COMPUTER NETWORK

UNIT-III
Lecture-1
MAC Sublayer [RGPV JUNE 2011]

In the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking, media access control (MAC) data
communication protocol is a sublayer of the data link layer (layer 2). The MAC sublayer
provides addressing and channel access control mechanisms that make it possible for
several terminals or network nodes to communicate within a multiple access network that
incorporates a shared medium, e.g.Ethernet. The hardware that implements the MAC is
referred to as a media access controller.

The MAC sublayer acts as an interface between the logical link control (LLC) sublayer and
the network's physical layer. The MAC layer emulates a full-duplex logical communication
channel in a multi-point network. This channel may
provide unicast, multicast orbroadcast communication service.

MAC Addressing (Media Access Control address)

In a local area network (LAN) or other network, the MAC (Media Access Control) address is
your computer's unique hardware number.

In a local area network (LAN) or other network, the MAC (Media Access Control) address is
your computer's unique hardware number. (On an Ethernet LAN, it's the same as your
Ethernet address.) When you're connected to the Internet from your computer (or host as the
Internet protocol thinks of it), a correspondence table relates your IP address to your
computer's physical (MAC) address on the LAN.

What Is a MAC Address?

The MAC address is a unique value associated with a network adapter. MAC addresses are
also known as hardware addresses or physical addresses. They uniquely identify an adapter
on a LAN.
MAC addresses are 12-digit hexadecimal numbers (48 bits in length). By convention, MAC
addresses are usually written in one of the following two formats:

MM:MM:MM:SS:SS:SS

MM-MM-MM-SS-SS-SS

The first half of a MAC address contains the ID number of the adapter manufacturer. These
IDs are regulated by an Internet standards body (see sidebar). The second half of a MAC
address represents the serial number assigned to the adapter by the manufacturer. In the
example,

00:A0:C9:14:C8:29

The prefix

00A0C9

indicates the manufacturer is Intel Corporation.

Why MAC Addresses?

Recall that TCP/IP and other mainstream networking architectures generally adopt
the OSI model. In this model, network functionality is subdivided into layers. MAC
addresses function at the data link layer (layer 2 in the OSI model). They allow
computers to uniquely identify themselves on a network at this relatively low level.

MAC vs. IP Addressing

Whereas MAC addressing works at the data link layer, IP addressing functions at the network
layer (layer 3). It's a slight oversimplification, but one can think of IP addressing as
supporting the software implementation and MAC addresses as supporting the hardware
implementation of the network stack. The MAC address generally remains fixed and follows
the network device, but the IP address changes as the network device moves from one
network to another.

IP networks maintain a mapping between the IP address of a device and its MAC address.
This mapping is known as the ARP cache or ARP table. ARP, the Address Resolution
Protocol, supports the logic for obtaining this mapping and keeping the cache up to date.
DHCP also usually relies on MAC addresses to manage the unique assignment of IP
addresses to devices.

Binary Exponential Back-off (BEB) Algorithm

In a variety of computer networks, binary exponential backoff or truncated binary

exponential backoff refers to an algorithm used to space out repeated retransmissions of the
same block of data, often as part of network congestion avoidance.

Examples are the retransmission of frames in carrier sense multiple access with collision
avoidance (CSMA/CA) and carrier sense multiple access with collision
detection(CSMA/CD) networks, where this algorithm is part of the channel access method
used to send data on these networks. In Ethernet networks, the algorithm is commonly used
to schedule retransmissions after collisions. The retransmission is delayed by an amount
of time derived from the slot time and the number of attempts to retransmit.

After c collisions, a random number of slot times between 0 and 2c - 1 is chosen. For the first
collision, each sender will wait 0 or 1 slot times. After the second collision, the senders will
wait anywhere from 0 to 3 slot times (inclusive). After the third collision, the senders will
wait anywhere from 0 to 7 slot times (inclusive), and so forth. As the number of
retransmission attempts increases, the number of possibilities for delay increases
exponentially.

The 'truncated' simply means that after a certain number of increases, the exponentiation
stops; i.e. the retransmission timeout reaches a ceiling, and thereafter does not increase any
further. For example, if the ceiling is set at i = 10 (as it is in the IEEE 802.3 CSMA/CD
standard), then the maximum delay is 1023 slot times.

Because these delays cause other stations that are sending to collide as well, there is a
possibility that, on a busy network, hundreds of people may be caught in a single collision
set. Because of this possibility, the process is aborted after 16 attempts at transmission.
 Lecture-2
Distributed Random Access Schemes/Contention Schemes: for Data Services (ALOHA
and Slotted ALOHA)

ALOHA: ALOHA is a system for coordinating and arbitrating access to a shared

communication Networks channel. It was developed in the 1970s by Norman Abramson and
his colleagues at the University of Hawaii. The original system used for ground based radio
broadcasting, but the system has been implemented in satellite communication systems.
A shared communication system like ALOHA requires a method of handling collisions that
occur when two or more systems attempt to transmit on the channel at the same time. In the
ALOHA system, a node transmits whenever data is available to send. If another node
transmits at the same time, a collision occurs, and the frames that were transmitted are lost.
However, a node can listen to broadcasts on the medium, even its own, and determine
whether the frames were transmitted.
Aloha means "Hello". Aloha is a multiple access protocol at the datalink layer and proposes
how multiple terminals access the medium without interference or collision. In 1972 Roberts
developed a protocol that would increase the capacity of aloha two fold. The Slotted Aloha
protocol involves dividing the time interval into discrete slots and each slot interval
corresponds to the time period of one frame. This method requires synchronization between
the sending nodes to prevent collisions.
There are two different versior.s/types of ALOHA:
(i) Pure ALOHA
(ii) Slottecl ALOHA

(i) Pure ALOHA

• In pure ALOHA, the stations transmit frames whenever they have data to send.
• When two or more stations transmit simultaneously, there is collision and the frames are
destroyed.
• In pure ALOHA, whenever any station transmits a frame, it expects the acknowledgement
from the receiver.
• If acknowledgement is not received within specified time, the station assumes that the frame
(or acknowledgement) has been destroyed.
• If the frame is destroyed because of collision the station waits for a random amount of time
and sends it again. This waiting time must be random otherwise same frames will collide
again and again.
• Therefore pure ALOHA dictates that when time-out period passes, each station must wait
for a random amount of time before resending its frame. This randomness will help avoid
more collisions.
• Figure shows an example of frame collisions in pure ALOHA.

In fig there are four stations that .contended with one another for access to shared
channel. All these stations are transmitting frames. Some of these frames collide
because multiple frames are in contention for the shared channel. Only two frames,
frame 1.1 and frame 2.2 survive. All other frames are destroyed.

• Whenever two frames try to occupy the channel at the same time, there will be a
collision and both will be damaged. If first bit of a new frame overlaps with just the
last bit of a frame almost finished, both frames will be totally destroyed and both will
have to be retransmitted.

(ii) Slotted ALOHA

• Slotted ALOHA was invented to improve the efficiency of pure ALOHA as chances
of collision in pure ALOHA are very high.

• In slotted ALOHA, the time of the shared channel is divided into discrete intervals
called slots.

• The stations can send a frame only at the beginning of the slot and only one frame
is sent in each slot.

In slotted ALOHA, if any station is not able to place the frame onto the channel at
the beginning of the slot i.e. it misses the time slot then the station has to wait until
the beginning of the next time slot.

• In slotted ALOHA, there is still a possibility of collision if two stations try to send at
the beginning of the same time slot as shown in fig.

• Slotted ALOHA still has an edge over pure ALOHA as chances of collision are
reduced to one-half.
 Lecture-3
For Local-Area Networks (CSMA, CSMA/CD, CSMA/CA) [RGPV DEC 2012]

Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) is a probabilistic media access control (MAC)
protocol in which a node verifies the absence of other traffic before transmitting on a
shared transmission medium, such as an electrical bus, or a band of the electromagnetic
spectrum.
Carrier sense means that a transmitter uses feedback from a receiver to determine whether
another transmission is in progress before initiating a transmission. That is, it tries to detect
the presence of a carrier wave from another station before attempting to transmit. If a carrier
is sensed, the station waits for the transmission in progress to finish before initiating its own
transmission. In other words, CSMA is based on the principle "sense before transmit" or
"listen before talk".
Multiple access means that multiple stations send and receive on the medium. Transmissions
by one node are generally received by all other stations connected to the medium.

CSMA/CA (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance) is a protocolfor carrier

transmission in 802.11 networks. Unlike CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple
Access/Collision Detect) which deals with transmissions after a collision has occurred,
CSMA/CA acts to prevent collisions before they happen.

CSMA/CD - Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detection

Short for Carrier Sense Multiple Access / Collision Detection, a set of rules determining
how network devices respond when two devices attempt to use a data channel simultaneously
(called acollision). Standard Ethernet networks use CSMA/CD to physically monitor the
traffic on the line at participating stations. If no transmission is taking place at the time, the
particular station can transmit. If two stations attempt to transmit simultaneously, this causes
a collision, which is detected by all participating stations. After a random time interval, the
stations that collided attempt to transmit again. If another collision occurs, the time intervals
from which the random waiting time is selected are increased step by step. This is known as
exponential back off.
CSMA/CD is a type of contention protocol. Networks using the CSMA/CD procedure are
simple to implement but do not have deterministic transmission characteristics. The
CSMA/CD method is internationally standardized inIEEE 802.3 and ISO 8802.3.
CSMA/CA - Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance
Short for Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance,
network contention protocol that listens to a network in order to avoid collisions,
unlike CSMA/CD that deals with network transmissions once collisions have been detected.
CSMA/CA contributes to network traffic because, before any real data is transmitted, it has to
broadcast a signal onto the network in order to listen for collision scenarios and to tell other
devices not to broadcast.

What is CSMA/CA?
The Carrier-Sense Multiple Access/Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) access method, as the
name indicates, has several characteristics in common with CSMA/CD. The difference is in
the last of the three components: Instead of detecting data collisions, the CSMA/CA method
attempts to avoid them altogether.

Although it sounds good in theory, the method it uses to do this causes some problems of its
own, which is one reason CSMA/CA is a far less popular access method than CSMA/CD.

How CSMA/CA works?

On a network that uses the CSMA/CA access method, when a computer has data to transmit,
its NIC first checks the cable to determine if there is already data on the wire. So far, the
process is identical to CSMA/CD.

However, if the NIC senses that the cable is not in use, it still does not send its data packet.
Instead, it sends a signal of intent--indicating that it is about to transmit data--out onto the
cable.
 Lecture-4

Collision Free Protocols: Basic Bit Map, BRAP, Binary Count Down

Collision Free Protocols

A collision-free protocol for transmitting frames between stations connected over a shared
transmission medium such as an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet LAN. A logical ring is formed and a
token is circulated among the connected stations part of the logical ring (not all connected
stations are required to be part of the logical ring). Transmitting from any one station, part of
the logical ring, is permitted only while holding the token, therefore preventing collisions. A
collision-free protocol, over a standard Ethernet infrastructure, becomes feasible, yet remains
compatible with the standard collision protocol, thus improving performances.

Basic Bit Map

This is how the Basic Bit-Map Protocol works.

1. Assume N stations are numbered from 1 to N.

2. There is a contention period of N slots (bits).
3. Each station has one slot time during the contention period, numbered 1 to N.
4. Station J sends a 1-bit reservation during Jth slot time if it wants to transmit a frame.
5. Every station sees all the 1-bit reservation transmitted during the contention period, so
each station knows which stations want to transmit.
6. After the contention period, each station that asserted its desire to transmit sends its
frame in the order of station number.

BRAP

Backup Route Aware Routing Program (BRAP) is a protocol that provides interdomain
routing. BRAP uses reverse paths and backup paths to ensure fast failure recovery in
networking systems.

Binary Count Down

One problem with Basic Bit-Map Protocol is that the overhead is 1 bit per frame per station.
We can do better by using binary station addresses.

 A station wanting to use the channel now broadcasts its address as a binary bit string
in serial fashion.
 As soon as a station sees that a high-order bit position that is 0 in its address has been
overwritten by a 1, it gives up (meaning some high order station wants to transmit).
 The remaining stations keep sending their addresses on the network, until a winner
merges.
  The wining station sends out the frame. The bidding process repeats.

For exapmle, if stations 0010, 0100, 1001, and 1010 are all trying to get the channel, in the
first bit time the four stations transmit 0, 0, 1, and 1, respectively. These are ORed together
resulting in a 1. Stations 0010 and 0100 see the 1 and know that a higher-numbered station is
competing for the channel, so they give up for the current round. Stations 1001 and 1010
continue. The next bit sent from both stations is 0, both continues. The next bit is 1, so station
1001 gives up. The winner is 1010. This station transmits its frame. Then a new bidding
process begins. The channel efficiency is now d/(d + ln N)
 Lecture-5

MLMA Limited Contention Protocols: Adaptive Tree Walk

Under conditions of light load, contention is preferable due to its low delay. As the load
increases, contention becomes increasingly less attractive, because the overload associated
with channel arbitration becomes greater. Just the reverse is true for contention - free
protocols. At low load, they have high delay, but as the load increases , the channel efficiency
improves rather than getting worse as it does for contention protocols.

Obviously it would be better if one could combine the best properties of the contention and
contention - free protocols, that is, protocol which used contention at low loads to provide
low delay, but used a cotention-free technique at high load to provide good channel
efficiency. Such protocols do exist and are called Limited contention protocols.

It is obvious that the probablity of some station aquiring the channel could only be increased
by decreasing the amount of competition. The limited contention protocols do exactly that.
They first divide the stations up into ( not necessarily disjoint ) groups. Only the members of
group 0 are permitted to compete for slot 0. The competition for aquiring the slot within a
group is contention based. If one of the members of that group succeeds, it aquires the
channel and transmits a frame. If there is collision or no node of a particular group wants to
send then the members of the next group compete for the next slot. The probablity of a
particular node is set to a particular value ( optimum ).

Adaptive Tree Walk Protocol

The following is the method of adaptive tree protocol. Initially all the nodes are allowed to
try to aquire the channel. If it is able to aquire the channel, it sends its frame. If there is
collision then the nodes are divided into two equal groups and only one of these groups
compete for slot 1. If one of its member aquires the channel then the next slot is reserved for
the other group. On the other hand, if there is a collision then that group is again subdivided
and the same process is followed. This can be better understood if the nodes are thought of as
being organised in a binary tree .

What is MLMA protocol?

Multi-Level Multi-Access (MLMA): The problem with BRAP is the delay when the channel
is lightly loaded. When there is no frame to be transmitted, the N-bit headers just go on and
on until a station inserts a 1 into its mini slot. On average, the waiting time would be N=2.
MLAM scheme [41] is nearly as efficient under high channel load, but has shorter delay
under low channel load. In MLAM, a station wants to transmit a frame sends its identification
in a particular format. A group of 10 bits (called decade) is used to represent a digit of the
station number [48].
 Lecture-6
URN Protocol

Uniform resource name

In computing, a uniform resource name (URN) is the historical name for a uniform resource
identifier (URI) that uses the urn scheme. A URI is a string of characters used to identify a
name of a web resource. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the
web resource over a network, typically the World Wide Web, using specific protocols.

URNs were intended to serve as persistent, location-independent identifiers, allowing the

simple mapping ofnamespaces into a single URN namespace.[1] The existence of such a URI
does not imply availability of the identified resource, but such URIs are required to remain
globally unique and persistent, even when the resource ceases to exist or becomes
unavailable.

Since RFC 3986[2] in 2005, the use of the term has been deprecated in favor of the less-
restrictive "URI", a view proposed by a joint working group between the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) and Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Both URNs and uniform
resource locators (URLs) are URIs, and a particular URI may be a name and a locator at the
same time.URNs were originally intended in the 1990s to be part of a three-part information
architecture for the Internet, along with URLs anduniform resource characteristics (URCs),
a metadata framework. However, URCs never progressed past the conceptual stage, and other
technologies such as the Resource Description Framework later took their place.

(Uniform Resource Name) A name that identifies a resource on the Internet. Unlike URLs,
which use network addresses (domain, directory path, file name), URNs use regular words
that are protocol and location independent. Providing a higher level of abstraction, URNs are
persistent (never change) and require a resolution service similar to the DNS system in order
to convert names into real addresses. For the most part, URNs have evolved into XRI
identifiers (see XDI). See URI and URL.
 Lecture-7
High Speed LAN: Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet

What is high speed LAN?

Most modern local networks use cables, adaptors and connecting devices that can
communicate at a maximum speed of 100Mbits/sec (quick enough - in theory - to move an
8Mb file from one computer to another in 1 second).

This is a high speed LAN. There is a newer standard of network which has a maximum speed
of 1000Mbits/sec (x10 speed), which requires new adaptors and hardware.

HCL VM -10 - Very High Speed LAN Extender

HCL VM -10 LAN Extender is a Long Reach Ethernet media converter with one Ethernet
port (RJ-45 connector) and one VDSL port (RJ-11 connector) This model is a bridge mode
modem, well accommodating VDSL2 (Very-high-data-rate Digital Subscribe Loop)
technologies to extend Ethernet service over single-pair phone line. Supporting both
symmetric and asymmetric transmission, it can reach up to 100/75 Mbps bandwidth (line
rate) within 300M or 10/10 Mbps (line rate) for 1 Km long range connections. By providing
ultra-high speed, HCL VM -10 LAN Extender makes your telephone line achieve its best
performance than before. It has the advantage of minimum installation time (simply as plug-
n-play) and minimum expense by allowing video streaming and data to share the same
telephone pair without interference.

 Cost effective bridge function to connect two Ethernet LAN

 Support flow control on Fast Ethernet port via PAUSE frame or Back Pressure
 IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tag transparent
 Easy installation via simple plug-and-play
 Selectable CPE and CO mode via DIP switch:
 Two working modes are built in the same unit, which keep the flexibility of
installation and easy provision of service but lower inventory of service provider.
 Selectable fast and interleaved mode:
 Fast mode guarantees a minimum end to end latency less than1 ms. Interleaved mode
provides impulse noises protection for any impulse noise with a duration less than 250
us, Interleaved mode has a maximum end to end latency of 10 m sec. Interleaved
mode is the default mode.
 Selectable target data rate and target SNR margin:
 User has the ability to select fixed SNR margin (9 dB) or fixed target data rate.
 When fixed SNR margin is selected, the systems will maintain the SNR margin at 9
dB across all usable loop length. When fixed target data rate is selected, the system
will lock the data rate up to 50 Mbps/30 Mbps whenever the calculated SNR margin
is higher than 9 dB. This gives best system stability and is the default mode.
 Lecture-8
FDDI [RGPV JUNE 2011]

FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) is a set of ANSI and ISO standards for data
transmission on fiber optic lines in a local area network (LAN) that can extend in range up to
200 km (124 miles). The FDDI protocol is based on the token ring protocol. In addition to
being large geographically, an FDDI local area network can support thousands of users.
FDDI is frequently used on the backbone for a wide area network (WAN).

Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) is a standard for data transmission in a local area
network. It uses optical fiber as its standard underlying physical medium, although it was also
later specified to use copper cable, in which case it may be called CDDI (Copper Distributed
Data Interface), standardized as TP-PMD (Twisted-Pair Physical Medium-Dependent), also
referred to as TP-DDI (Twisted-Pair Distributed Data Interface).

Performance Measuring Metrics

Network Performance Evaluation

For a given network, one might be interested to know how well it is performing. One might
also wish to know what could be done to further improve the performance, or if the network
is giving the peak performance. Thus, one needs to do a comparative study of the network by
considering different options. This performance evaluation helps the user to determine the
suitable network configuration that serves him best.

For example consider a new startup organization which has setup its own web portal. As the
portal gradually becomes popular then network traffic increases which would degrade its
performance. Therefore, one should have a well configured network with proper load
balancing capabilities.

Performance Evaluation Metrics

Before we can proceed with performance evaluation, we must choose the different metrics
that would help us in making comparisons. There could be different metrics to determine the
performance like throughput, delay, jitter, packet loss. The choice of metric would depend
upon the purpose the network has been setup for. The metrics could be related to the different
layers of the network stack. For example, TCP throughput is based on the application layer,
whereas IP round trip time is based on the network layer. For example, a network supporting
multimedia applications should have minimum delay and jitter.Packet loss might not be a
critical issue for such network. However, packet loss might be a considerable factor for
networks supporting textual data oriented applications, say someone downloading by FTP.

Once the metrics have been chosen, one goes for their quantitative evaluation by subjecting
the network under diverse conditions. For example, one could make step by step increments
in bandwidth of the links, which in turn improve the throughput. However, the throughput
might get saturated beyond the certain point. That is, further increase in bandwidth would not
improve throughput. Thus, the optimum value of bandwidth has been determined.

The table below shows different metrics of evaluation, and categories

 It might not be always possible or feasible to obtain best performance from a network
due to various factors like high cost,complexity, compatibility. In such cases one
would like to obtain optimum performance by balancing different factors.

Following are some of the performance measurement metrics:

 Latency: It can take a long time for a packet to be delivered across intervening
networks. In reliable protocols where a receiver acknowledges delivery of each chunk
of data, it is possible to measure this as round-trip time.
 Packet loss: In some cases, intermediate devices in a network will lose packets. This
may be due to errors, to overloading of the intermediate network, or to intentional
discarding of traffic in order to enforce a particular service level.
 Retransmission: When packets are lost in a reliable network, they are retransmitted.
This incurs two delays: First, the delay from re-sending the data; and second, the
delay resulting from waiting until the data is received in the correct order before
forwarding it up the protocol stack.
 Throughput: The amount of traffic a network can carry is measured as throughput,
usually in terms such as kilobits per second. Throughput is analogous to the number
of lanes on a highway, whereas latency is analogous to its speed limit.

Parameters Affecting the Performance of a Network

 Different parameters can together or independently determine how well a network

would perform. A few such are mentioned below:
  Bandwidth: Its is the maximum data transfer rate which a link allows.It is expressed
in bits per second(bps).
 Propagation Delay: It is the amount of time required to for a packet to travel from one
node to another.If the propagation delay is high then throughput will be low i.e they
are inversely proportional to each other.
 Queue type and queue size: The queue of a node is implemented as a part of a link
whose input is that node to handle the overflow at the queue.But if the buffer capacity
of the output queue is exceeded then the last packet arrived is dropped.We do set the
buffer capacity by using queue size.

Performance Evaluation Techniques

 Before starting with tuning the performance of a network one must remember that the
performance, to some extent, depends on the workload as well as the topology. A
given topology might give different throughputs under CBR and exponential traffic.
Keeping this in mind, one can go for studying an actual network. Otherwise one can
simulate its performance using suitable parameters. these simulations would largely
depend on queuing theory.

Network Performance Evaluation using NS2

 In this section we discuss how to evaluate performance of a network by simulating it

with ns2.

 Choose and generate a network topology to be used throughout the simulation. This
could be a wired network, in which case the topology remains fixed. However, for a
wireless network with mobile nodes the topology would change with time, or
randomly.
 Once the topology has been generated, traffic source(s) and destination(s) are fixed.
Assign suitable traffic sources to the source nodes, and traffic sinks to the destination
nodes.
 Some of the parameters that can be used for comparative study of performance of the
network are: link bandwidth, propagation delay, node queue type. For example: In ns2
we do create a link by using this code:


1 $ns simplex-link $n2 $n3 0.3Mb 100ms DropTail
In this code there could be three parameters namely bandwidth, propagation delay and
queue type.
We can vary these parameters and could possibly obtain different throughputs. From
there we can determine the conditions that provide higher throughput values.In
general, we can alter different parameters and study their effects on one or more
performance metrics and thereby filter out the combination of parameters that gives
best performance.
 Performance of the network can be determined by considering different metrics for
example 'Throughput'
 We can vary these parameters and could possibly obtain different throughputs, which
can be plotted using xgraph
 From there we can determine the conditions that provide higher throughput values
 Make suitable combinations with the parameters that wil bring some changes in the
throughput
 Use the best combination of parameters which will bring the best throughput and
implement it
 We are considering only one performance metric i.e throughput in our
experiment.Other metrics like packet loss,latency,retransmission can measured to
evaluate the performance of a network in a more accurate way which will help us to
setup the network in a proper way.
 Lecture-9
IEEE Standards 802 series & their variant

IEEE 802 refers to a family of IEEE standards dealing with local area
networks and metropolitan area networks.

More specifically, the IEEE 802 standards are restricted to networks carrying variable-size
packets. (By contrast, in cell relay networks data is transmitted in short, uniformly sized units
called cells. Isochronous networks, where data is transmitted as a steady stream of octets, or
groups of octets, at regular time intervals, are also out of the scope of this standard.) The
number 802 was simply the next free number IEEE could assign,[1] though “802” is
sometimes associated with the date the first meeting was held — February 1980.

The services and protocols specified in IEEE 802 map to the lower two layers (Data Link and
Physical) of the seven-layer OSI networking reference model. In fact, IEEE 802 splits the
OSI Data Link Layer into two sub-layers named Logical Link Control (LLC) and Media
Access Control (MAC), so that the layers can be listed like this:

 Data link layer

 LLC Sublayer
 MAC Sublayer
 Physical layer

The IEEE 802 family of standards is maintained by the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards
Committee (LMSC). The most widely used standards are for the Ethernet family, Token
Ring, Wireless LAN, Bridging and Virtual Bridged LANs. An individual Working
Group provides the focus for each area.

The IEEE 802.x Standard

The bottom two layers of the OSI reference model pertain to hardware: the NIC and the
network cabling. To further refine the requirements for hardware that operate within these
layers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has developed
enhancements specific to different NICs and cabling. Collectively, these refinements are
known as the 802 project. This lesson describes these enhancements and how they relate to
OSI.

The 802 Project Model

When local area networks (LANs) first began to emerge as potential business tools in the late
1970s, the IEEE realized that there was a need to define certain LAN standards. To
accomplish this task, the IEEE launched what became known as Project 802, named for the
year and month it began (1980, February).

Although the published IEEE 802 standards actually predated the ISO standards, both were in
development at roughly the same time, and both shared information that resulted in the
creation of two compatible models.

Project 802 defined network standards for the physical components of a network (the
interface card and the cabling) that are accounted for in the physical and data-link layers of
the OSI reference model.

The 802 specifications set standards for:

 Network interface cards (NICs).

 Wide area network (WAN) components.
 Components used to create twisted-pair and coaxial cable networks.

The 802 specifications define the ways NICs access and transfer data over physical media.
These include connecting, maintaining, and disconnecting network devices.

RGPV PAPER QUESTIONS

Q.1 Define FDDI? [RGPV June 2011],[RGPV Dec 2012],[RGPV June 2013]

Q.2 Explain MAC Sublayer? [RGPV June 2011], [RGPV June 2013]
Q.3 Explain ALOHA Protocol? [RGPV June 2012] ,[RGPV Dec 2012], [RGPV June 2014]
Q.4 Explain Contention Protocol?[RGPV June 2012]
Q.5 How does CSMA/CD different from CSMA/CA?[RGPV Dec 2012],[RGPV June 2013]