of time
costs for an EM signal to propagate from one side to the other, or costs
like the training signals that are usually put on the front of a packet by
the sender, which helps the receiver synchronize clocks. The
transmission time of a message relies upon the size of the message and
the bandwidth of the channel.

Transmission time = Message size / Bandwidth

Example:

Input:What will be the propagation time and the transmission time for a
2.5-kbyte
message when the bandwidth of the network is 1 Gbps? Assuming the
distance between
sender and receiver is 12, 000 km and speed of light is 2.4 * 10^8 m/s.
Output: We can calculate the propagation and transmission time as-
Propagation time = (12000 * 10000) / (2.4 * 10^8) = 50 ms
Transmission time = (2560 * 8) / 10^9 = 0.020 ms

Note: Since the message is short and the bandwidth is high, the
dominant factor is the
propagation time and not the transmission time(which can be ignored).

Queuing Time: Queuing time is a time based on how long the packet
has to sit around in the router. Quite frequently the wire is busy, so we
are not able to transmit a packet immediately. The queuing time is
usually not a fixed factor, hence it changes with the load thrust in the
network. In cases like these, the packet sits waiting, ready to go, in a
queue. These delays are predominantly characterized by the measure of
traffic on the system. The more the traffic, the more likely a packet is
stuck in the queue, just sitting in the memory, waiting.

Processing Delay: Processing delay is the delay based on how long it

takes the router to figure out where to send the packet. As soon as the
router finds it out, it will queue the packet for transmission. These costs
are predominantly based on the complexity of the protocol. The router
must decipher enough of the packet to make sense of which queue to put
the packet in. Typically the lower-level layers of the stack have simpler
protocols. If a router does not know which physical port to send the
packet to, it will send it to all the ports, queuing the packet in many
queues immediately. Differently, at a higher level, like in IP protocols,
the processing may include making an ARP request to find out the
physical address of the destination before queuing the packet for
transmission. This situation may also be considered as a processing
delay.
BANDWIDTH – DELAY PRODUCT
Bandwidth and delay are two performance measurements of a link.
However, what is significant in data communications is the product of
the two, the bandwidth-delay product.

Let us take two hypothetical cases as examples.

Case 1: Assume a link is of bandwidth 1bps and the delay of the link is
5s. Let us find the bandwidth-delay product in this case. From the image,
we can say that this product 1 x 5 is the maximum number of bits that
can fill the link. There can be close to 5 bits at any time on the link.
Case 2: Assume a link is of bandwidth 3bps. From the image, we can
say that there can be a maximum of 3 x 5 = 15 bits on the line. The
reason is that, at each second, there are 3 bits on the line and the duration
of each bit is 0.33s.

For both examples, the product of bandwidth and delay is the number of
bits that can fill the link. This estimation is significant in the event that
we have to send data in bursts and wait for the acknowledgement of each
burst before sending the following one. To utilize the maximum ability
of the link, we have to make the size of our burst twice the product of
bandwidth and delay. Also, we need to fill up the full-duplex channel.
The sender ought to send a burst of data of (2*bandwidth*delay) bits.
The sender at that point waits for the receiver’s acknowledgement for
part of the burst before sending another burst. The amount:
2*bandwidth*delay is the number of bits that can be in transition at any
time.

JITTER
Jitter is another performance issue related to delay. In technical terms,
jitter is a “packet delay variance”. It can simply mean that jitter is
considered as a problem when different packets of data face different
delays in a network and the data at the receiver application is time-
sensitive, i.e. audio or video data. Jitter is measured in milliseconds(ms).
It is defined as an interference in the normal order of sending data
packets. For example: if the delay for the first packet is 10 ms, for the
second is 35 ms, and for the third is 50 ms, then the real-time destination
application that uses the packets experiences jitter.

Simply, jitter is any deviation in, or displacement of, the signal pulses in
a high-frequency digital signal. The deviation can be in connection with
the amplitude, the width of the signal pulse or the phase timing. The
major causes of jitter are electromagnetic interference(EMI) and
crosstalk between signals. Jitter can lead to flickering of a display
screen, affects the capability of a processor in a desktop or server to
proceed as expected, introducing clicks or other undesired impacts in
audio signals, and loss of transmitted data between network devices.

Jitter is negative and causes network congestion and packet loss.

• Congestion is like a traffic jam on the highway. In a traffic jam,

cars cannot move forward at a reasonable speed. Like the traffic
jam, in congestion, all the packets come to a junction at the same
time. Nothing can get loaded.
• The second negative effect is packet loss. When packets arrive at
unexpected intervals, the receiving system is not able to process
the information, which leads to missing information also called
 “packet loss”. This has negative effects on video viewing. If a
video becomes pixelated and is skipping, the network is
experiencing jitter. The result of the jitter is packet loss. When you
are playing a game online, the effect of packet loss can be that a
player begins moving around on the screen randomly. Even worse,
the game goes from one scene to the next, skipping over part of the
gameplay.

In the above image, it can be noticed that the time it takes for packets to
be sent is not the same as the time in which he will arrive at the receiver
side. One of the packets faces an unexpected delay on its way and is
received after the expected time. This is jitter.

A jitter buffer can reduce the effects of jitter, either in a network, on a

router or switch, or on a computer. The system at the destination
receiving the network packets usually receives them from the buffer and
not from the source system directly. Each packet is fed out of the buffer
at a regular rate. Another approach to diminish jitter in case of multiple
paths for traffic is to selectively route traffic along the most stable paths
or to always pick the path that can come closest to the targeted packet
delivery rate.