LAN Standards

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

COMPUTER COMMUNICATION NETWORK (VTU) - 10EC71

UNIT - 4
Wired LAN, Ethernet, IEEE standards, Standard Ethernet. Changes in the standards, Fast
Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11
7 Hours

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TEXT BOOKS:
1. Data Communication and Networking, B Forouzan, 4th Ed, TMH 2006.
2. Computer Networks, James F. Kurose, Keith W. Ross: Pearson education, 2 nd Edition,
2003.
3. Introduction to Data communication and Networking, Wayne Tomasi: Pearson education
2007.
Special Thanks To:
Faculty (Chronological): Arun A Badiger (GMIT Davengere), Dr. Manjunath N (JNNCE
Shimoga), Harisha G C (GMIT Davangere), Suresha V Sathegala (KVGCE Sullia)

Students:

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BY:
RAGHUDATHESH G P
Asst Prof
ECE Dept, GMIT
Davangere 577004
Cell: +917411459249
Mail: datheshraghubooks@gmail.com

Quotes:

Your life is your message to the world, make sure its inspiring.

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Practice like a Devil and play like a Angle..!

Formal education will make you a living but self education will make a fortune.
Be better than you were yesterday.

Discipline enables you to think first and act second.

Dont ask what the meaning of life is. You define it.

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Introduction:
A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that is designed for a limited
geographic area such as a building or a campus. Although a LAN can be used as an
isolated network to connect computers in an organization for the sole purpose of sharing
resources, most LANs today are also linked to a wide area network (WAN) or the
Internet.

In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE started a project, called Project 802, to set
standards to enable intercommunication among equipment from a variety of
manufacturers.

Project 802 is a way of specifying functions of the physical layer and the data link layer
of major LAN protocols.

ISO approved 802 under the designation ISO8802 and is adopted by American National
Standards Institute (ANSI) in 1987.

The relationship of the 802 Standard to the traditional OSI model is shown in Figure
below

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Figure: IEEE standard for LANs

The IEEE has subdivided the data link layer into two sub layers:
Logical Link Control (LLC)
Media Access Control (MAC)

IEEE has also created several physical layer standards for different LAN protocols.

Logical Link Control (LLC):

Data link layer handles framing, flow control, and error control.

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

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But in IEEE Project 802, flow control, error control, and part of the framing duties are
collected into one sublayer called the logical link control.
Framing is handled in both the LLC sublayer and the MAC sublayer.
The LLC provides one single data link control protocol for all IEEE LANs.
A single LLC protocol can provide interconnectivity between different LANs because
it makes the MAC sublayer transparent.
The Figure above shows one single LLC protocol serving several MAC protocols.
Framing LLC defines a protocol data unit (PDU) that is somewhat similar to that of
HDLC.
The header contains a control field like the one in HDLC; this field is used for flow
and error control.
The two other header fields define the upper-layer protocol at the source and
destination that uses LLC. These fields are called the destinationservice access point
(DSAP) and the source service access point (SSAP).
The other fields defined in a typical data link control protocol such as HDLC are
moved to the
MAC sublayer.
Hence, a frame defined in HDLC is divided into a PDU at the LLC sublayer and a
frame at the MAC sublayer, as shown in Figure below.

Figure: HDLC frame compared with LLC and MAC frames

Need of LLC:
To provide flow and error control for the upper-layer protocols that actually demand
these services.

Ex. if a LAN or several LANs are used in an isolated system, LLC may be needed to
provide flow and error control for the application layer protocols.

Media Access Control (MAC):

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

IEEE Project 802 has created a sublayer called media access control that defines the
specific access method for each LAN.
Ex: CSMA/CD as the media access method for Ethernet LANs and the token passing
method for Token Ring and Token Bus LANs.

Physical Layer:
The physical layer is dependent on the implementation and type of physical media
used.
IEEE defines detailed specifications for each LAN implementation.
Ex: although there is only one MAC sublayer for Standard Ethernet, there is a
different physical layer specifications for each Ethernet implementation.

Standard Ethernet:

The Figure below shows the four generations of ethernet.

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The original Ethernet was created in 1976 at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
Since then, it has gone through four generations:
1. Standard Ethernet (lot Mbps)
2. Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps)
3. Gigabit Ethernet (l Gbps)
4. Ten-Gigabit Ethernet (l0 Gbps)
In all the above Ethernet we have to concentrate on MAC layer and Physical layer.

Figure 13.3 Ethernet evolution through four generations

MAC Sublayer
Performs two main functions:
Governs the operation of the access method.
Frames data received from the upper layer and passes them to the physical layer.

Frame Format:

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

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The Ethernet frame contains seven fields.

Ethernet does not provide any mechanism for acknowledging received frames,
making it what is known as an unreliable medium. Acknowledgments must be
implemented at the higher layers.
The format of the MAC frame is shown in Figure below:

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Figure: 802.3 MAC frame

Descriptions of MAC frame fields:

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1. Preamble:
Contains 7 bytes of alternating 0s and 1s.
Alerts the receiving system to the coming frame and enables it to synchronize its
input timing. The pattern provides only an alert and a timing pulse.
The 56-bit pattern allows the stations to miss some bits at the beginning of the frame.
The preamble is actually added at the physical layer and is not part of the frame.

2. Start frame delimiter (SFD):

The second field (l byte: 10101011) signals the beginning of the frame.
It warns the station or stations that this is the last chance for synchronization.
The last 2 bits (11) alerts the receiver that the next field is the destination address.
3. Destination Address (DA):
The DA field is 6 bytes.
Contains the physical address of the destination station or stations to receive the
packet.

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Asst Professor

4. Source Address (SA):

The SA field is also 6 bytes.
Contains the physical address of the sender of the packet.

RAGHUDATHESH G P

MAC Layer

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5. Length or type:
The original Ethernet used this field as the type field to define the upper-layer
protocol using the MAC frame.
The IEEE standard used it as the length field to define the number of bytes in the data
field.

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6. Data:
This field carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols.
It is a minimum of 46 and a maximum of 1500 bytes.

Ethernet has imposed restrictions on both the minimum and maximum lengths of a frame
as shown below.

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Frame Length:

7. CRC:
The last field contains error detection information, in this case a CRC-32.

Figure: Minimum and maximum lengths

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

The minimum length required for the correct operation of the CSMA/CD is 512 bits or 64
bytes.

The minimum length of data from the upper layer is 64 - 18 = 46 bytes. If the upper-layer
packet is less than 46 bytes, padding is added to make up the difference.

The standard defines the maximum length of a frame (without preamble and SFD field)
as 1518 bytes. If we subtract the 18 bytes of header and trailer, the maximum length of
the payload is 1500 bytes.

The maximum length restriction has two historical reasons:

Memory was very expensive when Ethernet was designed: a maximum length
restriction helped to reduce the size of the buffer.
The maximum length restriction prevents one station from monopolizing the shared
medium, blocking other stations that have data to send.

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Addressing:

Each station on an Ethernet network has its own network interface card (NIC) and has 6
byte physical address as shown below

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Figure: 6 Byte NIC Address

A source address is always a unicast address as the frame comes from only one station.

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There are three types address:

Unicast Addresses
Multicast Addresses
Broadcast Addresses

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The destination address, however, can be unicast, multicast, or broadcast.

The figure below shows how to distinguish a unicast address from a multicast address.

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

If the least significant bit of the first byte in a destination address is 0, the address is
unicast; otherwise, it is multicast.

A unicast destination address defines only one recipient; the relationship between the
sender and the receiver is one-to-one.

A multicast destination address defines a group of addresses; the relationship between the
sender and the receivers is one-to-many.

The broadcast address is a special case of the multicast address; the recipients are all the
stations on the LAN. A broadcast destination address is forty-eight 1 s.

Problems:

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1. Define the type of the following destination addresses:

a. 4A:30:10:21:1O:1A
b. 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
c. FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Solution
To find 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 F's, the address is broadcast.
Therefore, we have the following:
a. This is a unicast address because A in binary is 1010 (even).
b. This is a multicast address because 7 in binary is 0111 (odd).
c. This is a broadcast address because all digits are F's.
The way the addresses are sent out on line is different from the way they are written in
hexadecimal notation.
The transmission is left-to-right, byte by byte; however, for each byte, the least significant bit is
sent first and the most significant bit is sent last.
This means that the bit that defines an address as unicast or multicast arrives first at the receiver.

2. Show how the address 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE is sent out on line.

Solution
The address is sent left-to-right, byte by byte; for each byte, it is sent right-to-Ieft, bit by bit, as
shown below:
11100010 00000100 11011000 01110100 00010000 01110111

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Slot Time:
The slot time in Ethernet is defined in terms of bits.

It is the time required for a station to send 512 bits.

Definition: The round-trip time required for a frame to travel from one end of a
maximum-length network to the other plus the time needed to send the jam sequence is
called the slot time.

Slot time =round-trip time + time required to send the jam sequence

This means that the actual slot time depends on the data rate; for traditional 10-Mbps
Ethernet it is 51.2 s.

Maximum Network Length:

Practically, we need to consider the delay times in repeaters and interfaces, and the time
required to send the jam sequence.
These reduce the maximum-length of a traditional Ethernet network to 2500 m, just 48
percent of the theoretical calculation.

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Depends on the propagation speed of the signal in the particular medium.

In most transmission media, the signal propagates at 2 x 10 8 mps (two-thirds of the rate
for propagation in air).
For traditional Ethernet,

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Physical Layer:

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The Standard Ethernet defines several physical layer implementations; four of the most
common, are shown in Figure below.

Figure: Categories of Standard Ethernet

Encoding and Decoding:

All standard implementations use digital signaling (baseband) at 10 Mbps.

At the sender, data are converted to a digital signal using the Manchester scheme; at the
receiver, the received signal is interpreted as Manchester and decoded into data.

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

MAC Layer

Categories of Standard Ethernet:

10Base5:

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Figure: Encoding in a Standard Ethernet implementation

The first implementation is called 10Base5.

Alternate names: thick Ethernet, or Thicknet.

The cable too stiff to bend with hands.

10Base5 was the first Ethernet specification to use a bus topology with an external
transceiver (transmitter/receiver) connected via a tap to a thick coaxial cable.

Transceiver is responsible for transmitting receiving and detecting collisions.

maximum length of the cable is 500 meters, otherwise, there is excessive degradation of
the signal.

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If a length of more than 500 m is needed, up to five segments, each a maximum of 500meter, can be connected using repeaters.
Figure below shows a schematic diagram of a 10Base5 implementation.

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Figure: 10Base5 implementation

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

10Base2:
The second implementation is called 10Base2.
Also called as thin Ethernet, or Cheapernet.

10Base2 uses a bus topology.

The cable is much thinner and more flexible.

The cable can be bent to pass very close to the stations.

The transceiver is normally part of the network interface card (NIC), which is installed
inside the station.
Figure below shows the schematic diagram of a 10Base2 implementation.

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Figure: 10Base2 implementation

The collision here occurs in the thin coaxial cable.

This implementation is more cost effective than 10Base5 because thin coaxial cable is
less expensive than thick coaxial and the tee connections are much cheaper than taps.

Installation is simpler because the thin coaxial cable is very flexible.

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The length of each segment cannot exceed 185 m (close to 200 m) due to the high level
of attenuation in thin coaxial cable.

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10Base-T:

The third implementation is called 10Base-T or twisted-pair Ethernet.

10Base-T uses a physical star topology.

The stations are connected to a hub via two pairs of twisted cable.
Any collision here happens in the hub.

The maximum length of the twisted cable here is defined as 100 m, to minimize the effect
of attenuation in the twisted cable.

Figure below shows the schematic diagram of a 10Base-T implementation.

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Figure: 10Base-T implementation

10Base-F:

MAC Layer

Belongs to the class of optical fiber

Also called as Fiber Ethernet uses a optical fiber 10-Mbps Ethernet, the most common is
called 10Base-F.

Uses star topology.

Stations are connected to a hub via two pairs of twisted cable.

Two pairs of twisted cable create two fiber optic cables.

Collisions occur in the hub.

Maximum length of the cable is 2000 meter.

Figure below shows the schematic diagram of a 10Base-F implementation.

Figure: 10Base-F implementation

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Comparison:

Changes in the Standard:

The 10-Mbps Standard Ethernet has gone through several changes before moving to the
higher data rates.

Types of changes include:

1. Bridged Ethernet
2. Switched Ethernet
3. Full-Duplex Ethernet

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Bridged Ethernet:

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It performs the division of a LAN using bridges.

Bridges have two effects on an Ethernet LAN:

1. Rise in the bandwidth
2. The separation of collision domains

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Raising the Bandwidth:

In an unbridged Ethernet network, the total capacity say 10 Mbps is shared among all
stations with a frame to send; the stations share the bandwidth of the network.

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If only one station has frames to send it benefits from the total bandwidth. If more than
one station use the network then the capacity is shared.

Ex., if two stations have a lot of frames to send, they probably alternate in usage. When
one station is sending, the other one refrains from sending. Thus here, each station on
average sends at a rate of 5 Mbps.

Figure below shows a typical scenario

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

MAC Layer

Figure: Sharing bandwidth

A bridge divides the network into two or more networks where each network is
independent.

Figure below shows a network with 12 stations is divided into two networks, each with 6
stations. Now each network has a capacity of 10 Mbps.
In a network with a heavy load, each station theoretically is offered 10/6 Mbps instead of
10/12 Mbps, assuming that the traffic is not going through the bridge.

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Figure: A network with and without a bridge

Separating Collision Domains:

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A bridge separates the collision domain.

Figure below shows the collision domains for an unbridged and a bridged network.
Bridge makes the collision domain much smaller and the probability of collision is
reduced to a greater extent.

In the figure below without bridging, 12 stations contend for access to the medium; with
bridging only 3 stations contend for access to the medium.

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

MAC Layer

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Figure: Collision domains in an unbridged network and a bridged network

Switched Ethernet:

Instead of having two to four networks, we can have N networks, where N is the number
of stations on the LAN.

If we can have a multiple-port bridge, we can have an N-port switch. Thus, the bandwidth
is shared only between the station and the switch (5 Mbps each if total bandwidth is
10Mbps).

The collision domain is divided into N domains.

Ex., A layer 2 switch is an N-port bridge with additional sophistication that allows faster
handling of the packets.

Figure below shows a switched LAN.

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Figure: Switched Ethernet

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Full-Duplex Ethernet:
The limitations of 10Base5 and 10Base2 is that communication is half-duplex.

The full-duplex mode increases the capacity of each domain from 10 to 20 Mbps.

Figure below shows a switched Ethernet in full-duplex mode.

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Figure: Full-duplex switched Ethernet

Fast Ethernet:

Fast Ethernet was designed to compete with LAN protocols such as FDDI or Fiber
Channel. IEEE standard for Fast Ethernet is 802.3u.

Fast Ethernet is backward-compatible with Standard Ethernet, but it can transmit data 10
times faster at a rate of 100 Mbps.

The goals of Fast Ethernet are:

1. Upgrade the data rate to 100 Mbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard Ethernet.
3. Keep the same 48-bit address.
4. Keep the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.

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MAC Sublayer:

In the evolution of Ethernet from 10 to 100 Mbps was to keep the MAC sublayer
untouched.

A decision was made to drop the bus topologies and keep only the star topology.

The access method is CSMA/CD for the half-duplex approach; for full duplex Fast
Ethernet, there is no need for CSMAlCD.

However, the implementations keep CSMA/CD for backward compatibility with

Standard Ethernet.

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Autonegotiation:
Autonegotiation allows a station or a hub with a range of capabilities.

Autonegotiation allows two devices to negotiate the mode or data rate of operation.

It was designed particularly for the following purposes:

1. To allow incompatible devices to connect to one another.
Ex., a device with a maximum capacity of 10 Mbps can communicate with
a device with a 100 Mbps capacity (but can work at a lower rate).
2. To allow one device to have multiple capabilities.
3. To allow a station to check a hub's capabilities.

Physical Layer:

The physical layer in Fast Ethernet is more complicated than in Standard Ethernet.

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Topology:
Fast Ethernet is designed to connect two or more stations together.

If there are only two stations, they can be connected point-to-point. Three or more
stations need to be connected in a star topology with a hub or a switch at the center.

Figure below shows the topology of connection.

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Figure: Fast Ethernet topology

Implementation:
Implementation at the physical layer can be categorized as
1. Two-wire: The two-wire implementation can be either category 5 UTP (100BaseTX) or fiber-optic cable (100Base-FX).
2. Four-wire: The four-wire implementation is designed only for category 3 UTP
(l00Base-T4). Figure below shows the different implementation methods.

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

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Figure: Fast Ethernet implementations

MAC Layer

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Encoding:
Manchester encoding needs a 200-Mbaud bandwidth for a data rate of 100 Mbps, which
makes it unsuitable for a medium such as twisted-pair cable.
The Fast Ethernet designers sought some alternative encoding/decoding scheme.

Three different encoding schemes were chosen:

100Base-TX:
Uses two pairs of twisted-pair cable.
The MLT-3 scheme was selected since it has good bandwidth performance.

MLT-3 is not a self-synchronous line coding scheme, 4B/5B block coding is used to
provide bit synchronization by preventing the occurrence of a long sequence of 0s and
1s.

This creates a data rate of 125 Mbps, which is fed into MLT-3 for encoding.

Figure: 100Base-TX

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Multiline Transmission: MLT-3:

Uses three levels (+V, 0 and -V) and three transition rules to move between the levels:
1. If the next bit 0, no transition.
2. If the next bit is 1 and the current level is not 0, the next level is 0.
3. If the next bit 1 and the current level is 0, the next level is the positive of the last
nonzero level.

The signal rate for MLT-3 is one-fourth the bit rate.

MLT-3 when we need to send 100Mbps on a copper wire that cannot support more than
32MHz.

Figure below shows the state transition diagram:

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

MAC Layer

Figure: Multiline Transmission

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4B/5B Mapping Codes:

100Base-FX:
Uses two pairs of fiber-optic cables (to handle higher bandwidth).

100Base-FX selects the NRZ-I encoding scheme for this implementation.

NRZ-I has a bit synchronization problem for long sequences of 0s (or 1s, based on the

encoding).
To overcome this problem, the designers used 4B/5B block encoding.

The block encoding increases the bit rate from 100 to 125 Mbps, which can easily be
handled by fiber-optic cable.

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

MAC Layer

100Base-T4:
It was designed to use category 3 or higher UTP.

Figure: 100Base-FX

The implementation uses four pairs of UTP for transmitting 100 Mbps.
Encoding/decoding in 100Base-T4 is more complicated.

8B/6T encoding scheme is used to carry 100 Mbps.

Figure: 100Base-T4

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Comparison between Different Fast Ethernet implementations:

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MAC Layer

RAGHUDATHESH G P

Asst Professor

Gigabit Ethernet:
The need for an even higher data rate resulted in the design of the Gigabit Ethernet
protocol (1000 Mbps).

The IEEE committee calls the Standard 802.3z.

The goals of the Gigabit Ethernet design can be summarized as follows:

1. Upgrade the data rate to 1 Gbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard or Fast Ethernet.
3. Use the same 48-bit address.
4. Use the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.
6. To support autonegotiation as defined in Fast Ethernet.

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MAC Sublayer:
Gigabit Ethernet has two distinctive approaches for medium access:

Full-duplex:
In this mode a central switch connected to all computers or other switches.
Each switch has buffers for each input port in which data are stored until they are
transmitted. There is no collision in this mode.

The maximum length of the cable is determined by the signal attenuation in the cable, not
by the

Collision detection process.

This mode of implementation is rare.

Here a switch can be replaced by a hub, which acts as the common cable in which a
collision might occur.
The half-duplex approach uses CSMA /CD.

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Half-duplex:

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The maximum length of the network in this approach is totally dependent on the
minimum frame size.
Three methods have been defined:
1. Traditional
2. Carrier Extension
3. Frame Bursting

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MAC Layer

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Asst Professor

1. Traditional:
Here the minimum length of the frame is 512 bits.
The slot time for Gigabit Ethernet is 0.512 s.

The maximum length of the network is 25 m.

This length may be suitable if all the stations are in one room, but it may not even be
long enough to connect the computers in one single office.

2. Carrier Extension:
To allow for a longer network, this method increases the minimum frame length.

The carrier extension approach defines the minimum length of a frame as 512 bytes
and can be extended to 4096 bits thus the minimum length is 8 times longer.

This method forces a station to add extension bits (padding) to any frame that is less
than 4096 bits.

In this way, the maximum length of the network can be increased 8 times to a length
of 200 m. This allows a length of 100 m from the hub to the station.

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3. Frame Bursting:
Carrier extension is very inefficient if we have a series of short frames to send; each
frame carries redundant data.
To improve efficiency, frame bursting was proposed. Instead of adding an extension
to each frame, multiple frames are sent.

To make the multiple frames look like one frame, padding is added between the
frames so that the channel is not idle.

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Physical Layer:
The physical layer in Gigabit Ethernet is more complicated than that in Standard or Fast
Ethernet.

Topology:
Gigabit Ethernet is designed to connect two or more stations.

If there are only two stations, they can be connected point-to-point.

Three or more stations need to be connected in a star topology with a hub or a switch at
the center.

Another possible configuration is to connect several star topologies or let a star topology
be part of another as shown in figure below

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

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MAC Layer

Figure: Topologies of Gigabit Ethernet

Thus, we have four implementations as shown in Figure below.

Figure: Gigabit Ethernet implementations

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Implementation:
Gigabit Ethernet can be categorized as
A two-wire implementation:
The two-wire implementations use fiber-optic cable (1000Base-SX, shortwave, or 1000Base-LX, long-wave), or STP (1000Base-CX).
A four-wire implementation:
The four-wire version uses category 5 twisted-pair cable (1000Base-T).

Encoding:
The two-wire implementations use an NRZ scheme, but NRZ does not self-synchronize
properly.

To synchronize bits, particularly at this high data rate, 8B/10B block encoding is used.

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MAC Layer

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This block encoding prevents long sequences of 0s or 1s in the stream, but the resulting
stream is 1.25 Gbps.

In the four-wire implementation 4D-PAM5 encoding is used to reduce the bandwidth.

All four wires are involved in both input and output; each wire carries 250 Mbps, which
is in the range for category 5 UTP cable.

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Figure: Encoding in Gigabit Ethernet implementations

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Comparison between Different Gigabit Ethernet implementations:

Ten-Gigabit Ethernet:

The IEEE committee created Ten-Gigabit Ethernet and called it Standard 802.3ae.
The goals of the Ten-Gigabit Ethernet design includes:
1. Upgrade the data rate to 10 Gbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard, Fast, and Gigabit Ethernet.
3. Use the same 48-bit address.
4. Use the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame lengths.

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6. Allow the interconnection of existing LANs into a metropolitan area network

(MAN) or a wide area network (WAN).
7. Make Ethernet compatible with technologies such as Frame Relay and ATM.

CSMA/CD is not used in Ten-Gigabit Ethernet.

MAC Sublayer:
Ten-Gigabit Ethernet operates only in full duplex mode which means there is no need for
contention.

Physical Layer:
The physical layer in Ten-Gigabit Ethernet is designed for using fiber-optic cable over
long distances.
Three implementations are the most common:
1. lOGBase-S
2. lOGBase-L
3. lOGBase-E

Table below shows a summary of the Ten-Gigabit Ethernet implementation

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Wireless LAN:

IEEE has defined the specifications for a wireless LAN, called IEEE 802.11, which
covers the physical and data link layers.

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Architecture:
The standard defines two kinds of services:
1. The basic service set (BSS)
2. The extended service set (ESS)

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Basic Service Set (BSS):

IEEE 802.11 defines the basic service set (BSS) as the building block of a wireless LAN.
A basic service set is made of stationary or mobile wireless stations and an optional
central base station, known as the access point (AP).

BSS has two types of standard:

1. BSS without an Access Point (Ad-hoc)
2. BSS with an Access Point (Infrastructure)

Figure below shows two types of standard

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Figure: Basic service sets (BSSs)

It is also called an ad hoc architecture

Stations can form a network without the need of an AP; they can locate one another and
agree to be part of a BSS.

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BSS without an Access Point (Ad-hoc):

It is a stand-alone network
Cannot send data to other BSSs

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BSS with an Access Point (Infrastructure):

A BSS with an AP is referred as an infrastructure network.

Extended Service Set:

An extended service set (ESS) is made up of two or more BSSs with APs.

The BSSs are connected through a distribution system, which is usually a wired LAN.

The distribution system connects the APs in the BSSs.

IEEE 802.11 does not restrict the distribution system; it can be any IEEE LAN such as an
Ethernet.

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The extended service set uses two types of stations:

1. Mobile: normal stations inside a BSS
2. Stationary: AP stations that are part of a wired LAN.

When BSSs are connected, the stations within reach of one another can communicate
without the use of an AP.

Communication between two stations in two different BSSs usually occurs via two APs.
Figure below shows an ESS

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Figure: Extended service sets (ESSs)

Station Types:

IEEE 802.11 defines three types of stations based on their mobility in a wireless LAN:
1. No-Transition: A station with no-transition mobility is either stationary (not
moving) or moving only inside a BSS.
2. BSS-Transition: A station with BSS-transition mobility can move from one BSS
to another, but the movement is confined inside one ESS.
3. ESS-Transition mobility: A station with ESS-transition mobility can move from
one ESS to another. However, IEEE 802.11 does not guarantee that
communication is continuous during the move.

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MAC Sublayer:
IEEE 802.11 defines two MAC sublayers:
1. Distributed Coordination Function (DCF)
2. Point Coordination Function (PCF)

Figure below shows the relationship between the two MAC sublayers, the LLC sublayer,
and the physical layer.

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Distributed Coordination Function (DCF):

DCF uses CSMA/CA as the access method.

Wireless LANs cannot implement CSMA/CD for three reasons:

1. For collision detection a station must be able to send data and receive collision signals
at the same time. This can mean costly stations and increased bandwidth
requirements.
2. Collision may not be detected because of the hidden station problem.
3. The distance between stations can be great. Signal fading could prevent a station at
one end from hearing a collision at the other end.

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Figure: MAC layers in IEEE 802.11 standard

MAC Layer

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CSMA/CA Process Flowchart:

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CSMA/CA Process Flow Description:

1. Before sending a frame, the source station senses the medium by checking the energy
level at the carrier frequency.
a. The channel uses a persistence strategy with back-off until the channel is idle.
b. After the station is found to be idle, the station waits for a period of time called
the distributed interframe space (DIFS); then the station sends a control frame
called the request to send (RTS).
2. After receiving the RTS and waiting a period of time called the short interframe space
(SIFS), the destination station sends a control frame, called the clear to send (CTS), to the
source station. This control frame indicates that the destination station is ready to receive
data.
3. The source station sends data after waiting an amount of time equal to SIFS.
4. The destination station, after waiting an amount of time equal to SIFS, sends an
acknowledgment to show that the frame has been received. Acknowledgment is needed
in this protocol because the station does not have any means to check for the successful
arrival of its data at the destination. On the other hand, the lack of collision in CSMA/CD
is a kind of indication to the source that data have arrived.

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Network Allocation Vector:

When a station sends an RTS frame, it includes the duration of time that it needs to
occupy the channel.
The stations that are affected by this transmission create a timer called a network
allocation vector (NAV) that shows how much time must pass before these stations are
allowed to check the channel for idleness.

Each time a station accesses the system and sends an RTS frame other stations start their
NAV.

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In other words each station, before sensing the physical medium to see if it is idle first
checks its NAV to see if it has expired.

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Collision during Handshaking:

Two or more stations may try to send RTS frames at the same time.

These control frames may collide. However, because there is no mechanism for collision
detection, the sender assumes there has been a collision if it has not received a CTS frame
from the receive.

The back-off strategy is employed and the sender tries again.

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Point Coordination Function (PCP):

The point coordination function (PCF) is an optional access method that can be
implemented in an infrastructure network but not in an ad hoc network.
It is implemented on top of the DCF and is used mostly for time-sensitive transmission.

PCF has a centralized, contention-free polling access method.

The AP performs polling for stations that are capable of being polled. The stations are
polled one after another, sending any data they have to the AP.

To give priority to PCF over DCF, another set of interframe spaces has been defined:
PIFS and SIFS.

The SIFS is the same as that in DCF, but the PIFS (PCF IFS) is shorter than the DIFS.
This means that if, at the same time, a station wants to use only DCF and an AP wants to
use PCF, the AP has priority.

Due to the priority of PCF over DCF, stations that only use DCF may not gain access to
the medium.

To prevent this, a repetition interval has been designed to cover both contention-free
(PCF) and contention-based (DCF) traffic.

The repetition interval, which is repeated continuously, starts with a special control
frame, called a beacon frame.

When the stations hear the beacon frame, they start their NAV for the duration of the
contention free period of the repetition interval.

During the repetition interval, the PC (point controller) can send a poll frame, receive
data, send an ACK, receive an ACK, or do any combination of these (802.11 uses
piggybacking).

At the end of the contention-free period, the PC sends a CF end (contention-free end)
frame to allow the contention-based stations to use the medium.
Figure below shows an example of a repetition interval.

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Figure: Example of repetition interval

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Frame Format:
The MAC layer frame consists of nine fields, as shown in Figure below

Frame control (FC): The FC field is 2 bytes long and defines the type of frame and
some control information. Table below describes the subfields

D: Defines the duration of the transmission that is used to set the value of NAV. In one
control frame, this field defines the ID of the frame.

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Figure: Frame Format

Address: There are address field, each 6 byte long. The meaning of each address field
depends on the value of the To DS and from DS subfields.

Sequence Control: This field defines the sequence number of the frame to be used in
flow control.

Frame body: This field which can be between 0 and 2312 bytes, contains information
based on the type and the subtype defined in the FC field.

FCS: The FCS field is 4 bytes long and contains a CRC-32 error detection sequence.

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Frame Types:
A wireless LAN defined by IEEE 802.11 have three categories of frames:
1. Management frames:
Management Frames Management frames are used for the initial
communication between stations and access points.
2. Data frames:
Data frames are used for carrying data and control information.
3. Control frames:
Control frames are used for accessing the channel and acknowledging
frames.

Figure below shows the format.

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For control frames the value of the type field is 01; the values of the subtype fields for
frames are shown in Table below.

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Figure: Control frames

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Addressing Mechanism:

The IEEE 802.11 addressing mechanism specifies four cases, defined by the value of the
two flags in the FC field, To DS and From DS.

Each flag can be either 0 or 1, resulting in four different situations.

The interpretation of the four addresses (address 1 to address 4) in the MAC frame
depends on the value of these flags, as shown in Table below.

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In the above Table:

Address 1 is always the address of the next device.
Address 2 is always the address of the previous device.

MAC Layer

Address 3 is the address of the final destination station if it is not defined by address 1.

Address 4 is the address of the original source station if it is not the same as address 2.

Case 1(00):

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In this case To DS=0 and from DS=0.

Frame is not going to distribution system and is not coming from distribution system.
The frame is going from one station in a BSS to another without passing through the
distribution system.

The ACK should be sent to the original station.

Addressing mechanisms for this case is shown below

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Case 2(01):

In this case To DS=0 and from DS=1.

Frame is coming from a distribution system.
The frame is coming from AP and going to a station.

The ACK should be sent to the AP.

Addressing mechanisms for this case is shown below

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RAGHUDATHESH G P

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Case 3(10):
In this case To DS=1 and from DS=0.
Frame is going to a distributions system.

The frame is going from to a station to an AP.

The ACK should be sent to the original station.

Addressing mechanisms for this case is shown below

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MAC Layer

Frame is going from one AP to another AP.

The frame is going from to a station to an AP.
The ACK should be sent to the original station.
Addressing mechanisms for this case is shown below

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In this case distribution is also wireless system.

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Case 4(11):
In this case To DS=1 and from DS=1.

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Hidden Station Problem:

Figure: Hidden station problem

Figure above shows an example of the hidden station problem.

Station B has a transmission range shown by the left oval; every station in this range can
hear any signal transmitted by station B.
Station C has a transmission range shown by the right oval; every station located in this
range can hear any signal transmitted by C.

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Station C is outside the transmission range of B; likewise, station B is outside the

transmission range of C.

Station A, however, is in the area covered by both B and C; it can hear any signal
transmitted by

B or C.

Assume that station B is sending data to station A. In the middle of this transmission,
station C also has data to send to station A.
However, station C is out of B's range and transmissions from B cannot reach C.
Therefore C thinks the medium is free. Station C sends its data to A, which results in a
collision at A because this station is receiving data from both B and C.
Thus in the above case, we say that stations B and C are hidden from each other with
respect to A.

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Hidden stations can reduce the capacity of the network because of the possibility of
collision.

The solution to the hidden station problem is the use of the handshake frames (RTS and
CTS). Figure below shows that the RTS message from B reaches A, but not C. However,

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because both Band C are within the range of A, the CTS message, which contains the
duration of data transmission from B to A reaches C.
Station C knows that some hidden station is using the channel and refrains from
transmitting until that duration is over.

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Figure: Use of handshaking to prevent hidden station problem

Exposed Station Problem:

In this problem a station refrains from using a channel when it is, in fact, available.

In Figure below, station A is transmitting to station B.

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Figure: Exposed station problem

Station C has some data to send to station D, which can be sent without interfering with
the transmission from A to B.

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However, station C is exposed to transmission from A; it hears what A is sending and

thus refrains from sending. In other words, C is too conservative and wastes the capacity
of the channel.

Solution: The handshaking messages RTS and CTS cannot help in this case.

Station C hears the RTS from A, but does not hear the CTS from B.
Station C, after hearing the RTS from A, can wait for a time so that the CTS from B
reaches A; it then sends an RTS to D to show that it needs to communicate with D.

Both stations B and A may hear this RTS, but station A is in the sending state, not the
receiving state. Station B, however, responds with a CTS.

The problem is here. If station A has started sending its data, station C cannot hear the
CTS from station D because of the collision; it cannot send its data to D. It remains
exposed until A finishes sending its data as shown in figure below.

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Figure: Use of handshaking in exposed station problem

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Physical Layer:

1. IEEE 802.11 FHSS:

IEEE 802.11 FHSS uses the frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS).

Six specifications are described below:

FHSS uses the 2.4-GHz ISM band.

The band is divided into 79 subbands of 1MHz (and some guard bands). A
pseudorandom number generator selects the hopping sequence.

The modulation technique in this specification is either two-level FSK or four-level

FSK with 1 or 2 bits/baud, which results in a data rate of 1 or 2 Mbps, as shown in
figure below.

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Figure: Physical layer of IEEE 802.11 FHSS

2. IEEE 802.11 DSSS:

IEEE 802.11 DSSS uses the direct sequence spread spectrum (DSSS).

DSSS uses the 2.4-GHz ISM band.

The modulation technique in this specification is PSK at 1Mbaud/s.

The system allows 1 or 2 bits/baud (BPSK or QPSK), which results in a data rate of 1
or 2 Mbps, as shown in figure below.

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Figure: Physical layer of IEEE 802.11 DSSS

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3. IEEE 802.11 Infrared:

IEEE 802.11 infrared uses infrared light in the range of 800 to 950 nm.
The modulation technique is called pulse position modulation (PPM).

For a 1-Mbps data rate, a 4-bit sequence is first mapped into a 16-bit sequence in
which only one bit is set to 1 and the rest are set to 0.

For a 2-Mbps data rate, a 2-bit sequence is first mapped into a 4-bit sequence in
which only one bit is set to 1 and the rest are set to 0.

The mapped sequences are then converted to optical signals; the presence of light
specifies 1, the absence of light specifies 0 as shown in figure below.

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Figure: Physical layer of IEEE 802.11 infrared

OFDM is similar to FDM, with one major difference: All the subbands are used by
one source at a given time. Sources contend with one another at the data link layer for
access.

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4. IEEE 802.11a OFDM:

IEEE 802.11a OFDM describes the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing
(OFDM) method for signal generation in a 5-GHz ISM band.

The band is divided into 52 subbands, with 48 subbands for sending 48 groups of bits
at a time and 4 subbands for control information.

The scheme is similar to ADSL, Dividing the band into subbands diminishes the
effects of interference. If the subbands are used randomly, security can also be
increased.

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OFDM uses PSK and QAM for modulation. The common data rates are 18 Mbps
(PSK) and 54 Mbps (QAM).

5. IEEE 802.11b DSSS:

IEEE 802.11 b DSSS describes the high-rate direct sequence spread spectrum (HRDSSS) method for signal generation in the 2.4-GHz ISM band.

HR-DSSS is similar to DSSS except for the encoding method, which is called
complementary code keying (CCK).

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CCK encodes 4 or 8 bits to one CCK symbol. To be backward compatible with

DSSS, HR-DSSS defines four data rates: 1,2, 5.5, and 11 Mbps.

The first two use the same modulation techniques as DSSS.

The 5.5-Mbps version uses BPSK and transmits at 1.375 Mbaudls with 4-bit CCK
encoding. The 11-Mbps version uses QPSK and transmits at 1.375 Mbps with 8-bit
CCK encoding.

Figure below shows the modulation technique for this standard.

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6. IEEE 802.11g:

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Figure: Physical layer of IEEE 802.11b

This new specification defines forward error correction and OFDM using the 2.4GHz ISM band.

The modulation technique achieves a 22- or 54-Mbps data rate.

It is backward compatible with 802.11b, but the modulation technique is OFDM.

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Comparison of various Physical layer standards of IEEE 802.11:

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All implementations, except the infrared, operate in the industrial, scientific, and medical
(ISM) band, which defines three unlicensed bands in the three ranges 902-928 MHz,
2.400--4.835 GHz, and 5.725-5.850 GHz, as shown in figure below.

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Figure: Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) Band

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Problems:

1. Compare the data rates for Standard Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet,
and Ten-Gigabit Ethernet.
Solution:
The rates are as follows:
Standard Ethernet: 10 Mbps
Fast Ethernet: 100 Mbp
Gigabit Ethernet: 1 Gbps
Ten-Gigabit Ethernet: 10 Gbps

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2. How does the Ethernet address lA:2B:3CAD:5E:6F appear on the line in binary?
Solution:
01011000:11010100:00111100:11010010:01111010:11110110

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3. The address 43:7B:6C:DE:10:00 has been shown as the source address in an

Ethernet frame. The receiver has discarded the frame. Why?
Solution:
The first byte in binary is 01000011. The least significant bit is 1. This means that the pattern
defines a multicast address. A multicast address can be a destination address, but not a
source address. Therefore, the receiver knows that there is an error, and discards the packet.

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4. An Ethernet MAC sublayer receives 1510 bytes of data from the upper layer. Can
the data be encapsulated in one frame? If not, how many frames need to be sent?
What is the size of the data in each frame?
Solution:
The maximum data size in the Standard Ethernet is 1500 bytes. The data of 1510 bytes,
therefore, must be split between two frames. The standard dictates that the first frame must carry
the maximum possible number of bytes (1500); the second frame then needs to carry only 10
bytes of data (it requires padding). The following shows the breakdown:
Data size for the first frame: 1500 bytes
Data size for the second frame: 46 bytes (with padding)
5. Suppose the length of a l0Base5 cable is 2500 m. If the speed of propagation in a
thick coaxial cable is 200,000,000 m/s, how long does it take for a bit to travel from
the beginning to the end of the network? Assume there is 10s delay in the
equipment.

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Solution:

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VTU Questions:

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1. Explain the goals, MAC sub layer and physical layer of the Ethernet. (Dec 2010, 10M)
2. Explain briefly the baseband layer in the Bluetooth layers. ( Dec 2010, 10M)
3. What are the advantages of dividing an etherent LAN with a bridge? Explain with a neat
diagram. (June 2011, 06M)
4. Compare the data rates for standards, fast, gigabit and ten-gigabit Ethernet. Mention one
example in each case .( June 2011, 04M)
5. Explain DCF and PCF modes of 802.11 MAC protocol. (June 2011, 10M)
6. Mention the four different types of Ethernet format. Explain the same briefly. (Dec 2011,
10M)
7. List the different goals of Giga bit Ethernet and explain the different implementation of
same (Dec 2011, 10M)
8. Compare the data rates for Ethernet, fast, Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and ten Gigabit
Ethernet. (Dec 2012, 04M)
9. What is the difference between a unicast, multicast, and broadcast address? Define the
type of the following destination addresses. (Dec 2012, 08M)
a. 4A:30:10:21:10:1A
b. 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
c. FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
10. Explain the following with respect to FAST Ethernet. (Dec 2012, 08M)
a. Implementation
b. Encoding
c. 100 BASE-TX
d. 100 BASE-FX
11. List the goals of fast Ethernet; explain the features of physical layer in fast Ethernet.
(June 2013, 10M)
12. Explain two different kinds of services as defined in IEEE 802.11. (June 2013, 06M)
13. Write a note on piconet and Scatternet in Bluetooth. (June 2013, 04M)
14. What are the reasons for not implementing CSMA/CD IN wireless LANs? With a
flowchart and frame exchange time line diagram explain CSMA/CA. (June 2013, 08M)
15. What are the advantages of having Bridged Ethernet? (June 2013, 06M)
16. List goals of the fast Ethernet. Enumerate Fast Ethernet implementations (June 2013,
06M)

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