Computer Networks

Lecture 2
Dr. Abdulmalek Akqobaty
Taiz University, 2025
Wired LANs
Ethernet Protocol
 Ethernet Protocol

 One of the main features of both OSI and TCP/IP protocol suite is that
they do not define any protocol for the data-link or the physical layer.
The data-link layer and the physical layer are actually the region of
the local area networks (LANs) and WANs.
 A LAN is defined as a computer network that is designed for a
limited geographic area such as a building or a campus. It consists
of shared transmission medium and a set of hardware and software
for interfacing devices to the medium and regulating the ordering
access to the medium. Generally LAN owned, and operated by a
single organization, to share resources.
 All LANs used a media-access method to be able to share the media.
For example, the Ethernet used the CSMA/CD approach while the Token
Ring, Token Bus, and Fiber Distribution Data Interface (FDDI) used
the token-passing approach.
 Many of the designs for LANs have been standardized under the
name of IEEE 802. The most important are 802.3 Ethernet (wired
LAN) and 802.11 (wireless LAN).
 Ethernet Protocol

1 Ethernet Standards
 In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE started a project, called
Project 802, to set LAN standards. The committee came up with a
bunch of LAN standards collectively known as IEEE 802 LANs.
 The standard includes CSMA/CD, Token bus, Token Ring medium
access control techniques along with different topologies.
 All these standards differ at the physical layer and MAC sublayer,
but are compatible at the logical link layer.
 Ethernet Protocol

Ethernet Standards (Cont.)

 The figure below shows the relationship of the 802 Standard to the
OSI model and TCP/IP protocol suite.
 The IEEE Standard has divided the data-link layer into two
sublayers: logical link control (LLC) and media access control
(MAC). In addition, IEEE standard has created several physical-layer
standards for different LAN topologies.

IEEE standard for LANs

 Ethernet Standards

 The 802.1 sublayer gives an introduction to set of standards and

gives the details of the interface primitives. It provides relationship
between the OSI model and the 802 standards.
 The 802.2 sublayer describes the LLC (logical link layer), which is
the upper part of the data link layer.
 LLC facilitate error control and flow control for reliable
communication.
 It appends a header containing sequence number and acknow-
ledgement number. And offers the following types of services:
unreliable datagram service, acknowledged datagram service
and reliable connection oriental service.
 Ethernet Standards

 The physical layer of the 802 model includes a specification of the

transmission medium and the topology. Generally, this is considered
“below” the lowest layer of the OSI model.
 The choice of transmission medium and topology is critical in
LAN design, the physical layer of the three LAN standards
based on the Ethernet (CSMA/CD), Token bus and Token ring
are described by the standards 802.3, 802.4 and 802.5,
respectively.
 Each of the standard covers the physical layer and MAC
sublayer protocols of the corresponding LAN.
In the following we describe the logical link control (LLC) and the media
access control (MAC).
 Ethernet Protocol

2 Ethernet Evolution
Since it started, Ethernet, which has passed through the following four
generations, is currently defined to operate over optical fiber and twisted-
pair cables to support four data rates:
 Standard Ethernet (10 Mbps).
 Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps).
 Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbps).
 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gbps).
Standard
Ethernet
 Ethernet Protocol

Standard Ethernet
 The original Ethernet technology, which covered by the IEEE
802.3 and uses CSMA/CD with the data rate of 10 Mbps, is
referred to as the Standard Ethernet.
 The standard Ethernet is started at mid of 1970s, it is designed in
such a way that they could evolve with the demand for higher
transmission rates.
 With the need to high data rates, most implementations have
moved to other technologies in the Ethernet evolution. But, still,
there are some features of the original Ethernet that have not been
changed through the evolution.
To pave the way for understanding the other three technologies, we here
discuss the original version of Ethernet standard.
 Ethernet Protocol

1 Characteristics
Let us first discuss some characteristics of the original Ethernet.
 Provided Service: Ethernet is also unreliable like IP and UDP. If a
frame is corrupted during transmission and the receiver finds out about
the corruption, which has a high level of probability of happening
because of the CRC-32, the receiver drops the frame silently.
 Frame Format: The IEEE 802.3 standard defines a basic data frame
format that is required for all MAC implementations, in addition to
several additional optional formats that are used to extend the
protocol's basic capability.
The figure below shows the Ethernet frame format of seven fields.
 Ethernet Protocol

1 Characteristics
 Length/Type: It consists of 2 bytes. This field indicates either the
number of MAC-client data bytes gained in the data field of the frame,
or the frame type ID if the frame is assembled using an optional format.
o If the Length/Type field value is less than or equal to 1500, the
number of LLC bytes in the Data field is equal to the Length field
value.
o If the Length/Type field value is greater than 1536, the frame is an
optional type frame, and the Type field value identifies the particular
type of frame being sent or received.
 Data: This field carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer
protocols. It is a minimum of 46 and a maximum of 1500 bytes. If the
data coming from the upper layer is more than 1500 bytes, it should be
fragmented and encapsulated in more than one frame.
 If data is less than 46 bytes, it needs to be padded with extra 0s. In
case when a data is padded, then frame is delivered to the upper-layer
protocol without removing the padding. It is the responsibility of the
upper layer to remove the padding.
 Characteristics

Finally, there are two important points that are briefly discussed
below: Inter-frame Gap and Frame Size.
 Inter-frame Gap: There is mandatory requirement of 9.6 ms (96 bit-
time delay) interval between two frames to enable other stations
wishing to transmit to take over after a frame transmission is over.
 Characteristics

 Frame Size: As shown in the figure, the frame size includes source and
destination address, of length or type, data, and FCS.
o The minimum length is required for the correct operation of
CSMA/CD. An Ethernet frame needs to have a minimum length of 512
bits or 64 bytes.
• The reason is that, a sender needs more than 2τ time to
conclude that the frame was successfully sent, where τ is the
propagation time. This slot time is 51.2μsec corresponding to 512
bit = 64 bytes. Therefore the minimum frame length is 64 bytes. If
the size of the header and trailer is 18 bytes, then the minimum
length of data from the upper layer is 64 − 18 = 46 bytes.
o On the other hand, the maximum length of a frame as 1518 bytes,
where the header size is 18 bytes and the maximum length of the
payload is 1500 bytes.
o The maximum length restriction has two reasons.
• helps to reduce the size of the buffer and
• prevents one station to monopolize the shared medium.
 Ethernet Protocol

2 Addressing
To connect to the Ethernet network, each station (PC, workstation, or
printer) must have a network interface card (NIC). The NIC fits inside the
station and provides the station with a link-layer address. The Ethernet
link-layer address, which is also called Ethernet MAC address, is 6 bytes
(48 bits). It is normally written in hexadecimal notation, with a colon
between the bytes. (for example 39:40:2A:EE:16:AA).
When the address 39:40:2A:EE:16:AA is transmitted, it is transmitted from
left to right, byte by byte and each byte is transmitted from right to left, bit
by bit, as shown below:

Hexadecimal 39 40 2A EE 16 AA
Binary 00111001 01000000 00101010 11101110 00010110 10101010
Transmitted ← 10011100 00000010 01010100 01110111 01101000 01010101
 Ethernet Protocol

Address Types
o The frame is always sent by one sender, and then a source
address is always a unicast address.
o However, the destination address can be unicast, multicast, or
broadcast. The destination field identifies which station or stations
should receive the frame.
o The left-most bit in the sent destination address field indicates
whether the address is an individual address or a group address.
When this bit is 0 the destination address is a unicast address,
otherwise, the destination address is a multicast address.
o The second bit in the sent destination address field indicates
whether the destination address is globally or locally
administered. When it is 0, it is globally administered; otherwise, it
is locally administered. The remaining 46 bits are a uniquely assigned
value that identifies a single station, a defined group of stations, or all
stations on the network as shown in the figure below.
 Ethernet Protocol

Address Types

However, to determine the type of the address, we need to look at the

second hexadecimal digit from the left. If it is even, the address is
unicast. If it is odd, the address is multicast. If all digits are 1s, the
address is broadcast.
 Ethernet Protocol

Standard Ethernet Topology

Standard Ethernet uses a coaxial cable, which is called bus topology or a set
of twisted-pair cables with a hub that is called star topology, as shown in
the figure below.
 Standard Ethernet Topology

Note that, the standard Ethernet is always broadcast, regardless

of the type of destination address or the network topology.
o In the bus topology, when station A sends a frame to station E, all
stations will receive it.
o In the star topology, when station A sends a frame to station E,
the hub will receive it. The hub does not check the destination
address of the frame. In case of weak signals, it just regenerates
the bits signals and sends them to all stations except station the
sender one.
In fact, the actual unicast, multicast, and broadcast transmissions can
be done in the way of dealing the frames in the receiving station or
stations.
 Ethernet Protocol

3 Access Method
 The standard Ethernet protocol is a broadcast network. It uses access
method to control access to the sharing medium.
 The standard Ethernet chose CSMA/CD with 1-persistent method. In
CSMA/CD, the station does a carrier sense to see the state or the
medium. When the carrier in an idle case it starts sending the data frame.
 Carrier sense case: Assume station A has a frame to send to station D.
First, station A should check if any other station is sending (carrier
sense). To sense the carrier, station A measures the level of energy on the
medium for a short period of time (normally less than 100 μs).
o When the signal y level is not zero, it means that another station uses
the medium. In such case, station A continuously observes the medium
until it becomes idle for 100 μs. (1-persistent method)
o Otherwise, either no station is sending or the signal has not reached
station A yet. It consider the medium is idle, Then, sends its frame.
 Access Method

 Frame sending: After station A has started sending the frame,

the medium sense does not stop. Note that, station A needs to
send and receive continuously.
The following two cases:
 Collision-free case
 Collision case
 Access Method

1- A collision-free case:
 Station A has sent 512 bits and the energy level did not go above the
regular energy level. This means that no collision is detected and the
station then is sure that the frame will go through and stops sensing the
medium.
 The number 512 bits is the minimum size of the frame.
o In this transmission rate, a station takes 512/(10 Mbps) = 51.2 μs
to send out 512 bits.
o With the speed of propagation in a cable (2 × 108 meters), the first
bit could travel 10,240 (2 × 108 meters/s × 51.2 μs) meters for a
one way or only 5120 meters for a round trip.
 To consider the worst case, the designer of the standard Ethernet
actually put a restriction of 2500 meters because to consider the
delays encountered throughout the round trip journey. In fact, when
station A does not sense the collision before sending 512 bits, the
collision must not be expected.
 Access Method
2- A collision case
 Station A has detected a collision before sending 512 bits. This means that
the previous bits has collided. In this case both stations should refrain from
sending and keep the frame in their buffer for resending when the medium
becomes idle.
 To inform other stations about the collision in the network, the station sends
a 48-bit jam signal, which creates enough signal to alert other stations about
the collision. The stations increment the value of number of attempts (K).
 After increment, if K = 15, this means that the network is too busy, therefore,
the station needs to abort and try again later.
 In other case, if K < 15, the station can wait a backoff time (TB) and restart the
process. The station can generate a backoff time, which is a random number
selected between 0 and 2K – 1. This means that after the first collision (K = 1)
the random number is in the range (0, 1). After the second collision (K = 2) it
is in the range (0, 1, 2, 3). After the third collision (K = 3) it is in the range (0,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and so on.
 Ethernet Protocol

4 Standard Ethernet Efficiency

In standard Ethernet, the efficiency is defined as the ratio of the time

used by a station to send data to the time the medium is occupied by
this station. Practically, standard Ethernet efficiency has been measured
by the following relation:
Efficiency = 1 / (1 + 6.4 x a)

where “a” is the number of frames that can fit on the medium.
a = (propagation delay)/(transmission delay).
The transmission delay is the time it takes a frame of average size to be
sent out and the propagation delay is the time it takes to reach the end of
the medium. In the ideal case, a = 0 and the efficiency is 1.
 Standard Ethernet Efficiency

Example
In the Standard Ethernet with the transmission rate of 10 Mbps, we
assume that the length of the medium is 2500 m and the size of the
frame is 512 bits. The propagation speed of a signal in a cable is
normally 2 x 108 m/s.
Propagation delay = 2500/(2 x 108) = 12.5 ms
Transmission delay = 512/(107) = 51.2 ms
a = 12.5/51.2 = 0.24
Efficiency = 1/(1+6.4 x 0.24) = 39%
 Ethernet Protocol

5 Physical Layer
 Standard Ethernet is located only on physical and data-link.
Hence, they are typically implemented as network interface cards
(NICs).
 The Standard Ethernet defined several physical implementations.
During the 1980s, four of these implementations became popular. All
of them have similar names follow the form 10BaseX as shown in the
table below.
 Physical Layer

Note that the naming convention, 10BaseX, is a concatenation of: the

transmission rate, the transmission method, and the media type/signal
encoding.
 Where 10 implies transmission rate of 10 Mbps,
 Base represents that it uses baseband (digital) signaling.
 X approximately defines either the maximum size of the cable in
100 meters (for example 5 for 500 or 2 for 185 meters) or the type
of cable, T for unshielded twisted-pair cables as transmission media
twisted pair cable (UTP) and F for fiber-optic.

IEEE 802.3 standard uses Manchester encoding that provides several

advantages against the expected problems.
 Ethernet Protocol

10Base5: Thick Ethernet

 10Base5 supports 10 Mbps baseband transmission. It was the first
standard specification to use bus topology with 0.5 inch coaxial cable,
known as yellow cable or thick Ethernet. It also uses an external
transceiver (transmitter/receiver) connected via a tap, see the figure.
 Each cable segment can be maximum 500 meters long.
 Up to a maximum of 5 cable segments can be connected using
repeaters, with maximum length 2500 meters.
 At most 1024 stations are allowed on a single LAN. Tab is used to
add a new computer without cutting the cable.

10Base-T implementation
 Ethernet Protocol

10Base2: Thin Ethernet

 10Base2 uses a bus topology and supports 10 Mbps baseband
transmission. The 10Base2 standard specification uses much thinner
and more flexible cable, 0.25 inch coaxial cable, which is known as
cheapernet or thin Either. Due to the cable flexibility, it can be bent to
pass very close to the stations.
 Each cable segment is 185 meters long.
 A maximum of 5 cable segments can be connected using repeaters.
 Maximum length of 925 meters.
 10Base2 is used for office LAN/ departmental LAN. It uses BNC
connector is use to interface a compute. (See the figure below)

10Base 2 implementation
 Ethernet Protocol

10Base-T: Twisted-Pair Ethernet

 10Base-T or twisted-pair Ethernet standard also supports 10 Mbps
baseband transmission.
 It uses star topology with Unshielded Twisted Pairs (UTP) cable of both
Cat-3 and Cat-5 category cables. The station in this topology connected to
a hub via only two pairs of the UTP cable. (see the figure).
 A hub is used as a multi-port repeater with stations, which is connected
to it with RJ45 connector. To minimize the effect of attenuation in the
twisted cable, 10Basee-T standard imposes the maximum length of a
cable segment with 100 meters.
 Note that, the star topology
allows easy maintenance
and diagnosis of faults.

10Base-T implementation
 Ethernet Protocol

10Base-F: Fiber Ethernet

 10Base-F. uses a star topology to connect stations to a hub. (see the
figure). It also shows that the stations are connected to the hub using two
fiber-optic cables.
 10Base-F allows long distance connections using optical fiber. It has the
following divisions:
 10BaseFP: A passive-star topology, up to 1 Km link.
 10BaseFL: An asynchronous point-to-point link, up to 2 Km.
 10BaseFB: A synchronous point-to-point link, up to 2 Km with 15
cascaded repeaters.

10Base-F implementation
 Ethernet Protocol

6 Successors of Ethernet
On a standard Ethernet segment, all stations share the available
bandwidth of 10 Mb/s. With the increase in traffic, the number of packet
collisions increases, lowering the overall throughput.
Therefore, there are two basic approaches to increase the bandwidth.
 One is to replace the Ethernet with a higher speed version of Ethernet.
 Fast Ethernet operating at 100 Mb/s and
 Gigabit Ethernet operating at 1000 Mb/s belong to this category.
This approach requires replacement of the old network interface
cards (NICs) in each station by new ones.
 The other approach is to use Ethernet switches (switched Ethernet)
that use a high-speed internal bus to switch packets between multiple (8
to 32) cable segments and offer dedicated 10 Mb/s bandwidth on each
segment/ports. In this approach, there is no need to replace the NICs;
replacement of the hub by a switch serves the purpose.
 Ethernet Protocol

Changes in the Standard

There are some changes in the Ethernet standard. These changes
actually pave the road to the evolution of the Ethernet. It opens a way to
a high data rate Ethernet LANs.

1. Bridged Ethernet
The first step for the Ethernet evolution was by using bridges to divide
LAN. Using bridges for dividing LANs, leads to increase the
bandwidth and separates the collision domains.
 Ethernet Protocol
1. Increasing Bandwidth:
 In a standard Ethernet, the total capacity is 10 Mbps shared among all
stations with a frame to send. If only one station has frames to send, it
benefits from the total capacity, otherwise, the capacity is shared. The
figure below shows a standard Ethernet network with 12 stations.
 The network bandwidth is 10Mbps. This network is divided into two
networks, each with 6 stations. Now each of the two networks has a
bandwidth of 10 Mbps. The 10-Mbps bandwidth in each segment is now
shared between 7 stations. Bridge acts as a station in each segment. In a
network with a heavy load, each station theoretically has a bandwidth of
10/7 Mbps instead of 10/12 Mbps.

If we further divide each of the two networks. With four-port bridge, each
station now has a bandwidth of 10/4 Mbps.
 Ethernet Protocol
2. Separating Collision Domains
 Another advantage of using bridges is the separation of the collision
domains. It is clear that, with increasing the number of nodes in the
network, the contention for access the transmission media increases.
 The figure shows the two networks. It is clear that, in bridged network,
bridge divides the network to four separated segments. This division
makes the collision domain much smaller.
 Therefore, the probability of collision is strongly reduced. Without using
bridge, with using bridge only 3 stations contend for access to the
medium instead of 12 stations .
 Ethernet Protocol

3. Switched Ethernet
 Switched Ethernet gives dedicated 10 Mbps bandwidth on each of its
ports. On each of the ports one can connect either a thick/thin segment
or a computer.
 In Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) the topology, though physically is star but
logically is a bus, i.e. the collision domain of all the nodes in a LAN is
common. In this situation only one station can send the frame. If more
than one station sends the frame, there is a collision. A comparison
between the two is shown in the figure below.

Station D is the actual destination but all Station D is the actual destination
other stations also receive the frame station D only receives the frame
 Switched Ethernet
There are two possible forwarding techniques that can be used in the
implementation of Ethernet switches: store-and-forward and cut-
through.
 In store-and-forward, the entire frame is captured at the incoming
port, stored in the switch’s memory, and after an address lookup to
determine the LAN destination port, forwarded to the appropriate
port. The lookup table is automatically built up.
 A cut-through switch begins to transmit the frame to the
destination port as soon as it decodes the destination address from
the frame header.
 Switched Ethernet

 A layer-2 switch is an N-port bridge provided with additional

improvements to make a handling of the packets faster. In fact, using a
switched Ethernet (switching in Ethernet network) was the most
important step that opened the way to a faster Ethernet. The concept of
a switched LAN is shown in the figure below.
 Switched Ethernet

 Using Full-Duplex: The implantation of 10Base-T, it is always full-

duplex. In half-duplex, a station can either send or receive, but may not
do both at the same time. This is a disadvantage in the bus topology.
 One of the benefits of using the full-duplex mode is to increases the
capacity of each domain from 10 to 20 Mbps. See the figure below.
 To provide flow and error for full-duplex switched Ethernet control, a
new sublayer, which is called the MAC control is added between the
LLC sublayer and the MAC sublayer.
Fast
Ethernet
 Fast Ethernet

Fast Ethernet
 In the 1990s, some LAN technologies with transmission rates
higher than 10 Mbps, Standard Ethernet to survive, it had to
increase the transmission rate to 100 Mbps. The IEEE 802.3
committee developed a set of specifications called the Fast
Ethernet.
 The designers needed to develop Fast Ethernet to provide a
low-cost, Ethernet-compatible LAN operating at 100 Mbps.
 The MAC sublayer was left unchanged. Thus, the frame
format and size could remain unchanged.
 Therefore, to increase the transmission rate, the access
method and physical layer had to be redesigned.
 Fast Ethernet

1 Access Method
 As we discussed in frame size, the correct operation of the
CSMA/CD depends on the minimum size of the frame, the
transmission rate, and the maximum network length.
 In fast internet, we want to keep the minimum size of
the frame, to increase the transmission rate to 100
Mbps, therefore, the maximum length of the network
should be changed.
 This means that, we want to keep the minimum frame
size at 512 bits, that it is transmitted 10 times faster,
therefore, if the propagation speed does not change,
the collision must be detected 10 times faster. This can
be achieved by reducing the maximum length of the
network to one tenth.
 Fast Ethernet

Access Method (Cont.)

 The Fast Ethernet came with two solutions. Both of these solutions
dropped the bus topology.
1. The first solution was to use a passive hub and star topology.
In addition, it make the maximum size of the network is one tenth of
the standard Ethernet, by using 250 meters instead of 2500
meters. This approach is kept for compatibility with the Standard
Ethernet.
2. The second solution is based on using a link-layer switch
(layer 2 switch) with a buffer and a full-duplex connection to
each host. Therefore, the shared medium between link-layer
switch and hosts is changed to many point-to-point media, and
then no contention between sending and receiving in each host.
o In this solution, the hosts are not competing with each other,
and then there is no need for using CSMA/CD. Thus, the
destination can send and receive frames to another station at the
same time.
 Access Method

 To maintain the compatibility, another problem in Fast Ethernet

is how a device with a maximum data rate of 10 Mbps can
communicate with a device with a 100 Mbps data rate?
 To solve this problem, a new feature added to Fast Ethernet is
called auto-negotiation. It was designed particularly to allow
incompatible devices to connect to one another.
 Auto-negotiation allows a station or a hub to negotiate a range
of capabilities. It allows two devices to negotiate the mode
or data rate of operation. For example, a device with a
maximum data rate of 10 Mbps can communicate with a
device with a 100 Mbps data rate, but they can work at a lower
rate.
 Finally, it allows a station to check capabilities of the hub.
 Fast Ethernet

2 Physical Layer
 To be able to handle a 100 Mbps data rate, several changes
need to be made at the physical layer.
 These changes have been done at topology, data encoding/
decoding, and in the physical layer implantations.
o Fast Ethernet is designed to connect stations in a star
topology with a hub or a switch at the center.
o Manchester encoding, which was used with standard
Ethernet, is unsuitable for Fast Ethernet with twisted-pair
cable because it needs a 200-Mbaud bandwidth for a data rate
of 100 Mbps.
o Hence, the Fast Ethernet designers selected three different
encoding/decoding schemes.
 Fast Ethernet

Physical Layer
The physical layer implementations, in Fast Ethernet, can use
either two-wire or four-wire as shown in the table below.
 100BASE-X refers to a set of options that use two physical links
between nodes: one for transmission and one for reception.
100BASE-TX uses shielded twisted pair (STP) or high-quality (Cat. 5)
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) or 100BASE-FX uses optical fiber.
 100BASE-X implementation can be either STP, which is called
100Base-TX, or fiber-optic cable, which is called 100Base-FX.
 The four-wire implementation is designed only for unshielded
twisted pair (UTP), which is called 100Base-T4.
 Physical Layer

 100BASE-X: A 100 Mbps is achieved by using two physical links between

nodes: one for transmission and one for reception. The 100BASE-X
includes two physical medium specifications, 100BASE-TX for twisted
pair and 100-BASE-FX for optical fiber.
 100Base-TX uses two pairs of category 5 UTP or STP twisted-pair
cable. For 100Base-TX, because it has good bandwidth performance,
the MLT-3 scheme was selected, but, MLT-3 is not a self-synchronous
line coding scheme, therefore, 4B/5B block coding, is used to prevent
the occurrence of a long sequence of 0s and 1s, and to provide bit
synchronization. The 4B/5B block coding creates a data rate of 125
Mbps, which is fed into MLT-3 for encoding.
 100Base-FX also uses two pairs of fiber-optic cables. Optical fiber
can handle high bandwidth and using simple encoding schemes. For
100Base-FX, the NRZ-I encoding scheme was selected. However, NRZ-
I, also, has a bit synchronization problem for long sequences of 0s
or 1s. To solve this problem, the 4B/5B block encoding is used. The
block encoding increases the bit rate from 100 to 125 Mbps. This data
rate is then fed into NRZ-I for encoding.
 Physical Layer

 100Base-T4: A 100Base-T4 was designed to use category 3 or

higher UTP. This implementation is suitable and for buildings that
have already been wired with twisted-pair such as category 3 or
higher.
 A 100 Mbps can be achieved by using four pairs of UTP. The
100BASE-T4 specifies that, to be transmitted, the data stream is split
up into three separate data streams, each with an effective data rate
of 25 Mbaud. Data are transmitted using three pairs and received
using three pairs. Thus, two of the pairs must be configured for
bidirectional transmission. Three pairs of UTP category 3,
however, can handle only 75 Mbaud, or 25 Mbaud each. For
encoding, an encoding scheme that converts 100 Mbps to a 75 Mbaud
signal is the suitable scheme to be used.
 8B/6T scheme was selected since it satisfies this requirement. In
8B/6T, eight data elements are encoded as six signal elements. This
means that 100 Mbps uses only 75 Mbaud.
 Review of Coding

Category Bandwi Characteristics

Schem dth
e (averag
e)
NRZ B = N/2 Costly, no self-synchronization if long 0s
Unipolar
or 1s, DC
NRZ-L B = N/2 No self-synchronization if long 0s or 1s,
DC
Polar NRZ-I B = N/2 No self-synchronization for long 0s, DC
B=N Self-synchronization, no DC, high
Biphase bandwidth
Bipolar AMI B = N/2 No self-synchronization for long 0s, DC
2B1Q B = N/4 No self-synchronization for long same
double bits
8B6T B= Self-synchronization, no DC
Multilevel
3N/4
4D- B = N/8 Self-synchronization, no DC
PAM5
Multitrans MLT-3 B = N/3 No self-synchronization for long 0s
ition
Gigabit
Ethernet
 Gigabit Ethernet

Gigabit Ethernet
 In mid 1990s, the IEEE 802.3 committee formed a High-Speed Study
Group to investigate means for transmitting packets in Ethernet
format at data rate in the gigabits per second range. The IEEE
committee calls it the Standard 802.3z. While defining a new
medium and transmission specification, Gigabit Ethernet retains the
CSMA/CD protocol and Ethernet format of its 10-Mbps and 100-Mbps
predecessors.
 The group needed to develop Gigabit Ethernet for providing an
Ethernet LAN operating at 1Gigabit per second (1000Mbps), which is
compatible with 10Mbps and 100Mbps Ethernet LANs and retained the
MAC sublayer unchanged. This meant that, the frame format and
size could remain unchanged. In other words, the Gigabit Ethernet
aimed to upgrade the data rate to 1000 Mbps with keeping it
compatible with Standard and Fast Ethernet.
 Gigabit Ethernet
 The figure below shows a typical application of Gigabit Ethernet. A 1-
Gbps switching hub provides backbone connectivity for central servers and
high-speed workgroup hubs. Each workgroup LAN switch supports both 1-
Gbps links, to connect to the backbone LAN switch and to support high-
performance workgroup servers, and 100-Mbps links, to support high-
performance workstations, servers, and 100-Mbps LAN switches.

Gigabit Ethernet
 Gigabit Ethernet

1 MAC Sublayer

The 1000-Mbps specification keeps the same CSMA/CD frame format

and MAC protocol as used in the 10-Mbps and 100-Mbps version of
IEEE 802.3.
 To achieve a data rate of 1 Gbps with same standard was no
longer possible. To access a medium, Gigabit Ethernet has two
different modes: half-duplex and full-duplex.
 Almost, all physical layer implementations of Gigabit Ethernet
use the full-duplex mode.
 In full-duplex mode, a central switch is used to connect all
computers or other switches. As a result, no collision can occur
and also the CSMA/CD is not used. Due to lack of collision, the
maximum length of the cable, in this mode, is determined by the
signal attenuation in the cable.
 Gigabit Ethernet

MAC Sublayer (cont.)

 In rare cases, Gigabit Ethernet with half-duplex mode can also be
used. In such cases, a switch can be replaced by a hub. In the half-
duplex mode, a collision might occur and CSMA/CD is used.
However, the maximum length of the network in this approach is
totally dependent on the minimum frame size (as we discussed
before). For shared-medium hub operation, there are three
enhancements to the basic CSMA/CD scheme are defined:
traditional, carrier extension, and frame bursting.
 In the traditional approach, we keep the minimum length of the
frame, as 512 bits. However, because the length of a bit in the
medium is 1/100 shorter in Gigabit Ethernet than that in 10-Mbps
Ethernet. The reduced slot time means that collision must be
detected 100 times sooner. Thus, the maximum length of the
network is 25 m instead of 2500m. This length is suitable when all
stations are in one room.
 MAC Sublayer

MAC Sublayer (cont.)

 In order to allow a longer network, the carrier extension approach
defines the minimum length of a frame as 512 bytes (4096 bits),
which is 8 times longer. This method imposes to add padding bits to
each frame that has less than 4096 bits. By this way, the maximum
length of the network can be increased 8 times to be 200 m
instead of 25m. This allows a length of 100 m from the hub to the
station.
 Carrier extension is very inefficient when a series of short frames
need to be send. To improve efficiency, frame bursting allows for
multiple short frames to be transmitted consecutively, instead of
adding an extension to each frame, multiple frames are sent.
However, to make these multiple frames look like one frame,
padding is added between the frames so that the channel is not
idle. This method deceives other stations to think that a very large
frame has been transmitted.
 Gigabit Ethernet

2 Physical Layer
The 1-Gbps specification for IEEE 802.3 includes four physical layer
alternatives. Three of them use a two-wire and one uses four-wire
implementation.
• The two-wire implementations, also can be called 1000BASE-X, use
fiber-optic cable (1000Base-SX, short-wave, or 1000Base-LX, long-
wave), or STP (1000Base-CX).
• The four-wire version uses category 5 twisted-pair cable (1000Base-T).
A summary of the four physical layer implementations is shown in Table
3.3. In the table, S-W and L-W mean short-wave and long-wave respectively.
 Gigabit Ethernet

Physical Layer
The four physical layer implementation used by 1-Gbps specification are
briefly described below.
 1000BASE-X: In all of the transmission media specified under
100BASE-X, a 1-Gbps is achieved by using two physical links
(twisted pair or optical fiber): one for transmission and one for
reception. A 1000BASE-X group, which includes 1000Base-SX,
1000Base-LX, and STP 1000Base-CX, uses two-wire implementations.
 1000BASE-SX uses fiber-optic cable short-wavelength option
that supports full-duplex links of up to 275 m, using 62.5-μm
multimode, or up to 550 m using 50-μm multimode fiber.
 1000BASE-LX uses fiber-optic cable long-wavelength option,
which supports full-duplex links of up to 550 m, using 62.5-μm or
50-μm multimode fiber, or 5000 m of 10-μm single-mode fiber.
 Physical Layer

 1000BASE-CX uses shielded twisted pair (STP) option that supports

1-Gbps links among devices located within a single room or equipment
rack, using copper jumpers, which is a specialized STP cable that spans no
more than 25 m. Note that, each link is composed of a separate shielded
twisted pair running in each direction that use an NRZ scheme, but NRZ,
which does not self-synchronize properly.
• To synchronize bits, particularly at this high data rate, 8B/10B block
encoding is used. This block encoding prevents long sequences of 0s
or 1s in the stream, but the resulting stream is 1.25 Gbps.
 1000BASE-T: 1000BASES-T makes use of four pairs of Category 5
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) to support devices over a range of up
to 100 m.. In this case, the solution was to use 4D-PAM5 encoding to
reduce the bandwidth.
• Thus, all four wires are used for both input and output. Whit this
encoding method, each wire carries 250 Mbps, which can be handled
by category 5 UTP cable.
10 Gigabit
Ethernet
 10 Gigabit Ethernet

10 Gigabit Ethernet
 The IEEE committee created 10 Gigabit Ethernet Standard and
called it 802.3ae. Briefly, the goals of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet design
include upgrading the data rate to 10 Gbps, keeping the same frame
size and format, and making the interconnecting LANs, MANs, and
WAN possible.
 Note that, this data rate can be achieved only with fiber-optic
technology at this time. Thus, the standard defines two types of
physical layers: LAN PHY to support existing LANs and WAN PHY,
which actually defines a WAN with links connected through SONET
OC-192.
 Initially 10 Gigabit Ethernet can be used by network managers
to provide high-speed, local backbone interconnection
between large-capacity switches. It will be deployed throughout
the entire network and will include server farm, backbone, and
campus-wide connectivity as shown in the figure below.
 10 Gigabit Ethernet

 On the other hand, 10 Gigabit Ethernet technologies enable

Internet service providers (ISPs) and network service
providers (NSPs) to create very high-speed links at a low cost,
between switches and routers. These technologies also allow the
construction of (MANs) and WANs that connect geographically
dispersed LANs between campuses or points of presence (PoPs).
Thus, Ethernet begins to compete with other wide area
transmission and networking technologies such as ATM.
 10 Gigabit Ethernet

1 MAC Sublayer
 The 10-Gbps specification keeps the same frame format and MAC
protocol as used in the 1-Gbps version of IEEE 802.3. However, to
achieve a data rate of 10 Gbps with same standard was no longer
possible.
 To access a medium, 10 Gigabit Ethernet uses only one modes,
which is full-duplex. All physical layer implementations of Gigabit
Ethernet use the full-duplex mode with fiber optic cabling.
o This means there is no need for using CSMA/CD in 10
Gigabit Ethernet.
 10 Gigabit Ethernet

2 Physical Layer

To cover a range of applications in LANs and MANs, the maximum link

distances: from 300 m to 40 km. Links in 10 Gigabit Ethernet operate
in full-duplex mode only, using a variety of optical fiber physical
media. In 10 Gigabit Ethernet, four physical layer implementations are
defined. See Table 3.4
 Physical Layer

The four physical layer implementation used by 10-Gbps specification

are briefly described below.
 10GBASE-S (short): Designed for 850-nm transmission on
multimode fiber. This medium can achieve distances up to 300 m.
There are 10GBASE-SR and 10GBASE-SW.
 10GBASE-L (long): Designed for 1310-nm transmission on single-
mode fiber. This medium can achieve distances up to 10 km. There
are 10GBASE-LR and 10GBASE-LW.
 10GBASE-E (extended): Designed for 1350-nm transmission on
single-mode fiber. This medium can achieve distances up to 40 km.
There are 10GBASEER and 10GBASE-EW.
 10GBASE-X4: Designed for 1310-nm transmission on single-mode
or multimode fiber. This medium can achieve distances from 300 m
up to 10 km.
 Physical Layer

 The first three implementations, 10GBASE-S, 10GBASE-L and

10GBASE-E, have either “R” or “W” option. The R designation
refers to a family of physical layer implementations that use a
signal encoding technique known as 64B/66B. The W
designation refers to a family of physical layer
implementations that also use 64B/66B signaling but that are
then encapsulated to connect to SONET equipment.
 The fourth implementation 10BASE-X4 use an NRZ scheme, but to
synchronize bits, particularly at this high data rate, 8B/10B block
encoding is used. This block encoding prevents long sequences of 0s
or 1s in the stream.