Chapter 3-5

Transmission Media
• Learning Objectives
· Outline the differences between Category 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5e, 6, and 7 twisted pair wire.
· Outline the characteristics of coaxial cable including the advantages and disadvantages.
· Outline the characteristics of fiber optic cable including the advantages and disadvantages.
· Outline the characteristics of terrestrial microwave systems including the advantages and
disadvantages.
· Outline the characteristics of satellite microwave systems including the advantages and
disadvantages as well as the differences between low earth orbit, middle earth orbit,
geosynchronous earth orbit, and highly elliptical earth orbit satellites.
· Describe the basics of wireless radio, including AMPS, D-AMPS, PCS systems, and
third generation wireless systems.
· Outline the characteristics of pager systems including the advantages and disadvantages.
· Outline the characteristics of short-range transmissions, including Bluetooth
· Describe the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of wireless application protocol
· Outline the characteristics of broadband wireless systems including the advantages and
disadvantages.
· Apply the media selection criteria of cost, speed, distance and expandability, environment, and
security to various media in a particular application.
 Transmission media
• Is a pathway that carries the information from sender
to receiver.
• Are located below the physical layer
• Are directly controlled by the physical layer.
• We use different types of cables or waves to transmit
data.
 Guided/Wired/Bound
Transmission Media
• Are the cables that are tangible or have
physical existence and are limited by the
physical geography.
• provide a conduit from one device to another,
include twisted-pair cable, coaxial cable, and
fiber-optic cable
• A signal traveling along any of these media is
directed and contained by the physical limits
of the medium.
 Transmission Characteristics of Guided
Media
Frequency Typical Typical Repeater
Range Attenuatio Delay Spacing
Twisted pair 0 to 3.5 kHz n
0.2 dB/km 50 µs/km 2 km
(with @ 1 kHz
loading)
Twisted 0 to 1 MHz 0.7 dB/km 5 µs/km 2 km
pairs (multi- @ 1 kHz
pair cables)
Coaxial 0 to 500 7 dB/km @ 4 µs/km 1 to 9 km
cable MHz 10 MHz
Optical fiber 186 to 370 0.2 to 0.5 5 µs/km 40 km
THz dB/km
 Twisted-pair cable(TP)
• Consists of two conductors (normally copper), each
with its own plastic insulation, twisted together
• One of the wires is used to carry signals to the receiver,
and the other is used only as a ground reference.
• The receiver uses the difference between the two.
• In addition to the signal sent by the sender on one of the
wires, interference (noise) and crosstalk may affect both
wires and create unwanted signals.
• The two lines are twisted to minimize interference
(noise) and crosstalk.
 TP - Transmission Characteristics

• Analog
– needs amplifiers every 5km to 6km
• Digital
– can use either analog or digital signals
– needs a repeater every 2-3km
• limited distance
• limited bandwidth (1MHz)
• limited data rate (100MHz)
• susceptible to interference and noise
Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)

– ordinary telephone wire

– cheapest
– easiest to install
– suffers from external EM
interference
UTP connector
 Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)

• metal braid or
sheathing that reduces
interference
• more expensive
• harder to handle (thick,
heavy)
• in a variety of
categories - see EIA-568
• Applications
Twisted-pair cables are used in telephone lines to provide
voice and data channels.
• The local loop-the line that connects subscribers to the
central telephone office-commonly consists of unshielded
twisted-pair cables.
• The DSL lines that are used by the telephone companies to
provide high-data-rate connections also use the high-
bandwidth capability of unshielded twisted pair cables.
• Local-area networks, such as 100Base-T and 100Base-T,
also use twisted-pair cables.
 Coaxial Cable(coax)
• carries signals of higher frequency ranges than those in twisted pair
cable, in part because the two media are constructed quite
differently.
• Instead of having two wires, coax has a central core conductor of
solid or stranded wire (usually copper) enclosed in an insulating
sheath, which is, in turn, encased in an outer conductor of metal
foil, braid, or a combination of the two.
• The outer metallic wrapping serves both as a shield against noise
and as the second conductor, which completes the circuit.
• This outer conductor is also enclosed in an insulating sheath, and
the whole cable is protected by a plastic cover
The outer shield protects the inner conductor
from outside electrical signals. The distance
between the outer conductor (shield) and
inner conductor plus the type of material
used for insulating the inner conductor
determine the cable properties or
impedance.
 Coaxial Cable - Transmission
Characteristics
• Superior frequency characteristics to TP
• Performance limited by attenuation & noise
• Analog signals
– amplifiers every few km
– closer if higher frequency
– up to 500MHz
• Digital signals
– repeater every 1km
– closer for higher data rates
• There are two major coaxial cable
technologies, depending on the type of signal
each carries: baseband or broadband.

• Coaxial cable also comes in two primary

physical types: thin coaxial cable and thick
coaxial cable.
Categories of coaxial cables
BNC connectors
Applications

•Coaxial cable was widely used in analog telephone networks where a single coaxial
network could carry 10,000 voice signals.
•Later it was used in digital telephone networks where a single coaxial cable could carry
digital data up to 600 Mbps. However, coaxial cable in telephone networks has largely
been replaced today with fiber-optic cable.
•Cable TV networks also use coaxial cables. In the traditional cable TV network, the entire
network used coaxial cable. Later, however, cable TV providers replaced most of the media
with fiber-optic cable; hybrid networks use coaxial cable only at the network boundaries,
near the consumer premises.
•Cable TV uses RG-59 coaxial cable.
•Another common application of coaxial cable is in traditional Ethernet LANs. Because of
its high bandwidth, and consequently high data rate, coaxial cable was chosen for digital
transmission in early Ethernet LANs.
 Optical fiber
• Fiber optic cable (or optical fiber) is a thin glass fiber
cable approximately a little thicker than a human hair
surrounded by a plastic coating that can carry
information at frequencies in the visible light
spectrum.
• Optical fiber is a cable that accepts and transports
signals in the form of light.
• A light source, called a photo diode, is placed at the
transmitting end and quickly switched on and off. The
light pulses travel down the glass cable and are
detected by an optic sensor called a photo receptor on
the receiving end.
• Fiber optic cable is capable of transmitting data at over
100 Gbps (that’s 100 billion bits per second!) over
several kilometers.
• In addition to having almost error free high data
transmission rates, fiber optic cable has a number of
other advantages over twisted pair and coaxial cable.
• Since fiber optic cable passes electrically non conducting
photons through a glass medium, it is immune to
electromagnetic interference and virtually impossible to
wiretap.
Optical Fiber
 Optical Fiber - Benefits
• greater capacity
– data rates of hundreds of Gbps
• smaller size & weight
• lower attenuation
• electromagnetic isolation
• greater repeater spacing
– 10s of km at least
 Optical Fiber - Transmission
Characteristics
• uses total internal reflection to transmit light
– effectively acts as wave guide for 1014 to 1015 Hz
• can use several different light sources
– Light Emitting Diode (LED)
• cheaper, wider operating temp range, lasts longer
– Injection Laser Diode (ILD)
• more efficient, has greater data rate
• relation of wavelength, type & data rate
Fiber construction
 Unguided/Unbound
Transmission Media
• transport waves without using a physical conductor- data
signals flows through the air.
• are the ways of transmitting data without using any cables.
• These media are not bounded by physical geography.
• Signals are normally broadcast through free space and thus are
available to anyone who has a device capable of receiving
them.
• This type of transmission is often referred to as Wireless
communication.
Electromagnetic Spectrum
 Radio Waves
• Electromagnetic waves ranging in frequencies between 3 kHz
and 1 GHz are normally called radio waves.
• Radio waves, for the most part, are omnidirectional.
• the sending and receiving antennas do not have to be aligned.
• The radio waves transmitted by one antenna are susceptible to
interference by another antenna that may send signals using
the same frequency or band.
• Radio waves are used for multicast communications, such as
radio and television, and paging systems.
• Radio waves can travel long distances.
– This makes radio waves a good candidate for
long-distance broadcasting such as AM radio.
• Radio waves, particularly those of low and medium
frequencies, can penetrate walls.
– This characteristic can be both an advantage and
a disadvantage.
– It is an advantage because, for example, an AM
radio can receive signals inside a building.
– It is a disadvantage because we cannot isolate a
communication to just inside or outside a
building.
Omnidirectional antenna
 Microwaves
• Electromagnetic waves having
frequencies between 1 and 300 GHz
are called microwaves.
• Microwaves are unidirectional--This
means that the sending and receiving
antennas need to be aligned.
• Microwave propagation is line-of-sight.
• Very high-frequency microwaves
cannot penetrate walls.
• Use of certain portions of the band
requires permission from authorities.
• Microwaves, due to their unidirectional
properties, are very useful when unicast
(one-to-one) communication is needed
between the sender and the receiver.
• Microwaves are used for unicast
communication such as cellular
telephones satellite networks telephones,
satellite networks, and wireless LANs
Unidirectional antennas
 Infrared
• Infrared waves, with frequencies from 300 GHz to 400 THz
(wavelengths from 1 mm to 770 nm), can be used for short-
range communication.
• Infrared waves, having high frequencies, cannot penetrate
walls.
• This advantageous characteristic prevents interference
between one system and another;
• a short-range communication system in one room cannot be
affected by another system in the next room.
– However, this same characteristic makes infrared signals
useless for long-range communication.
• we cannot use infrared waves outside a
building because the sun’s rays contain
infrared waves that can interfere with the
communication.
• Infrared signals can be used for short-range
communication in a closed area using line-of-
sight propagation.
 Bluetooth

• is a short-range radio hookup that resides on a microchip.

• It was initially developed by Swedish mobile phone maker
Ericsson in 1994 as a way to let laptop computers make
calls over a mobile phone.
• over 20,000 companies have signed on to make Bluetooth
the low-power short-range wireless standard for a wide
range of devices.
• Originally published as IEEE 802.15.1 standards
• Named after Danish king Harald Blatand (Bluetooth) who
united dissonant Danish tribes into a single kingdom.
• An industry consortium known as the
Bluetooth SIG (Special Interest Group)
publishes Bluetooth standards.
• Bluetooth devices within 10 m of each other
can share up to 2.1 Mbps or 24 Mbps of
capacity.
• uses short-wavelength UHF radio waves in the
ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band
from 2.4 to 2.485 GHz
• Is globally unlicensed (but not unregulated) Industrial,
Scientific and Medical (ISM) band.
• Bluetooth is intended to support an open-ended list of
applications, including data (e.g., schedules and telephone
numbers), audio, graphics, and even video.
• The following are some examples of the capabilities that
Bluetooth can provide consumers:
– Make calls from a wireless headset connected remotely to
a cell phone.
– Control communication between a smartphone and a car
stereo system.
• Control of peripherals such as a keyboard,
mouse, or speaker from a computer or tablet.
• Call home from a remote location to turn
appliances on and off, set the alarm, and
monitor activity.
• Set up home networks so that a couch potato
can remotely monitor air conditioning, the
oven, and children’s Internet surfing.
• Top uses in order of volume are for the
following devices:
• Mobile handsets
• Voice handsets
• Stereo headsets and speakers
• Personal computers and tablets
• Human interface devices, such as mice and keyboards
• Wireless controllers for video game consoles
• Cars, Machine-to-machine applications: credit-card
readers, industrial automation, and so on.
 IEEE 802.11 (WiFi)
• 802.11 standard focuses on the bottom two layers of the OSI
model, the physical layer (PHY) and data link layer (DLL).

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 802.11
• Two network architectures are defined in the
IEEE 802.11 standard
– Point-to-point (ad hoc) network
• Two wireless-capable devices
• is used to support Mutual communication between
wireless clients
• is created spontaneously and does not support access
to wired networks.
• Doesn’t require AP
• Simple to setup
• Interference with other networks and potential security
risks
• Provides an Independent Basic Service Set (IBSS)
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– Infrastructure network
• Communication between wireless clients and wired
network resources
• Uses AP
• An AP and its associated wireless clients define the
coverage area
• Single AP
– One Access Point (AP)
– Connected to wired infrastructure
– Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) – optional
» Lightweight AP (with WLC)
» Autonomous AP (Without WLC)
– Creates a Basic Service Area (BSA)
– Provides a Basic Service Set (BSS)

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• Multiple Aps
– More than one Aps
– Connected to Wired infrastructure
– Wireless LAN Controller – Optional
» Lightweight AP (with WLC)
» Autonomous AP (without WLC)
– Creates an Extended Service Area (ESA)
– Provides an Extended Services Set (ESS)

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 Wi-Fi
• Based on the 802.11 standard:
– 802.11a
– 802.11b
– 802.11g
– 802.11n (WiFi 4)
– 802.11ac (WiFi 5)
– 802.11ax (WiFi 6)

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Standard Year Frequency Data Rate Technology Range Range
(GHz) (Mbps) (Indoor) (Outdoor)
802.11b 1999 2.4 11 35m 120m

802.11a 1999 5 54 Uses OFDM 35m 120/5000m

(Orthogonal
Frequency Division
Multiplexing)
802.11g 2003 2.4 54 Uses OFDM 38m 140m
802.11n 2009 2.4/5 600 Uses MIMO (Multiple 70m 250m
Input Multiple Output

802.11ac 2014 2.4/5 450 /1300 MU-MIMO (Multi 35m -

User MIMO)
802.11ax 2019 2.4/5 10000 - Orthogonal Frequency 30m 120m
15000 Division Multiple
Access (OFDMA)

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 Media Selection Criteria
• When designing or updating a computer
network, the selection of one type of media
over another is an important issue.
• The principal factors you should consider in
your decision include cost, speed,
expandability, distance, environment, and
security.