LECTURE 7

1 Computer Networks & the Internet

COMPUTER NETWORK

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DEFINITION
• A computer network is a system of interconnected
computers.
• The computers in a network communicate with one
another and share applications, data, voice, video and
sometimes hardware components.

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CONNECTIONS IN NETWORK

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COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
• Communication is the process of transferring
messages from one point to another.
• Three basic elements of communication system are:
● Sender (source): creates the message to be
transmitted. (your computer)
● Medium: carries the message. (the phone line)
● Receiver (sink): receives the message that was created
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by the sender. (your friend’s computer)
ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION

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DATA TRANSMISSION MODES

There are 3 modes of transmitting data from one point to

another:
● Simplex: communication is possible only in one direction. The
connected devices in such a system are send-only or receive-
only. Example, a terminal (send-only) and printer (receive-only).
This type of communication is very troublesome, inefficient and
hard to use and is not used that much now-a-days. There is no
chance of acknowledgement from the receiver and hence the
sender will never know if the receiver actually got the message
or not. 7
DATA TRANSMISSION MODES

• Half duplex: this system can transmit data in both

directions but only one direction at a time. It requires 2
wires. Example- Walkie-Talkie.
● A push-to-talk button
● Sender pushes his button to talk
● Listener releases his to listen

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DATA TRANSMISSION MODES

• Full duplex: this system can transmit data in both

directions simultaneously.

• Example: telephone system. It requires 4 wires. It is the

most efficient method of data communication. One end
does not have to wait for the other end to finish before
sending data/message.
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DATA TRANSMISSION MEDIA

• The main transmission media are:

● Metallic cable (twisted pair and coaxial cable)
● Optical fiber (single mode and multi mode)
● Wireless (microwave and infrared)

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TWISTED PAIR CABLE

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OPTICAL FIBER

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OPTICAL FIBER

• Advantages of fiber optics:

● Extremely high data rate.
● Not affected by electromagnetic interference.
● Small size and lightweight.
● Secure

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WIRELESS DATA TRANSFER

• Properties
● Uses the air medium.
● Microwaves are useful for communication among
different places on the earth
● Infrared are used in remote controls and indoor
LANs. They need line of sight.

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TYPES OF COMPUTER NETWORK
• LAN
• MAN
• WAN

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LAN (LOCAL AREA NETWORK)

● Provides communication between computers situated

in a limited distance like within a department.
● Usually owned by a single organization.
● Data transmission rate 1Mbps – 1Gbps.
● Less possibility of errors.
● Transmission media used: twisted pair, coaxial cable
and fiber optics.
● Cost to transmit data is negligible. 16
MAN (METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK)

● Covers a city.
● Technologies used are similar to LAN.
● Can be used to connect different branches of an organization.

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WAN (WIDE AREA NETWORK)

● Spreads over large geographic area.

● May connect computer in different countries.
● May be owned by single or group of organizations.
● May connect many LANs.
● Example, the Internet.
● Data transmission rate 1200bps – 2Mbps.
● More possibility of errors than LAN.
● Transmission media used: telephone line, microwave links and satellite
links.
● Cost to transmit data is may be high due to the use of leased telephone
line, satellite etc. 18
NETWORK TOPOLOGY

• The way the nodes (computers or other devices that are

communicating) of a network are linked together.
• Popular network topologies are: star, bus, ring, mesh.

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BUS TOPOLOGY

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BUS TOPOLOGY

● A single transmission media is shared by all nodes. All the

nodes are connected by a single cable with a terminator at
each end.
● Transmission media is usually coaxial cable.
● It’s the simplest topology used for LAN.
● Data sent from one node to another is sent to all nodes and
only the desired destination will accept the data.
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● Requires only one physical connection (connection wire).
STAR TOPOLOGY

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STAR TOPOLOGY

● All nodes are connected to a central switch which

control the data movement.
● Data from one node to another must go through the
switch which actually makes the routing decision.
● It is the most popular and currently the most widely
used topology for LANs.
● Requires n connections (n= no. of nodes/ computers)
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RING TOPOLOGY

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RING TOPOLOGY
● Nodes are connected in a closed loop.
● Data travels around the ring through the nodes which act
as repeaters.
● A particular node has connection with only 2 other nodes.
● When a node receives data from a node, if it is meant for
that that node, it uses it, otherwise it forwards the data to
the other node.
● Requires n connections
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MESH TOPOLOGY

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MESH TOPOLOGY

● All the nodes are connected to all other nodes.

● Needs the most amount of links or physical connections
• n*(n-1)/2

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NETWORK PROTOCOLS
● Nodes of a network must obey some rules if they
want to communicate with each other. The set of
rules is called network protocol.
● Example of protocol architecture, TCP/IP.
• TCP – Transmission Control Protocol
• IP – Internet Protocol

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THE INTERNET
• Largest network in the world.
• It is owned by everyone.
• It is the key platform for all kinds of services like
entertainment, business etc.
• It evolved from ARPANET(Advanced Research Projects
Agency Network) – a research network developed by
United States Defense Department in 1969. Initially
created to help academic and government researchers to
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use e-mail and share files.
THE INTERNET

• The Internet is growing very fast and eventually will

connect all the computers and networks in the world
together.
• The Internet is based on the TCP/IP protocol suit which
is used to identify every computer uniquely in the
Internet.

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INTERNET SERVICES
● Popular Internet applications are: e-mail, browsing, news.
● Some protocols supported by the Internet for various
services are:
• HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) – Web browsing.
• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) – Sending e-mail.
• POP (Post Office Protocol) – Receiving e-mail.
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) – Transferring data files.

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INTERNET ADDRESS

● Every computer on the Internet is identified by a 4

part address called IP address.
● Each of the 4 part is a number between 0 to 255.
● Example, 203.160.6.23.
● Hard for humans to deal with IP address.

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Thank You!!!!!!!!!

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