Components Of Computer Networks: Bridges, Routers, DSL Modems, Switches, NICs, Hubs, And Essay.

Introduction to Data Communication

Question:

Discuss about the different components, which are used by the computer to operate on a network. 

Data communication can a referred to the transmission process of the data, which is digital between two computers or more. The concept mainly helps in exchanging of data between two devices. The physical connection between two networked devices is created using either wireless media or cable media. One of the best-known computer networks is the internet. One of the most important aspects, which can be related to the data communication, is the computer network (Sayood, 2017). A computer network is a system relating to interconnected computer and its peripherals for example printer, routers, bridge. They form the basic infrastructure related to the concept of creating a communication between more than one computer and the internet. In today’s world, many devices are taking part in this concept so that the interaction between the computer and the internet can be made secure with the involvement of speed incorporated into it.

The aim or the report is to take into consideration the different components, which are used by the computer to operate on a network. To explain the concept network environments are also taken into consideration.  In the second part of the report, different cables, which are used in the aspect of connecting one network device to another, are taken into consideration. The cables are mainly described using the concept of size, speed and cost, and on the other hand, a short description about the different wires which are used for the connection are also given which gives an overview of the cables

Bridge

A bridge is implemented to join segments or LANs workgroup. A bridge can also be incorporated to reduce the traffic or the problem by means of dividing the network into sectors. A scenario which can be taken into consideration is that if a volume of traffic from a set of one or more computers is flooding with data which results in slowing down of the LAN, a bridge can be implemented which would be isolating the department or the computer. Some of the other uses of the bridge are as follows:

• The segment length can be expanded.
• On the network, the number of computers can be increased.
• The traffic jams can be reduced which are formed from an excessive number of computer, which is attached to the network.
• It can be used to split a network into two separate networks. The concept is beneficial in the way of reducing the traffic on one network and making each of the network more secured.
• Linking of the unlike physical media can be done with the use of coaxial Ethernet and twisted pair.

The bridge is placed at the data link layer of the OSI model. Therefore, not all the information, which is in the higher level of the model, is available to them. The bridge does not discriminate between the protocols. They convey all the protocols along the network. Due to the factor that all the protocols pass through the bridge, it is left to the task of determining which protocols they can or should recognise. The data link layer consist of two sub layer attached to it, which are the media access control (MAC), and the logical link control (LLC).

Computer Networks and Infrastructure

Router

Routers are devices, which can be termed as complex that can be used to connect more than one device on the network, which is separate. In most of the routers, they have some physical interfaces to interconnect more than one network not taking into consideration of the platform of the network or the technology. The router can be implemented in a variety of architectures. They work on the network layer and for operation uses network addressing. IP addresses are universal common address so it can be stated here that a UNIX network can perform communication with a network based on windows. The router to work would be matching the packet header to the segments of the LAN and perform the best action to provide the delivery. A router will directly work out the best way in which the message can be sent to other routers. The messages, which are related to the WAN travel from one, point to another over a long distance through one or more routers (Uysal et al., 2016).

DSL Modem

The DSL Modem stands for “Digital Subscriber line”. The technology can be stated as a medium of communication, which can be used for transferring the digital signal over the concept of standard telephone lines. Along the cable internet, the DSL can be considered as one of the most preferred ways to provide broadband internet access. The normal landline can be used for a voice call using low frequency ranging from 0 Hz to 4 Hz. This range is called as the voice band range as this uses a small part of the frequency. On the other hand, it can be stated that the DSL uses a higher frequency to directly transmit the data, which is in the range of 25 KHz to 1.5 MHz these frequencies can be used for the transmission of the audible voice (20 kHz). The concept of the DSL can be implemented in computers and laptops. It is one of the several means of connecting to the internet.

Switch

A Switch can be considered a device, which works at the OSI Layer 2 or the access level. It can be implemented to connect more than one host to network. Taking into consideration a hub, a switch can forward a message to a direct host. A switch can send message to another switch, the switch decodes and receives the frame to decode the physical address, which is the MAC address. There are few categories of switches, which are available for work, for example, modular switches and stackable switches. It can be stated here that an access layer switches facilitate the connection between the end nodes devices directly to the network for example Modem, Printers, PC etc. The feature of port security decides on how and what types of devices can be allowed to be connected to the device.

Types of Cables Used in Computer Networks

Network Interface Card

The network interface card connects the user’s computer to the internet or local data network. The card directly converts the data of the computer into an electrical signal, which can be sent across the network. The popularity, which applies to the network and internet in general, virtually all the desktops and the laptops have some interface card included in it. The network card can be included to a bare bone computer, which does not have a network card. The network card functions as an intermediary, which is placed between the data network and the computer.  The function can be explained with an example such as when a user logs into a system and access the internet; the computer passes the information of the site to the network card, which converts the address into electrical pulses. The network card carries the pulses to the server of the web, which is located somewhere on the internet which response using sending a web page back to the user in the electronic form.

Hub

A hub is a box, which is rectangular often made up of plastic and receives its main power from the ordinary wall outlet. It can be used for joining multiple computers together to form a network. The network is formed in such a way that each of the computers can directly communicate with each other. A hub is also known as a network hub. It can consider as a common connection point for devices in the network. The main function of the hub is to connect devices to segments of LAN (Liggins et al., 2017). The Hub can consist of more than one port. When any packet arrives at one port, it is then copied to another port. This results in all the packets to notice all the packets. The function of the hub is very much similar to a switch, which serves as a central connection for the entire requirement related to the network. They are capable of handling data types, which are known as frames. There are three types of the hub, which are active, passive and intelligent. The Ethernet hub operates at the layer one device relating to the OSI model. The main benefit that can be achieved from the implementation is that it can temporarily replace a broken network or when on the network the performance is not a critical factor (Yang & Liao, 2016).

The Bridge: A Vital Component of Networking

Cable 1: Coaxial cable

This type of cable was invented back in the 1880s. During the period, the “coax” was one of the best-known cables that connected the television. The coaxial cable can be considered a standard for 10 Mbps Ethernet cables (Lu et al., 2015)

Size

The RG 59 is the most standard Coaxial cable, which is used. The inner conductor is made up of bare copper. The dielectric is 4.6 mm with its outer conductor made of aluminium polyester foil which surrounded by copper braid. The Coaxial cable can be cables more than the distance, which is covered by the twisted pair cables (Hayes et al., 2017)

Speed

Coaxial cable can support speed 10 to 100 Mbps. Comparing it with the speed of other cables it can be stated as quite high when compared to other cables.

Cost

The cost of Coaxial cable is $ 0.01 – 0.08.

Fiber optic cable

A fibre optic cable can be considered as a network cable that contains strands of glass fibre inside a casing, which is insulated. They are designed for long distance telecommunication involving the high performance of data.

Size

The size of fibre optic cable can be referred taking into account the outer diameter of the core, coating and cladding. For example, 50/125/250 indicates that a fibre with a core of 50 microns, cladding involved is 125 microns and a coating of 250 microns.

Speed

The speed of the fibre optic cable is very much high into the gigabits.

Cost

The cost of the Fiber optic cable is approximately $5.87 per foot (Bernardos et al., 2014).

The unshielded twisted pair cable is widely used in telecommunication and computers as telephone wires and Ethernet cables. The cables are usually grouped with colour-coded insulators, the number directly dependent on the purpose it is being used for to connect two devices.

Size

The unshielded twisted pair has an external diameter of approximately 0.43 cm (0.17 inches).

Speed

The speed of unshielded twisted pair is approximately 10 to 1000 Mbps.

Cost

The cost of unshielded twisted pair cable is $1-20.

The extra covering, which is involved in the shielded twisted pair, protects the transmission line from electronic interferences, which directly leaks out of the cable. The STP cabling is often used in Ethernet network especially to generate fast rate Ethernets contrast with UTP.

Size

The size of shielded twisted pair cable is around 0.73 cm.

Understanding Routers and their Importance in Networking

Speed

The speed of the shielded twisted pair cable is around 10 to 100 Mbps

Cost

The cost of the shielded twisted pair cable is $3 -10 (Sharma et al., 2014)

Conclusion

The report focuses on the components, which are required for the computer to operate in a network. In the report, major components are like the bridge, router, DSL Modem, switch, network interface card and hub. The main functionality of the components is described using an example for each of the components how they are implemented. The network environment which supports the components is also taken into consideration. In the second part of the report, the different cables, which are required in networking, are mainly discussed. The main point of emphasis is the cost, size and speed of the cables. It can be stated here that different cables have different functionality and can be implemented according to the need of the user. The different cables have different cost and size.

References

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Hayes, J. R., Sandoghchi, S. R., Bradley, T. D., Liu, Z., Slavík, R., Gouveia, M. A., ... & Petrovich, M. N. (2017). Antiresonant hollow core fiber with an octave spanning bandwidth for short haul data communications. Journal of Lightwave Technology, 35(3), 437-442.

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Liggins II, M., Hall, D., & Llinas, J. (Eds.). (2017). Handbook of multisensor data fusion: theory and practice. CRC press.

Lu, X., Niyato, D., Wang, P., Kim, D. I., & Han, Z. (2015). Wireless charger networking for mobile devices: Fundamentals, standards, and applications. IEEE Wireless Communications, 22(2), 126-135.

Lu, X., Wang, P., Niyato, D., Kim, D. I., & Han, Z. (2015). Wireless networks with RF energy harvesting: A contemporary survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 17(2), 757-789.

Sayood, K. (2017). Introduction to data compression. Morgan Kaufmann.

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Uysal, M., Capsoni, C., Ghassemlooy, Z., Boucouvalas, A., & Udvary, E. (Eds.). (2016). Optical wireless communications: an emerging technology. Springer.

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