Department Of Electronics and Electrical Engineering Question Bank Code: CS-303 (Computer Networks) 8th Semester, Electrical Engineering

INTRODUCTION
1. Define a signal and give an example to illustrate? 2. Describe the three characteristics of a sine wave? 3. What is the spectrum of a signal? 4. What is the difference between a information and a signal? 5. What is a analog and a digital signal? 6. Give the difference between an analog and digital signal? 7. Give two examples of each, an analog and a digital signal. 8. Contrast a periodic signal and an aperiodic signal. 9. What is the difference between a digital data and analog data? 10. What is the relationship between period and frequency? 11. What does the amplitude, frequency and phase of a signal measure? 12. What is the difference between a simple periodic signal and a composite periodic signal? 13. What is bit rate and what is its counterpart in analog signal? 14. Express the frequency of a period of 220ns in Hz, kHz, and MHz. 15. What is the phase shift for a sine wave with maximum amplitude after cycles? 16. What is the bandwidth of a signal that can be decomposed into four sine waves with frequencies at 0 Hz, 20 Hz, 50 Hz and 200 Hz? All maximum amplitudes are the same. Draw the frequency spectrum. 17. Can we relate the negation of a signal to a phase shift? How many degrees? 18. Draw the time domain representation of the signal shown below:

10 volts

Frequency 2500 Hz 19. Two signals have the same frequencies. However, whenever the first signal is at the maximum amplitude, the second signal has amplitude of zero. What is the phase shift between the two signals? 20. Define bit interval and bit rate. 21. What is the difference between analog transmission and digital transmission? 22. Discuss the various transmission impairments. 1

23. Draw the frequency domain representation of the signal shown below:

7 microseconds 5

Time

24. Explain the data communication system. 25. Define the term topology. Explain the various network topologies. 26. Discuss the three transmission modes. 27. Explain LAN, MAN, WAN and Internetworks. 28. Which transmission mode (simplex, half duplex, full duplex) can be compared to the following? Justify your answer. a. A heated argument between two persons b. A computer to monitor connection c. A polite conversation between two persons d. A television broadcast

TRANSMISSION MEDIA
1. What is basic difference between guided and unguided media? 2. Which parts of electromagnetic spectrum are used for communication? 3. Explain the three major classes of guided media. 4. What is the major advantage of shielded twisted pair over unshielded twisted pair? 5. Why is coaxial pair superior to twisted pair cable? 6. Discuss the modes for propagating light along optical channels. 7. Why are communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit? 8. What is a handoff in cellular telephony? 9. What does Shannon capacity have to do with communications? 10. Explain what crosstalk is and what is needed to reduce it? 11. Describe the components of fiber-optic cable. Draw its picture. 12. Describe the layers of the atmosphere. What types of radio communication utilize each? 13. How does ionosphere propagation work? What are the uses for this type of propagation? 14. Draw and explain unshielded twisted pair cable. Give its advantages and disadvantages. 15. Draw and explain shielded twisted pair cable. Give its advantages and disadvantages. 2

16. Discuss coaxial cable with a neat diagram. 17. On what principle does an optical fiber operate? Explain. 18. Draw a well labeled diagram of a fiber optic cable and discuss its working principle. Give its advantages and disadvantages. 19. Explain the various type of propagation of radio waves. 20. How can communication take place through unguided media? Explain in reference to terrestrial microwave and satellite communication. 21. Explain the basic principle of cellular telephony. 22. How can be the performance of a transmission media is measured? 23. Define the term wavelength. 24. What is the significance of Shannon capacity? 25. What are the factors which should be considered while evaluating the suitability of a particular medium to a specific application? 26. The attenuation of a signal is -10 db. What is the final signal power if it was originally 5 watts? 27. Given that the speed of light is 186,000miles/second and a satellite is at geosynchronous orbit. How long would it take for a signal to go from earth station to the satellite (minimum time). 28. Data pass through a point at a rate of 100 kilobits every five second. What is the throughput? 29. If the throughput at the connection between a device and the transmission media is 5 kbps, how long does it take to send 100,000 bits out of this device? 30. The light of the sun takes approximately eight minutes to reach the earth. What is the distance between sun and earth? 31. The wavelength of red light in a fiber is 0.5 m. How long does it take the front of the wave to reach the end of the fiber if the length of the fiber is 2000km? 32. A line has a signal-to-noise ratio of 1000 and a bandwidth of 4000 kHz. What is the maximum data rate supported by this line? 33. We measure the performance of a telephone line (4 kHz ok bandwidth). When the signal is 10 volts, the noise is 5 millivolts. What is the maximum data rate supported by this telephone line?

ENCODING AND MODULATING

1. What is the difference between encoding and modulating? 2. What is digital-to-digital encoding? 3. What is digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion? 4. What is analog-to-analog conversion? 5. Why is frequency modulation superior to amplitude modulation? 6. What is the advantage of QAM over ASK or PSK? 7. What is the DC component? 8. Why is synchronization a problem in data communication? 9. How does NRZ-L differ from NRZ-I? 10. Discuss the two types of biphase encoding in use on networks. 11. What is the major disadvantage in using NRZ encoding? How do RZ encoding and biphase encoding attempt to solve the problem?

12. Compare and contrast B8ZS and HDB3 encoding. 13. List the steps that take an analog signal to digital PCM signal. 14. What is the difference between bit rate and baud rate? Give an example where they are same and where they are different. 15. How does the sampling rate affect the transmitted digital signal? 16. What is the purpose of a carrier signal in modulation? 17. How is QAM related to ASK and PSK? 18. What are the major factors that make PSK superior to ASK? 19. How does a) AM differ from ASK? b) FM differs from FSK? 20. Explain unipolar encoding with an example. Give its disadvantages. 21. Explain the difference between Manchester and differential Manchester encoding with an example? 22. Define bipolar encoding? 23. Explain AMI encoding. 24. What basically PAM mean? Explain briefly. 25. Explain ASK and FSK with an example. Draw their frequency spectrum. 26. What is PSK? Explain 2-PSK and 4-PSK. Can 8-PSK be generated? If yes, then explain how? 27. Explain the basic concept of Amplitude Modulation and Frequency Modulation. 28. If the bit rate of a signal is 1000bits/second, how many bits can be sent in 5 seconds? How many bits in 1/5 second? How many bits in 100 milliseconds? 29. The following data stream is the unipolar encoded data. What is the data stream?

Time

30. The following data stream is NRZ-L encoded. What is the data stream?

Time

31. What would be the data stream if the above stream was NRZ-I encoded?

32. What is the data stream if the stream below is RZ encoded?

Time

33. What is the data stream if the following figure represents Manchester encoding?

Time

34. What would have been the data stream if the above figure represented differential Manchester encoding? 35. What is the data stream if the figure below represents AMI encoding?

Time

36. What would be the data stream if the above figure is pseudoternary encoding of the data stream? 37. Figure below is the B8ZS encoding of a data stream. What is the data stream?

Time

38. Figure below is the HDB3 encoding of the data stream. What is the data stream?

Time

39. What is the sampling rate for PCM if the frequency ranges from 1000 to 4000 Hz? 40. Using Nyquist theorem, calculate the sampling rate for an analog signal with frequencies from 2000Hz to 6000Hz and for a signal with a horizontal line in the time domain representation and for a signal with a vertical line in the time domain representation? 41. A signal is sampled. Each sample represents each of the four levels. How many bits are needed to represent each sample? If the sampling rate is 8000 samples per second, what is the bit rate? 42. Calculate the bit rate and baud rate for each type of the modulation: a) 6000 bps, 2-PSK b) 4000 bps, 4-QAM c) 4000 bps, FSK 43. Calculate the bandwidth for each of the following AM stations. Disregard the FCC rules: a) Modulating signal with a bandwidth of 8 kHz. b) Modulating signal with frequencies of 2000 to 3000 Hz. 44. Calculate the bandwidth required for each of the following FM stations. Disregard FCC rules: a) Modulating signal with a bandwidth of 12 kHz. b) Modulating signal with frequencies of 2000 to 3000 Hz.

DIGITAL DATA COMMUNICATION

1. Explain two modes for transmitting binary data across the link. 2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of parallel transmission? 3. Compare the two methods of serial transmission. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. 4. What are the functions of a DTE? What are the functions of a DCE? Give an example of each. 5. What standard organizations are involved in DTE-DCE interface standards? Name some popular DTE-DCE standards. 6. What implementations of EIA-232 are available? How are they different? 7. What is the purpose of null modem? Describe the data pins of null modem. 8. Compare RS-423 with RS-422. 9. How is X.21 able to eliminate most of the control circuits of EIA standards? 10. What does the term modem stands for? What is the function of a demodulator and what is the function of modulator?

11. What factors affect the data rate of a link? 12. Define the bandwidth of a line. What is the bandwidth of a traditional telephone line? 13. What is an intelligent modem? 14. Explain the asymmetry of 56K modems. 15. Explain that how does a cable modem achieve such a high data rate. 16. What is the difference between primary and secondary channels in a modem? 17. Why there are pairs of send data, send timing, and receive data pins in the DB-37 connector? 18. What is the difference between a balanced circuit and an unbalanced circuit? 19. What is the relationship between the data rate and the distance that the data can reliably travel on an EIA interface? 20. The transmission of characters from the terminal to host computer is asynchronous. Explain why. 21. What does the mechanical specifications, electrical specifications and functional specifications of EIA-232 describe? 22. According to EIA-449 standard, what is the difference between Category I pins and Category II pins? 23. FSK is a good choice for low-speed modems. Explain why it is not suitable for highspeed modems. 24. Draw the time domain graph for the bit pattern 10110110 as it would appear on an RS-422 circuit. Assume a 1 is 5 volts and a 0 is -5 volts. Draw the complement also. 25. Using the data in the proceeding problem, assume that the first and last bits are corrupted by 1 volt of noise. Draw both lines and draw the difference of the complement from the signal. 26. Using RS-423(unbalanced) mode, what is the data rate if the distance between DTE and DCE is 1000 feet? 27. Using RS-423(balanced) mode, what is the data rate if the distance between DTE and DCE is 1000 feet? 28. How much improvement in data rate can be achieved over 1000 feet if we move from RS-423 to RS-422? 29. In RS-422 circuit, if noise changes a voltage from 10 V to 12 V, what value would its complement has? 30. If 0.5 V of noise corrupts a bit on an RS-422 circuit, how many volts would be 1 needed to the complementary bit? 31. In which type of a signal does bit rate equals the baud rate?

MULTIPLEXING AND SWITCHING

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. What are the major multiplexing techniques? How FDM does combines multiple signals into one? What is the purpose of guard band? How is FDM signal separated into its original components? How is WDM similar to FDM? How are they different? Explain the two types of FDM? How does TDM combine multiple signals into one?

8. What are the two types of TDM implementations and how do they differ from each other? 9. How is one TDM signal separated into its original components? Consider the implementations of TDM. 10. What is inverse multiplexing? 11. What is the difference between an analog switched service and an analog leased service? 12. Describe the analog hierarchy in which groups of signals are successfully multiplexed onto higher bandwidth lines? 13. What are the three types of digital services available to telephone customers? 14. What is the function of a DSU in switched/56 service? 15. Describe the DS hierarchy. 16. How are T lines related to DS service? 17. How can T lines be used for analog transmission? 18. How does ADSL divide the bandwidth of a twisted-pair cable? 19. How does ADSL modulate a signal? 20. Name two ways in which digital services are superior to analog services? 21. How does a DSU differ from a modem? 22. What is the relationship between the number of slots in a frame and the number of input lines for synchronous TDM? For synchronous TDM? 23. A DS-0 signal has a data of 64 kbps. Where does this number come from? 24. Given the following information, find the minimum bandwidth for the path: FDM multiplexing. Five devices, each requiring 4000 Hz. 200- Hz guard bands for each device. 25. Five signal sources are multiplexed using synchronous TDM. Each source produces 100 characters per second. Assume that there is byte interleaving and that each frame requires one bit for synchronization. What is frame rate? What is the bit rate on the path? 26. Draw the synchronous TDM frames showing the character data given the following information: Four signal sources. Source one message: TEG Source two message: A Source three message: Source four message: EFIL What would be the information in each TDM frame if transmission is asynchronous and the frame size is three characters per frame? 27. The T-2 line offers a 6.312 Mbps service. Why is this number not 4 1.544 Mbps? 28. Assume there is a small town of 500 households, each with one telephone. If every phone connection is point-to-point (a dedicated line), how many total lines are necessary? How can multiplexing help? 29. If a single mode optical fiber can transmit at 2 Gbps, how many telephone channels can one cable carry? 30. Calculate the overhead (in bits) per voice channel for each T line. What is the percentage of overhead per voice channel?

31. If we want to combine 20 voice-grade signals (each of 4 KHz) with a guard band of 1 KHz between them, how much bandwidth do we need? 32. Figure below shows a multiplexer. If the slot is only 10 bits long (three bits taken from each input plus one framing bit), what is the output bit stream? What is the output bit rate? What is the duration of each bit in the output line? How many slots are sent per second? What is duration of each slot?

101110111101 300 kbps Slot of 10 bits 11111110000 300 kbps 1010000001111 300 kbps TDM

33. Figure below shows a demultiplexer. If the input slot is 12 bits long (ignore framing bits), what is the bit stream in each output? What is the bit rate for each output line?

Slot of 12 bits 9 Mbps TDM 1010000001110000011110001010101010100001

34. Figure below shows a statistical TDM multiplexer. How much is the data rate of each line is reduced if all 10 lines are sending data? How many stations can send data at the same time with full capacity? Ignore extra bits needed for addressing.

10 lines. Each 50 kbps

Statistical TDM

400 kbps

35. Which is more efficient, circuit switching or virtual circuit switching? Why? 36. What are the two types of switching used in circuit switching? 37. What is cross point in a cross bar switch? What is limiting factor in a cross bar switch? How does a multistage switch alleviate this problem? 38. How is blocking related to a cross bar switch and a multistage switch?

39. Compare the mechanism of a space-division switch to the mechanism of a timedivision switch. 40. How is space-division switching superior to time-division switching? And how is time-division switching superior to space-division switching? 41. Why is circuit switching inefficient for the transmission of nonvoice data? 42. What is fundamental difference between circuit switching and packet switching? 43. A message is broken up into three pieces. Discuss transmission of the packets using datagram approach to packet switching? 44. A message is broken up into three pieces. Discuss transmission of the packets using a permanent virtual circuit? 45. A message is broken up into three pieces. Discuss transmission of the packets using a switched virtual circuit? 46. Why has message switching been replaced by other switching methods? 47. How many cross points are needed if we use a crossbar switch to connect 1000 telephones in a small town? 48. Find the number of cross points needed from the data given below: Stage 1: four 4-input 3-output cross bar switches Stage 2: three 4-input 4-output cross bar switches with the inputs to each switch Being the output from each cross bar switch of the previous stage Stage 3: four 3-input 4-output cross bar switches with inputs to each switch being The output from each switch of the previous stage.

SPREAD SPECTRUM
1. What is the relationship between the bandwidth of a signal before and after it has been encoded using spread spectrum? 2. List the benefits of spread spectrum. 3. What is frequency-hopping spread spectrum? 4. Explain the difference between slow FHSS and fast FHSS. 5. What is direct sequence spread spectrum? 6. What is the relationship between the bit rate of a signal before and after it has been encoded using DSSS? 7. What is CDMA? 8. Assume we wish to transmit a 56-kbps data stream using spread spectrum. a) Find the channel bandwidth required when SNR = 0.1, 0.01 and 0.001. b) In an ordinary (not spread spectrum) system, a reasonable goal for bandwidth efficiency might be 1 bps/Hz. That is to transmit a data stream of 56 kbps; a bandwidth of 56 kHz is used. In this case, what is the minimum SNR that can be endured for transmission without appreciable errors? Compare to spread spectrum case? 9. An FHSS system employs a total bandwidth of WS = 400 MHz and an individual channel bandwidth of 100 Hz. What is the minimum number of PN bits required for each frequency hop? 10. The following table illustrates the operation of an FHSS system for one complete period of the PN sequence.

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Time Input data Frequency PN sequence Time Input data Frequency PN sequence

0 0 f1

1 1 001

2 1 f3

3 1

4 1 f27

5 1 110

6 1 f26

7 0

8 0 f8

9 0

10 1 f10 011

11 0

12 0 f1

13 1

14 1 f3

15 1

16 1 f2

17 0 001

18 19 1 0 f2

001

a) What is the period of PN sequence? b) The system makes use of a form of FSK. What form of FSK is it? c) What is the number of bits per symbol? d) What is the number of FSK frequencies? e) What is the length of a PN sequence per hop? f) Is this slow or fast FHSS? g) What is the total number of possible hops? h) Show the variation of the dehopped frequency with time. 11. The following table illustrates the operation of a FHSS system using the same PN sequence as in the problem above. Time Input data Frequency PN sequence Time Input data Frequency PN sequence a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) 0 0 f1 001 1 1 f21 110 2 1 f11 011 3 1 f3 001 13 1 f1 001 4 1 f3 001 14 1 f3 001 5 1 f3 001 15 1 f3 001 6 1 f22 110 16 1 f22 110 7 0 f10 011 8 0 f0 001 9 0 f0 001 18 1 f2 001 10 1 f2 001 19 0 f2 001 11 0 f22 110

12 0 f9 011

17 0 f10 011

What is the period of PN sequence? The system makes use of a form of FSK. What form of FSK is it? What is the number of bits per symbol? What is the number of FSK frequencies? What is the length of a PN sequence per hop? Is this slow or fast FHSS? What is the total number of possible hops? Show the variation of the dehopped frequency with time.

12. Consider an MFSK scheme with fc = 250 kHz, fc = 25 kHz and M = 8 (L = 3 bits) a) Make a frequency assignment for each of the eight possible3-bit data combinations.

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b) We wish to apply FHSS to this MFSK scheme with k = 2; that is, the system will hop among four different carrier frequencies. Expand the results of part a) to show that 48 = 32 frequency assignments. 13. Describe the basic principle of fast and slow FHSS. 14. Explain the concept of FHSS using MFSK. 15. How can a DSSS signal can be generated using BPSK? 16. Explain the concept of CDMA with an example. 17. Explain CDMA for direct sequence spread spectrum.

ERROR DETECTION AND CORRECTION

1. How does a single bit error differ from a burst error? 2. Discuss the concept of redundancy in error detection. 3. How can a parity bit detect a damaged data unit? 4. What is the difference between even parity and odd parity? 5. Discuss VRC and the types of errors it can and cannot detect. 6. What does the CRC generator append to the data unit? 7. How is VRC related to LRC? 8. Discuss LRC and the types of errors it can and cannot detect? 9. What is the relationship between the size of the CRC remainder and the divisor? 10. How does the CRC checker know that the received data unit is undamaged? 11. What are the conditions for the polynomial used by CRC generator? 12. Hoe is CRC superior to LRC? 13. What is the error detection method used by upper layer protocols? 14. What kind of arithmetic is used to add segments in the checksum generator and checksum checker? 15. List the steps used in creating a checksum. 16. How does the checksum checker know that the received data unit is undamaged? 17. What kind of error is undetectable by the checksum? 18. What is the formula to calculate the number of redundancy bits required to correct a bit error in a given number of data bits? 19. What is the purpose of hamming code? 20. Assuming even parity, find the parity bit for each of the following data units: a) 1001011 b) 1110111 21. A receiver receives the bit pattern 01101011. If the system is using even parity VRC, is the pattern in error? 22. Find the LRC for the following block of data: 10011001 01101111 23. Given a 10-bit sequence 1010011110 and a divisor of 1011, find CRC. Check your answer. 24. Given a remainder of 111, a data unit of 10110011, and a divisor of 1001, is there an error in the data unit?

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25. Find the checksum for the following bit sequence. Assume a 16-bit segment size: 1001001110010011 1001100001001101 26. Find the complement of 1110010001110011. 27. Add 11100011 and 00011100 in ones complement. Interpret the result. 28. For each data unit of the following sizes, find the minimum number of redundancy bits needed to correct one single-bit error: a) 12 b) 16 c) 24 d) 64 29. Construct the hamming code for the bit sequence 10011101. 30. Calculate the VRC and LRC for the following bit pattern using even parity: 0011101 1100111 1111111 0000000 31. A sender sends 01110001; the receiver receives 01000001. If only VRC is used, can the receiver detect the error? 32. If a divisor is 101101, how many bits long are the CRC? 33. Find the binary equivalent of x8 + x3 + x + 1. 34. Find the polynomial equivalent of 100001110001. 35. A receiver receives the code 11001100111. When it uses the hamming encoding algorithm, the result is 0101. Which bit is in error? What is the correct code? 36. The code 11110101101 was received. Using hamming code what is the original code sent? 37. In a single-bit error correction, a code of three bits can be in one of the four states: no error, first bit in error, second bit in error, third bit in error. How many of these bits should be redundant to correct this code? How many bits can be the actual data?

PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE
1. Explain the differences between a standards creation committee, a forum, and a regulatory agency. 2. Why are protocols needed? 3. Why are standards needed? 4. What are the key elements of a protocol? 5. What is the difference between de facto standard and a de jure standard? 6. What is the purpose of the ITU-T and ANSI? 7. What is the difference between IEEE and EIA? 8. Which OSI layers are network support layers? 9. Which OSI layers are user support layers? 10. What is the difference between network layer delivery and transport layer delivery? 11. How are OSI and ISO related to each other? 12. What are peer-to-peer processes? 13. How does information get passed from one OSI layer to the next? 14. What are headers and trailers and how do they get added or removed?

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15. Group the OSI layers by function. 16. What are the concerns of physical layer? 17. What are the responsibilities of data link layer? 18. What are the responsibilities of network layer? 19. What are the responsibilities of transport layer? 20. The transport layer creates a connection between the source and destination. What are the events involved in a connection? 21. What is the difference between a service-point address, a logical address, and a physical address? 22. What are the responsibilities of the session layer? 23. What is the purpose of dialog controller? 24. What are the responsibilities of the presentation layer? 25. What is the purpose of translation by the presentation layer? 26. Name some services provided by the application layer. 27. How do the layers of TCP/IP protocol suite correlate to the layers of the OSI model? 28. Draw the architecture OSI model and explain the function of each layer? 29. Draw the architecture of TCP/IP model and explain the function of each layer? 30. Match the following to one of the seven OSI layers: a) Route determination b) Flow control c) Interface to outside world d) Access to the network provided for the end user e) ASCII changed to EBCDIC f) Packet switching 31. Match the following to one of the seven OSI layers: a) Provides format and code conversion services b) Establishes, manages, and terminates sessions c) Ensures reliable transmission of data d) Provides log-in and log-out procedures e) Provides independence from differences in data representation f) Synchronizes users 32. Compare the layers of TCP/IP protocol suite with the layers of OSI model.

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