Communication & Networking Lab (EED 304)

Experiment No. 1
Study of Data Transmission Media
A transmission media can carry information from source to destination. Transmission
medium is divided into two categories: guided or bounded media and unguided or
unbounded media. In a guided medium the transmitted signal will be guided through or
bounded within a line or channel for transmission. In an unguided or unbounded medium the
transmitted signal is not guided by any type of cable for transmission. Air is an unguided
medium that is used for wireless transmission. The Guided media include twisted pair cable,
coaxial cable, and fiber optical cable.
1. Twisted Pair Cable
A twisted pair cable consists of two wires: one that carries a positive signal and another
that carries a negative signal. To distinguish the opposite polarity nature of these two wires,
they are shown by gray and black in Figure 1. The advantage of having two wires is that the
180-degree phase difference between the two wires cancels out noise. There are two types
of twisted pair wires: unshielded (UTP), as shown in Figure 1, and shielded (STP), as
shown in Figure 2. Shielded twisted pair wire is protected from noise interference and
therefore has better noise reduction characteristics than an unshielded twisted pair. STP cable
is mainly used in the IBM networking system. The Electronic Industries Association (EIA)
divides UTP cable into eight categories. CAT-1 with low data rates (less than 2 Mbps), are
used in telephone wiring, including T-1 lines. CAT-2, CAT-3, and CAT-4, with data rates
of 10, 16, and 100 Mbps, respectively, are used in local area networks (LANs). CAT-5,
CAT-6, and CAT-7 are new categories with higher data rates-125, 200, and 600Mbps
respectively, and they are used in local area networking.

Fig 1: Unshielded twisted pair (UTP) wires

Fig 2: Shielded twisted pair (STP) wires

Individually shielding pairs of wires with a helical metallic foil in addition to the outer shielding has
enabled CAT-7 cable to transfer data at a much higher data rate with decreased effect of crosstalk. The 8-pin
RJ-45 and 4-pin RJ-11 (RJ stands for Registered Jack) connectors are the most common connectors for
connecting UTP cables.
2. Coaxial Cable
Coaxial cable was developed to transmit high-speed analog signals (about 10,000 voice
signals) and high-rate digital signals (up to 600 Mbps) for radio frequency in long-distance
communication, as shown in Figure 3. A coaxial cable consists of a solid metallic core
(specifically copper} wrapped in a plastic insulator (inner insulator), a tubular metallic
shield, and an outer plastic insulator. Signal attenuation in coaxial cable increases nonlinearly
as the frequency of the signal increases.

Fig 3 : Structure of a coaxial cable

Categories are identified by Radio Guide (RG) numbers. The impedance value and
application of coaxial cable types are listed in Table 1.

Table: 1 Coaxial cable type

RG-6 coaxial cable is a larger and cheaper version of RG-59 cable; RG-6 coaxial cables
have 18-AWG copper-coated steel center conductor and have higher bandwidth than
RG-59 coaxial cables. BNC and BNC-T connectors (see Figure 4) are the most common
connectors used to connect coaxial cables.

Fig 4; BNC connectors, (a) BNC male to RCA female (b) BNC, T- Connector (one male two
female).
3. Optical Fiber Cable
Optical fiber is a transmission medium that carries optical signals. Optical fiber consists of a core and
cladding as shown in Figure 5. The core is a very tiny fiber (with a diameter of about 8 to200 micrometers depending on the type of fiber) of glass or plastic that carries the light energy
signal and the cladding provides the necessary total internal reflection between the core and cladding
boundary. The diameter range of cladding is between l2.5 and 140micrometers.

Fig 5: Core and cladding in an optical fiber

Fiber optical cable has many advantages over coaxial and twisted pair cables.
The following are the main advantages of fiber optics.

Almost unlimited bandwidth

Smaller size and weight
Immunity from electromagnetic and radio frequency interference
Lower signal attenuation
Immunity from crosstalk
Resistance to electric spark, heat, radiation. and corrosion
Lower bit rate error
Better security (difficult to tap into)
The main disadvantages of fiber optics lie in the technical difficulties of connecting optical
fibers. While an electrical signal is the only signal type that is used in a copper wire such as twisted
pair, when using fiber optic cable an electrical signal must first be converted to light signal at the
transmitter and then converted from light back to an electrical signal at the receiver.
There are three basic optical fiber types: single mode, multimode-step index, and multimode-graded
index. Single mode optical fiber transmits in only one path or traverse mode. Because of the very small
core diameter (2 to 8 micrometers) and lower index of refraction, the input light signal enters
and leaves the fiber in only one path with negligible delay. For the same reason, the acceptance
angle (the angle that gathers the most incident light rays) and numerical aperture (the measure of
the fiber's abi1ity to gather incident light rays) are both very small; this makes launching an
incident light into this type of fiber very difficult. Lasers are a suitable light source. For singlemode fiber because lasers emit a coherent light, single mode fiber has a very large bandwidth
compared to multimode fibers. The refractive index profile and the pattern of light trave1 in single mode
fiber are shown in Figure 6.

Fig 6: Single mode fiber

Multimode-step index fiber has a much larger core diameter (ranging from 50 to 200 micrometers)
than single mode fiber; there are two different types of light rays in multimode-step index fiber: axial
and marginal rays. Axial rays travel along the central axis of the core. Marginal rays that enter the fiber
at an angle will reflect back to the core when they reach the boundary between the core and cladding,
since the index of refraction of the core is slightly higher than the index of refraction of the cladding.
Compared to axial rays, the marginal rays travel a greater distance in the fiber, and therefore take more
time to exit the fiber, causes dispersion in the light signal, which is called modal dispersion. The modal
dispersion in the multimode-step index fiber lowers the bit rate and bandwidth in comparison with singlemode fiber. The refractive index profile and the pattern of light ravel in multimode-step index
fiber are shown in Figure 7.

Fig: 7 Multimode step index fiber

Multimode-graded index fiber has a core with an index of refraction that decreases gradually as it
reaches the cladding; this causes light rays to travel in a helical pattern in a much shorter time compared to
multimode-step index fiber. As a result, modal dispersion in this type of multimode fiber will decrease
significantly and consequently leads to a much higher bit rate and bandwidth compared with multimode-step
index fiber. The refractive index profile and the pattern of light travel in multimode-graded index fiber
are shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Multimode-graded index fiber.

There are several varieties of connectors that can be used or connect two optical fibers with different
levels of performance and fiber types. For example the Fixed Connection (FC) is the most popular
connector for single-mode optical fiber but needs special attention for proper alignment. Signal loss is
the major issue in selecting connectors. Most of the losses are due to misalignments when two optical fibers
are connected together. Figure 9 shows three different optical fiber connectors.

Fig: 9. three major types of optical fiber connectors; snap in connector (SC), straight- tip (ST),
and FC (www.fiberoptic 4sale.com)