TCP/IP Reference Model, after its two primary
protocols. It was first described by Cerf and Kahn
(1974), and later refined and defined as a standard in
the Internet community (Braden, 1989).
The Link Layer:
The lowest layer in the model, the link layer describes
what links such as serial lines and classic Ethernet
must do to meet the needs of this connectionless
internet layer.
It is not really a layer at all, in the normal sense of the
term, but rather an interface between hosts and
transmission links.
The Internet Layer:
The internet layer is the linchpin that holds the whole
architecture together.
Its job is to permit hosts to inject packets into any
network and have them travel independently to the
destination (potentially on a different network).
They may even arrive in a completely different order than
they were sent, in which case it is the job of higher layers
to rearrange them, if in-order delivery is desired.
The internet layer defines an official packet format and
protocol called IP (Internet Protocol), plus a companion
protocol called ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol)
that helps it function.
The job of the internet layer is to deliver IP packets
where they are supposed to go.
The Transport Layer:
The layer above the internet layer in the TCP/IP model
is now usually called the transport layer.
It is designed to allow peer entities on the source and
destination hosts to carry on a conversation, just as in
the OSI transport layer.
Two end-to-end transport protocols have been
defined
The first one, TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
The second one, UDP (User Datagram Protocol).
It is a reliable connection-oriented protocol that allows a
byte stream originating on one machine to be delivered
without error on any other machine in the internet.
It segments the incoming byte stream into discrete
messages and passes each one on to the internet layer.
At the destination, the receiving TCP process
reassembles the received messages into the output
stream.
TCP also handles flow control to make sure a fast sender
cannot swamp a slow receiver with more messages than
it can handle.
It is an unreliable, connectionless protocol for
applications that do not want TCP’s sequencing or
flow control and wish to provide their own.
It is also widely used for one-shot, client-server-type
request-reply queries and applications in which
prompt delivery is more important than accurate
delivery, such as transmitting speech or video.
The Application Layer:
Applications simply include any session and
presentation functions that they require.
It contains all the higher- level protocols. The early
ones included virtual terminal (TELNET), file transfer
(FTP), and electronic mail (SMTP).
The Domain Name System (DNS), for mapping host
names onto their network addresses, HTTP, the
protocol for fetching pages on the World Wide Web.
RTP protocol for delivering real-time media such as
voice or movies.
Data that has to be sent across has to be
represented in the form of analog or digital
signal.
Analog data is in the continuous form.
Digital data is in the discrete form.
An analog signal has infinitely many levels of
intensity over a period of time. As the wave
moves from value A to value B, it passes
through and includes an infinite number of
values along its path.
A digital signal, on the other hand, can have
only a limited number of defined values.
Although each value can be any number, it is
often as simple as 1 and O.
A periodic signal completes a pattern within a
measurable time frame, called a period, and
repeats that pattern over subsequent
identical periods.
The completion of one full pattern is called a
cycle.
A nonperiodic signal changes without
exhibiting a pattern or cycle that repeats over
time.
It can be classified into two types
Simple or composite.
A simple periodic analog signal, a sine wave,
cannot be decomposed into simpler signals.
A composite periodic analog signal is composed
of multiple sine waves.
The sine wave is the most fundamental form
of a periodic analog signal.
When we visualize it as a simple oscillating
curve, its change over the course of a cycle is
smooth and consistent, a continuous, rolling
flow
A sine wave
In a sine wave, each cycle consists of a single arc
above the time axis followed by a single arc below it.
A sine wave can be represented by three
parameters: the peak amplitude, the frequency,
and the phase.
Peak amplitude:
The peak amplitude of a signal is the absolute
value of its highest intensity, proportional to the
energy it carries.
Period and Frequency:
Period refers to the amount of time, in seconds, a
signal needs to complete 1 cycle.
Frequency refers to the number of periods in I s.
The phase:
The term phase describes the position of the
waveform relative to time O.
If we think of the wave as something that can
be shifted backward or forward along the
time axis, phase describes the amount of that
shift.
The bandwidth of a composite signal is the
difference between the highest and the
lowest frequencies contained in that signal.
For example, if a composite signal contains
frequencies between 1000 and 5000, its
bandwidth is 5000 - 1000, or 4000.
A digital signal can have more than two
levels.
A 1 can be encoded as a positive voltage and
a 0 as zero voltage.
Most digital signals are nonperiodic, and thus
period and frequency are not appropriate
characteristics.
Another term-bit rate (instead ofjrequency)-
is used to describe digital signals.
The bit rate is the number of bits sent in Is,
expressed in bits per second (bps).
The bit length is the distance one bit
occupies on the transmission medium.
Bit length =propagation speed x bit duration
How can we send a digital signal from point A
to point B?
We can transmit a digital signal by using one
of two different approaches:
Baseband transmission or
Broadband transmission
Baseband transmission means sending a
digital signal over a channel without changing
the digital signal to an analog signal.
Baseband transmission requires that we have
a low-pass channel, a channel with a
bandwidth that starts from zero.
This is the case if we have a dedicated
medium with a bandwidth constituting only
one channel.
For example, the entire bandwidth of a cable
connecting two computers is one single
channel.
As another example, we may connect several
computers to a bus, but not allow more than
two stations to communicate at a time.
Again we have a low-pass channel, and we
can use it for baseband communication.
Broadband transmission or modulation means
changing the digital signal to an analog signal for
transmission.
Modulation allows us to use a bandpass channel-
a channel with a bandwidth that does not start
from zero.
If the available channel is a bandpass channel we
cannot send the digital signal directly to the
channel; we need to convert the digital signal to
an analog signal before transmission.
Signals travel through transmission media,
which are not perfect. The impetfection
causes signal impairment.
This means that the signal at the beginning
of the medium is not the same as the signal
at the end of the medium.
What is sent is not what is received.
Three causes of impairment are
attenuation
distortion and
noise
Attenuation
Attenuation means a loss of energy. When a
signal, simple or composite, travels through a
medium, it loses some of its energy in
overcoming the resistance of the medium.
To compensate for this loss, amplifiers are
used to amplify the signal.
Distortion
Distortion means that the signal changes its
form or shape. Distortion can occur in a
Composite signal made of different frequencies.
Each signal component has its own
propagation speed through a medium and,
therefore, its own delay in arriving at the final
destination.
Differences in delay may create a difference in
phase if the delay is not exactly the same as the
period duration.
Noise
Noise is another cause of impairment. Several
types of noise, such as thermal noise,
induced noise, crosstalk, and impulse noise,
may corrupt the signal.
A very important consideration in data
communications is how fast we can send
data, in bits per second. over a channel. Data
rate depends on three factors:
1. The bandwidth available
2. The level of the signals we use
3. The quality of the channel (the level of
noise)
Up to now, we have discussed the tools of
transmitting data (signals) over a network
and how the data behave.
One important issue in networking is the
performance of the network-how good is it?
Bandwidth
One characteristic that measures network
performance is bandwidth.
It can be used in two different contexts with
two different measuring values: bandwidth in
hertz and bandwidth in bits per second.
Bandwidth in Hertz
Bandwidth in hertz is the range of frequencies
contained in a composite signal or the range of
frequencies a channel can pass.
For example, we can say the bandwidth of a
subscriber telephone line is 4 kHz.
Bandwidth in Bits per Seconds
The term bandwidth can also refer to the number
of bits per second that a channel, a link, or even
a network can transmit.
For example, one can say the bandwidth of a Fast
Ethernet network (or the links in this network) is a
maximum of 100 Mbps. This means that this
network can send 100 Mbps.
Throughput
The throughput is a measure of how fast we can
actually send data through a network.
A link may have a bandwidth of B bps, but we can
only send T bps through this link with T always less
than B.
In other words, the bandwidth is a potential
measurement of a link; the throughput is an actual
measurement of how fast we can send data.
For example, we may have a link with a bandwidth of
1 Mbps, but the devices connected to the end of the
link may handle only 200 kbps. This means that we
cannot send more than 200 kbps through this link.
Latency (Delay)
The latency or delay defines how long it takes
for an entire message to completely arrive at
the destination from the time the first bit is
sent out from the source.
Latency is made of four components
Latency =propagation time +transmission
time +queuing time + processing delay.
Jitter:
Jitter is a problem if different packets of data
encounter different delays and the application
using the data at the receiver site is time-
sensitive (audio and video data, for example).
If the delay for the first packet is 20 ms, for
the second is 45 ms, and for the third is 40
ms, then the real-time application that uses
the packets endures jitter
