UNTI-IV
The Medium access control sub layer
Channel Allocation Problem in Computer Network
FIXED CHANNEL ALLOCATION(FCA) DYNAMIC CHANNEL ALLOCATION(DCA)
Fixed number of channels or
voice channels are allocated to Fixed number of channels are not
cells. allocated to cells.
If all the channels are occupied and user
If all the channels are occupied make a call then Base Station(BS) request
and user make a call then the call more channel to the Mobile Station
will be blocked in FCA. Center(MSC).
Frequency reuse is maximum Frequency reuse is not that maximum in
FIXED CHANNEL ALLOCATION(FCA) DYNAMIC CHANNEL ALLOCATION(DCA)
because cells channels are DCA because of channel randomness
separated by minimum reuse allocation.
distance.
In DCA complex algorithms are used to
In FCA no such complex decide which available channel is most
algorithms are used. efficient.
Fixed Channel Allocation Dynamic Channel Allocation Strategy is
Strategy is less costly than the costly because lot of computation is
DCA required in real-time.
In FCA allocated channels In DCA once the call is completed then
remains to the cell, once the call the channel or the voice channel return to
is completed the MSC.
Mobile Station Center(MSC) has Mobile Station Center(MSC) has more
less responsibilities. signalling load and responsibilities.
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 versions of ALOHA
Pure ALOHA
pure ALOHA, the stations transmit frames whenever they have data to send.
stations transmit simultaneously, there is collision and the frames are
destroyed.
receiver.
acknowledgement) has been destroyed.
sends it again. This waiting time must be random otherwise same frames will collide again and again.
-out period passes, each station must wait for a
random amount of time before resending its frame. This randomness will help avoid more collisions.
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.
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.
Slotted ALOHA
pure ALOHA are very high.
slot.
the slot i.e. it misses the time slot then the station has to wait until the beginning of the next time
slot.
the same time slot as shown in fig.
-half.
Protocol Flow Chart for ALOHA
Fig. shows the protocol flow chart for ALOHA.
Explanation:
sends the packet again.
Carrier Sensed Multiple Access (CSMA) : CSMA is a network access method used on shared network
topologies such as Ethernet to control access to the network. Devices attached to the network cable
listen (carrier sense) before transmitting. If the channel is in use, devices wait before transmitting.
MA (Multiple Access) indicates that many devices can connect to and share the same network. All
devices have equal access to use the network when it is clear.
In other words, a station that wants to communicate "listen" first on the media communication and
awaits a "silence" of a preset time (called the Distributed Inter Frame Space or DIFS). After this
compulsory period, the station starts a countdown for a random period considered. The maximum
duration of this countdown is called the collision window (Window Collision, CW). If no equipment
speaks before the end of the countdown, the station simply deliver its package. However, if it is
overtaken by another station, it stops immediately its countdown and waits for the next silence. She
then continued his account countdown where it left off. This is summarized in Figure. The waiting
time random has the advantage of allowing a statistically equitable distribution of speaking time
between the various network equipment, while making little unlikely (but not impossible) that both
devices speak exactly the same time. The countdown system prevents a station waiting too long
before issuing its package. It's a bit what place in a meeting room when no master session (and all
the World's polite) expected a silence, then a few moments before speaking, to allow time for
someone else to speak. The time is and randomly assigned, that is to say, more or less equally.
Again, this is what we do naturally in a meeting room if many people speak exactly the same time,
they are realizing account immediately (as they listen at the same time they speak), and they
interrupt without completing their sentence. After a while, one of them speaks again. If a new
collision occurs, the two are interrupted again and tend to wait a little longer before speaking again.
CSMA protocol was developed to overcome the problem found in ALOHA i.e. to minimize the
chances of collision, so as to improve the performance. CSMA protocol is based on the principle of
'carrier sense'. The station senses the carrier or channel before transmitting a frame. It means the
station checks the state of channel, whether it is idle or busy.
Even though devices attempt to sense whether the network is in use, there is a good chance that
two stations will attempt to access it at the same time. On large networks, the transmission time
between one end of the cable and another is enough that one station may access the cable even
though another has already just accessed it.
The chances of collision still exist because of propagation delay. The frame transmitted by one
station takes some time to reach other stations. In the meantime, other stations may sense the
channel to be idle and transmit their frames. This results in the collision.
There Are Three Different Type of CSMA Protocols
(I) I-persistent CSMA
(ii) Non- Persistent CSMA
(iii) p-persistent CSMA
(i) I-persistent CSMA
whether the channel is idle or busy.
-channel, it immediately transmits the frame with probability 1.
Hence it is called I-persistent CSMA.
be idle at the same time and transmit their frames.
Drawback of I-persistent
begins its transmission, station 2 also became ready to send its data and senses the channel. If the
station I signal has not yet reached station 2, station 2 will sense the channel to be idle and will begin
its transmission. This will result in collision.
Even if propagation delay time is zero, collision will still occur. If two stations became .ready in the
middle of third station's transmission, both stations will wait until the transmission of first station
ends and then both will begin their transmission exactly simultaneously. This will also result in
collision.
(ii) Non-persistent CSMA
(some
other station is transmitting) then it will wait for fixed interval oftime.
transmit.
-persistent CSMA the station does not continuously sense the channel for the purpose of
capturing it when it detects the end of previous transmission.
Advantage of non-persistent
that two or more stations will wait for same amount of time and will retransmit at the same time.
Disadvantage of non-persistent
with frames to send. This is due to the fact that the stations wait a random amount of time after the
collision.
(iii) p-persistent CSMA
greater than the maximum propagation delay time.
-p, the station then waits for the beginning of the next time slot.
transmitting.
and it waits a random amount of time and starts again.
Advantage of p-persistent
We have observed that CSMA/CD would break down in wireless networks because of hidden node
and exposed nodes problems. We will have a quick recap of these two problems through examples.
Hidden Node Problem
In the case of wireless network it is possible that A is sending a message to B, but C is out of its range
and hence while "listening" on the network it will find the network to be free and might try to send
packets to B at the same time as A. So, there will be a collision at B. The problem can be looked upon
as if A and C are hidden from each other. Hence it is called the "hidden node problem".
Exposed Node Problem
If C is transmitting a message to D and B wants to transmit a message to A, B will find the network to
be busy as B hears C trnasmitting. Even if B would have transmitted to A, it would not have been a
problem at A or D. CSMA/CD would not allow it to transmit message to A, while the two
transmissions could have gone in parallel.
Collision free protocols :
Reservation
Protocols
d
Ethernet at the Physical layer:
IEEE 802.3 Popular Versions
There are a number of versions of IEEE 802.3 protocol. The most popular ones are -
IEEE 802.3: This was the original standard given for 10BASE-5. It used a thick single coaxial
cable into which a connection can be tapped by drilling into the cable to the core. Here, 10 is
the maximum throughput, i.e. 10 Mbps, BASE denoted use of baseband transmission, and 5
refers to the maximum segment length of 500m.
IEEE 802.3a: This gave the standard for thin coax (10BASE-2), which is a thinner variety
where the segments of coaxial cables are connected by BNC connectors. The 2 refers to the
maximum segment length of about 200m (185m to be precise).
IEEE 802.3i: This gave the standard for twisted pair (10BASE-T) that uses unshielded twisted
pair (UTP) copper wires as physical layer medium. The further variations were given by IEEE
802.3u for 100BASE-TX, 100BASE-T4 and 100BASE-FX.
IEEE 802.3i: This gave the standard for Ethernet over Fiber (10BASE-F) that uses fiber optic
cables as medium of transmission.
Ethernet MAC sub layer Frame Format of Classic Ethernet and IEEE 802.3
The main fields of a frame of classic Ethernet are -
Preamble: It is the starting field that provides alert and timing pulse for transmission. In case
of classic Ethernet it is an 8 byte field and in case of IEEE 802.3 it is of 7 bytes.
Start of Frame Delimiter: It is a 1 byte field in a IEEE 802.3 frame that contains an alternating
pattern of ones and zeros ending with two ones.
Destination Address: It is a 6 byte field containing physical address of destination stations.
Source Address: It is a 6 byte field containing the physical address of the sending station.
Length: It a 7 bytes field that stores the number of bytes in the data field.
Data: This is a variable sized field carries the data from the upper layers. The maximum size
of data field is 1500 bytes.
Padding: This is added to the data to bring its length to the minimum requirement of 46
bytes.
CRC: CRC stands for cyclic redundancy check. It contains the error detection information.
Ethernet Performance:
Ethernet is a set of technologies and protocols that are used primarily in LANs. The performance of
Ethernet is analysed by computing the efficiency of the channel under different load conditions.
Let us assume an Ethernet network has k stations and each station transmits with a probability p
during a contention slot. Let A be the probability that some station acquires the channel. A is
calculated as:
kp
The value of A is maximized at p = 1/k. If there can be innumerable stations connected to the
Let Q be the probability that the contention period has exactly j slots. Q is calculated as:
Let M be the mean number of slots per contention. So, the value of M will be:
Given that is the propagation time, each slot has duration 2 Hence the mean contention interval,
will be 2 A.
Let P be the time is seconds for a frame to propagate.
The channel efficiency, when a number of stations want to send frame, can be calculated as:
Let F be the length of frame, B be the cable length, L be the cable length, c be the speed of signal
propagation and e be the contention slots per frame. The channel efficiency in terms of these
parameters is:
Fast Ethernet:
In computer networks, Fast Ethernet is a variation of Ethernet standards that carry data traffic at
100 Mbps (Mega bits per second) in local area networks (LAN). It was launched as the IEEE 802.3u
standard in 1995, and stayed the fastest network till the introduction of Gigabit Ethernet.
Fast Ethernet is popularly named as 100-BASE-X. Here, 100 is the maximum throughput, i.e. 100
Mbps, BASE denoted use of baseband transmission, and X is the type of medium used, which is TX or
FX.
Varieties of Fast Ethernet
The common varieties of fast Ethernet are 100-Base-TX, 100-BASE-FX and 100-Base-T4.
100-Base-T4
o This has four pairs of UTP of Category 3, two of which are bi-directional and the
other two are unidirectional.
o In each direction, three pairs can be used simultaneously for data transmission.
o Each twisted pair is capable of transmitting a maximum of 25Mbaud data. Thus the
three pairs can handle a maximum of 75Mbaud data.
o It uses the encoding scheme 8B/6T (eight binary/six ternary).
100-Base-TX
o This has either two pairs of unshielded twisted pairs (UTP) category 5 wires or two
shielded twisted pairs (STP) type 1 wires. One pair transmits frames from hub to the
device and the other from device to hub.
o Maximum distance between hub and station is 100m.
o It has a data rate of 125 Mbps.
o It uses MLT-3 encoding scheme along with 4B/5B block coding.
100-BASE-FX
o This has two pairs of optical fibers. One pair transmits frames from hub to the device
and the other from device to hub.
o Maximum distance between hub and station is 2000m.
o It has a data rate of 125 Mbps.
o It uses NRZ-I encoding scheme along with 4B/5B block coding.
Gigabit Ethernet:
In computer networks, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) is the family of Ethernet technologies that achieve
theoretical data rates of 1 gigabit per second (1 Gbps). It was introduced in 1999 and was defined by
the IEEE 802.3ab standard.
Varieties of Gigabit Ethernet
The popular varieties of fast Ethernet are 1000Base-SX, 1000Base-LX, 1000BASE-T and 1000Base-CX.
1000BASE-CX
Defined by IEEE 802.3z standard
The initial standard for Gigabit Ethernet
Uses shielded twisted pair cables with DE-9 or 8P8C connector
Maximum segment length is 25 metres
Uses NRZ line encoding and 8B/6B block encoding
1000BASE-SX
Defined by IEEE 802.3z standard
Uses a pair of fibre optic cables of a shorter wavelength having 770 860 nm diameter
The maximum segment length varies from 220 550 metres depending upon the fiber
properties.
Uses NRZ line encoding and 8B/10B block encoding
1000BASE-LX
Defined by IEEE 802.3z standard
Uses a pair of fibre optic cables of a longer wavelength having 1270 1355 nm diameter
Maximum segment length is 500 metres
Can cover distances up to 5 km
Uses NRZ line encoding and 8B/10B block encoding
1000BASE-T
Defined by IEEE 802.3ab standard
Uses a pair four lanes of twisted-pair cables (Cat-5, Cat-5e, Cat-6, Cat-7)
Maximum segment length is 100 metres
Uses trellis code modulation technique
IEEE 802.11 Architecture
The components of an IEEE 802.11 architecture are as follows
Stations comprise all devices and equipments that are connected to the wireless
LAN. A station can be of two types:
Wireless Access Pointz WAPs or simply access points (AP) are generally wireless
routers that form the base stations or access.
Clients are workstations, computers, laptops, printers, smartphones, etc.
Each station has a wireless network interface controller.
A basic service set is a group of stations communicating at physical layer
level. BSS can be of two categories depending upon mode of operation:
Here, the devices communicate with other devices through access
points.
Here, the devices communicate in peer-to-peer basis in an ad hoc
manner.
It is a set of all connected BSS.
It connects access points in ESS.
Advantages of WLANs
They provide clutter free homes, offices and other networked places.
The LANs are scalable in nature, i.e. devices may be added or removed from the network at
a greater ease than wired LANs.
The system is portable within the network coverage and access to the network is not
bounded by the length of the cables.
Installation and setup is much easier than wired counterparts.
The equipment and setup costs are reduced.
Disadvantages of WLANs
Since radio waves are used for communications, the signals are noisier with more
interference from nearby systems.
Greater care is needed for encrypting information. Also, they are more prone to errors. So,
they require greater bandwidth than the wired LANs.
WLANs are slower than wired LANs.
IEEE 802.11 Physical Layers
The initial 802.11 standard defines two forms of spread spectrum modulation for the physical layer: frequency hopping
(802.11 FHSS) and direct sequence (802.11 DSSS). These two standards specify a 2.4GHz operating frequency with
data rates of 1 and 2Mbps. Another initial physical layer utilizes infrared passive reflection techniques for transmission
of data at 1 and 2Mbps; however, this standard has not been implemented in products.
In late 1999, the IEEE published two supplements to this 802.11 standard: 802.11a and 802.11b. The 802.11a standard
defines operation at up to 54Mbps using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation in the 5.8GHz
frequency band. The IEEE 802.11b version of the standard is a data rate extension of the initial 802.11 DSSS, providing
operation in the 2.4GHz band with additional data rates of 5.5 and 11Mbps.
Most companies implementing wireless LANs today are installing 802.11b-based systems. The 802.11 DSSS radios
interoperate with 802.11b access points; however, the 802.11 FHSS radios do not.
MAC Sublayer frame of IEEE 802.11
Frame Control
the frame.
Duration -byte field that specifies the time period for which the frame and its
acknowledgement occupy the channel.
Address fields -byte address fields containing addresses of source, immediate
destination and final endpoint respectively.
Sequence
Data
field is 2312 bytes.
Check Sequence -byte field containing error detection information.
Avoidance of Collisions by 802.11 MAC Sublayer
In wireless systems, the method of collision detection does not work. It uses a
protocol called carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance (CSMA/CA).
When a frame is ready, the transmitting station checks whether the channel is idle or busy.
If the channel is busy, the station waits until the channel becomes idle.
If the channel is idle, the station waits for an Inter-frame gap (IFG) amount of time and then sends the
frame.
After sending the frame, it sets a timer.
The station then waits for acknowledgement from the receiver. If it receives the acknowledgement
before expiry of timer, it marks a successful transmission.
Otherwise, it waits for a back-off time period and restarts the algorithm.
Co-ordination Functions in 802.11 MAC Sublayer
IEEE 802.11 MAC Sublayer uses two co-ordination functions for collision avoidance
Distributed Coordination Function (DCF)
o It is a mandatory function used in CSMA/CA.
o It is used in distributed contention-based channel access.
o It is deployed in both Infrastructure BSS (basic service set) as well as Independent BSS.
Point Coordination Function (PCF)
o It is an optional function used by 802.11 MAC Sublayer.
o It is used in centralized contention-free channel access.
o It is deployed in Infrastructure BSS only.
