ECM 521
Communication Networks
Lecture 2
Physical Layer
Outlines:
Throughput & Delay
Physical layer
Beginning to work our way up starting with
the Physical layer
Physical layer
Foundation on which other layers build
• Properties of wires, fiber, wireless limit
what the network can do
Key problem is to send (digital) bits using
only (analog) signals
This is called modulation
CN5E by Tanenbaum & Wetherall, © Pearson Education-Prentice Hall and D. Wetherall, 2011
Physical layer
Scope of the physical layer:
Simple Link Model
• Bit rate: bits/sec depends on the channel’s
bandwidth
• Delay: how long does it take a bit to get to the end?
• Error rate: what is the probability of a bit flipping?
Throughput
The throughput is a measure of how fast we
can actually send data through a network.
Although, at first glance, bandwidth in bits per
second and throughput seem the same, they
are different. A link may have a bandwidth of
B bps, but we can only send T bps through this
link with T always less than B.
3.9
Example 1
A network with bandwidth of 10 Mbps can pass only an
average of 12,000 frames per minute with each frame
carrying an average of 10,000 bits. What is the throughput
of this network?
Solution
We can calculate the throughput as
The throughput is almost one-fifth of the bandwidth in this
case.
Latency (Delay)
The latency or delay defines how long it takes for an
entire message to completely arrive at the destination
from the time the first bit is sent out from the source.
We can say that latency is made of four components:
Propagation time,
Transmission time,
Queuing time, and
Processing delay.
Simple Link Model
• Over a wire, the signal has a finite propagation
speed (2/3 c)
Simple Link Model
Message latency (for this simple model ignore
queuing and processing delay):
Simple Link Model
Latency Examples:
Simple Link Model
Latency Examples:
Transmission
delay dominates
Propagation
delay ignored
Transmission
delay ignored
Propagation
delay dominates
Example 2
What is the propagation time if the distance between the two
points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed to be
2.4 × 108 m/s in cable.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation time as
Example 2
What is the propagation time if the distance between the two
points is 12,000 km? Assume the propagation speed to be
2.4 × 108 m/s in cable.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation time as
The example shows that a bit can go over the Atlantic Ocean
in only 50 ms if there is a direct cable between the source
and the destination.
Example 3
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for a
2.5-KB (kilobyte) message if the bandwidth of the network is
1 Gbps? Assume that the distance between the sender and the
receiver is 12,000 km and that light travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission time as
Note that in this case, because the message is short and the
bandwidth is high, the dominant factor is the propagation
time, not the transmission time.
Example 4
What are the propagation time and the transmission time for
a 5-MB (megabyte) message (an image) if the bandwidth of
the network is 1 Mbps? Assume that the distance between
the sender and the receiver is 12,000 km and that light
travels at 2.4 × 108 m/s.
Solution
We can calculate the propagation and transmission times as
Bandwidth-Delay Product
Bandwidth and delay are two performance
metrics of a link. However, what is very
important in data communications is the
product of the two, the bandwidth-delay
product.
Let us elaborate on this issue, using two
hypothetical cases as examples.
Bandwidth-Delay Product
• Bits have a physical size on the channel!
• Storage capacity of a channel is: bit rate x delay
• Example:
• Given: 100 Mbps 5000-km fiber, delay = 50 msec
• In 50 msec we can pump out 5 million bits
• So the fiber can store 5 million bits in 5000 km
• 1 km holds 1000 bits so a bit is 1 meter long
• At 200 Mbps, a bit is 0.5 m long
CN5E by Tanenbaum & Wetherall, © Pearson Education-Prentice Hall and D. Wetherall, 2011
Filling the links with bits for Case 1
3.22
Filling the pipe with bits for Case 2
3.23
Bandwidth-Delay Product
We can think about the link between two points as a pipe.
The cross section of the pipe represents the bandwidth, and
the length of the pipe represents the delay. We can say the
volume of the pipe defines the bandwidth-delay product, as
shown in the Figure below:
