Tutorial 1 (SCSR 1213 Network Communications)

1. What is the difference between a host and an end system? List the different types of end
systems. Is a Web server an end system?
2. List two examples of guided and unguided media that can be used for physical
communication in Ethernet technology?
3. Suppose there is exactly one packet switch between a sending host and a receiving host. The
transmission rates between the sending host and the switch and between the switch and the
receiving host are R1 and R2 respectively. Assuming that the switch uses store-and-forward
packet switching, what is the total end-to-end delay to send a packet of length L? (Ignore
queuing, propagation delay, and processing delay.)
4. List three different access technologies. Classify each one as residential access,
company/institutional access, or mobile access.
5. Dial-up modems, HFC, and ADSL are all used for residential access. For each of these
access technologies, provide a range of transmission rates and whether the bandwidth is
shared or dedicated.
6. What is the transmission rate of Ethernet LANs? For a given transmission rate, can each user
on the LAN continuously transmit at that rate?
7. Consider sending a series of packets from a sending host to a receiving host over a fixed
route. List the delay components in the end-to-end delay for a single packet. Which of these
delays are constant and which are variable?
8. Consider a caravan of ten cars on a highway. Assume a propagation speed of 100 km/hour.
a) Suppose the caravan travels 200km, beginning in front of one plaza toll, passing through
a second plaza toll, and finishing just before a third plaza toll. Suppose, each plaza toll
services a car at a rate of 1 car per 12 seconds and no other cars are on the highway, what
is the end-to-end delay?
b) Repeat (a), now assuming that there are seven cars in the caravan instead of ten.
9. Assume that three connections are multiplexed with FDM on a link that has a total bandwidth
of 7900 Hz. What is the maximal bandwidth for each connection if there must be a 200 Hz
guard band between channels?

10. What advantage does a circuit-switched network have over a packet-switched network? What
advantages does TDM have over FDM in a circuit-switched network?
11. Suppose Host A wants to send a large file to Host B. The path from Host A to Host B has 3links, of rate R1=500kbps, R2=2Mbps, and R3=1Mbps.
a) Assuming no other traffic in the network, what is the throughput for the file transfer?
b) Suppose the file is 4 million bytes. Roughly, how long will it take to transfer the file to
Host B?
c) Repeat (a) and (b), but now with R2 reduced to 100 kbps.
12. What are the five layers in the Internet protocol stack? What are the principle responsibilities
of each of these layers?
13. Which layers is the Internet protocol stack does a router process? Which layers does a linklayer switch process? Which layers does a host-process?
14. Briefly explain the following. What is _______________?
a) an application-layer message
b) a transport-layer segment
c) a network-layer datagram
d) a link-layer frame
15. Suppose end system A wants to send a large file to end system B. At a very high level,
describe how end systems A create packets from the file. When one of these packets arrives
to a packet switch, what information in the packet does the switch use to determine the link
onto which the packet is forwarded? Why is packet switching in the Internet analogous to
driving from one city to another and asking directions along the way?
16. What is the different between a virus, a worm, and a Trojan horse?
17. Describe how a botnet can be created, and how it can be used for a DDoS attack?