Network

Fundamentals
NWF-311
Transmission Media
Presented by: Tamara Mumba Chitawo
Computing and Information Technology Department
Polytechnic
Phone: +265 (0) 994 579 495
Email:[email protected]
 Transmission Medium
• A physical path through which information signal travels
from the transmitter and the receiver
• There are different types of media and they also work
differently.
• Network Administrators need to know the different types
of media and how they function.
 Types of Transmission Media
• Can be classified into two:
i. Guided Media
ii. Unguided Media
 Guided Media
• Requires physical transmission media to transmit a signal.
• Also known as Wired or Bounded transmission media
• Usually have high speed and are secure.
• Normally used for shorter distances.
 Examples of Guided Media
• Examples of Guided Media include;
i. Twisted Pair Cable
ii. Coaxial Cable
iii. Fiber Optic Cable
 Twisted Pair Cable
• Most widely used Transmission Media for networks today.
• Originally created for voice transmissions and has been
widely used for telephone communication.
• Twisted pair is most widely used on LANs nowadays.
• It is lighter, more flexible, and easier to install than
coaxial or fiber-optic cable.
• It is also cheaper than other media alternatives and can
achieve greater speeds than coaxial.
 Twisted Pair Cable…
• TP cables have a number of pairs of wires.
• Telephone lines have two pairs (4 wires, usually
only one pair is used by the telephone)
• LAN cables have 4 pairs (8 wires)
• Twisting two wires together reduces
electromagnetic interference.
• Shielded twisted pair (STP) also exists, but is
more expensive.
• TP cables are also used in telephone trunk lines
 Types of Twisted Pair
• There are two main types of twisted- pair cabling in use
today:
i. Unshielded Twisted Pair(UTP)
 Types of Twisted Pair…
ii. Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)
 UTP Versus STP
UTP STP

Least expensive More expensive

Easy to install Comparatively difficult to install and

manufacture

Lower capacity and performance in Better performance at a higher data

comparison to STP rate in comparison to UTP

Susceptible to external interference Eliminates crosstalk

Categories of Twisted Pair
 Coaxial Cable
• Commonly called Coax
• Commonly called Coax
• Formerly common on LANs, but now disappearing (but still
used on other comm. equipment, e.g., CATV – cable
television).
• More expensive than twisted pair, but coax is shielded, so it’s
less prone to interference than twisted pair.
 Coaxial Cable Structure

• It is made up of 4 key components;

i. A copper core at the center (the main wire) that
carries the signal
ii. Insulation (made of plastic)
iii.Ground (braided metal shielding)
iv. Insulation on the outside (an outer plastic covering).
Coaxial Cable Structure
 Types of Coaxial Cable
• Coaxial cable can take 2 forms;
i. Thinnet
ii. Thicknet
 Thinnet Coaxial Cable
• Only .25 inches (6 mm) in diameter, making it fairly easy
to install and inexpensive.
• One disadvantage of all thin coax types is that they are
prone to cable breaks, which increase the difficulty when
installing and troubleshooting coaxial-based networks.
 Thicknet
• Thicker than Thinnet, approximately 0.5 inches (13
mm) in diameter.
• Due to thickness, does not bend as readily as Thinnet
hence it is harder to work with.
• A thicker center core, however, means that Thicknet
can carry more signals a longer distance than Thinnet.
It can transmit a signal approximately 500 meters
• It offers speeds up to 10Mbps and was primarily used
for backbone cable.
 Optic Fiber
• Fiber-based media use light transmissions instead of
electronic pulses.
• It uses the concept of reflection of light through a core
made up of glass or plastic.
• Widely used and has extremely high capacity.
• The core is surrounded by a less dense glass or plastic
covering called the cladding.
• Light created by an LED (light-emitting diode) or laser is
sent down a thin glass or plastic fiber.
Structure of Fiber Optic
Cable
• Jacket: Protects inner components
• Buffer: Encapsulates one or more
fibers providing protection from
physical damage
• Cladding: Glass or plastic shield
around the core, reflects light back
to the core in varying patterns
dependent on transmission mode
• Core: Glass or plastic cylinder
through which light travels
Fiber Optic Cable
Types of Fiber Optic Cable…
• Multimode is cheap, but the signal spreads out over
short distances (up to ~500m). Multimode: light can
reflect inside the cable at many angles.
• Graded index multimode reduces the spreading
problem by changing the refractive properties of the
fiber to refocus the signal can be used over distances of
up to about 1000 meters.
• Single mode is expensive because difficult to
manufacture, but signal can be sent over many
kilometers without spreading.
Types of Fiber Optic Cable
 Single Mode Fiber
• Core has a smaller diameter usually 9 µm (microns)
• Allows one single beam of light to propagate thus allowing
for greater distances and increased transfer speeds.
• Suitable for long range communication up to 1000meters
without processing.
 Multi-Mode Fiber
• Core has a larger diameter between 50–62.5 µm (microns)
• Many beams of light travel through the cable, bouncing
off the cable walls. This actually weakens the signal,
reducing the length and speed at which the data signal
can travel.
• It is ideal for short range communication up to 500m
 Unguided Media
• Wireless media signals are becoming popular for LAN use.
• Doesn’t require a physical medium for the transmission of
signals
• Also called Wireless or Unbounded transmission media.
• Signals are broadcast through air and is less secure
• Normally used for larger distances
 3 Types of Signals
i. Infrared
ii. Radio waves
iii. Microwaves
 Infrared
• “invisible” light waves whose frequency is below that of
red light.
• Requires line of sight and therefore cannot penetrate
through walls.
• Generally subject to interference from heavy rain.
• Used for very short distance communication.
• Frequency Range: 300 GHz to 400 THz.
• It is used in TV remote, wireless mouse, wireless speakers
and handheld devices etc.
 Radio waves
• wireless transmission of electrical waves.
• Includes AM and FM radio bands. Very easy to generate
and can penetrate through buildings.
• The sending and receiving antennas need not be aligned.
• Frequency range: 3KHz to 300GHz
• AM and FM radios and cordless phones use Radio waves
for transmission.
 Microwaves
• high frequency form of radio with extremely short wavelength (1 cm
to 1 m).
• Often used for long distance, terrestrial transmissions and cellular
telephones.
• Requires line-of-sight It is a line of sight transmission i.e. the sending
and receiving antennas need to be properly aligned with each other.
• The distance covered by the signal is directly proportional to the
height of the antenna.
• Frequency range: 1 GHz to 300 GHz.
• Mostly used for mobile phone communication and television
distribution.
 Satellite Communications
• Satellite communications are a special form of microwave
communications.
• Instead of transmitting from one terrestrial microwave
dish to another, satellite communications are sent from
the ground to a satellite, about 23,000 miles above the
earth. The satellite then relays the signal to its destination
ground station.
• Even with signals traveling at light speed, the great
distance between ground station and satellite means a
relatively long propagation delay occurs between sending
and receiving a signal.
Satellite Communications
 Transmission Media General
Considerations
• Network administrators also need to understand general
media considerations such as;
i. Signaling methods
ii. Transmission Dialog Modes
iii. Media Interference
iv. Attenuation
v. Data Transmission Rates
 Signaling: Baseband
Transmission
• Baseband transmissions use digital signaling over a single wire.

• Communication on baseband transmissions is bidirectional,

allowing signals to be sent and received, but not at the same time.
• Time Division Multiplexing is used when multiple signals are to be
sent on a single cable.
 Time Division Multiplexing
(TDM)
• TDM divides a single channel into time slots.
 Signaling: Broadband
Transmission
• Broadband transmissions use analog transmissions.
• For broadband transmissions to be sent and received, the
medium must be split into two channels or two cables can be
used: one for sending and the other one for receiving
transmissions.

• Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) is used to create

multiple channels.
 Frequency Division
Multiplexing
• FDM allows broadband media to accommodate traffic
going in different directions on a single medium at the
same time.
 Transmission Dialog Modes
• Data can flow in different directions on the network media but then
what determines the direction of the flow?
• Dialog mode is what will determine the direction data will flow
through the network media.
• There are basically three dialog modes;
i. Simplex mode
ii. half-duplex mode
iii. full-duplex mode
Note: To use full duplex on the network, both the network
card and the switch must support full duplex.
 Media Interference
Media interference can adversely affect data transmissions over network
media:
i. Electromagnetic Inter-ference (EMI)
EMI is a problem when cables are installed near electrical devices, such as
air conditioners or fluorescent light fixtures. If a network medium is placed
close enough to such a device, the signal within the cable might become
corrupt.
ii. Crosstalk
Crosstalk refers to how the data signals on two separate media interfere with
each other. The result is that the signal on both cables can become corrupt.
 Attenuation
• Weakening of data signals as they travel through a medium over
some distance.
• Network media vary in their resistance to attenuation.
• Most attenuation-related or chromatic dispersion-related
difficulties on a network require using a network analyzer to
detect them.
Note: fiber-optic cable does not suffer from attenuation rather
it suffers from chromatic dispersion which is still the
weakening of a signal as it travels over some distance.
 Data Transmission Rates
• Different media types are rated to certain maximum speeds, but whether they are
used to this maximum depends on the networking standard used and the network
devices connected to the network.
• Transmission rates normally are measured by the number of data bits that can
traverse the medium in a single second.
• In the early days of data communications, this measurement was expressed in bits
per second (bps), but today’s networks are measured in Mbps (megabits per
second) and Gbps (gigabits per second).
• The different network media vary greatly in the transmission speeds they support.
• Older application intensive networks required over 10Mbps or 100Mbps offered
by networking standards, nowadays most LAN’s deploy 10Gbps implementations
to meet current network needs.
 Reading Assignment
• Read Chapter 6 of CompTIA Network +, 4th Edition.