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School of Technology
EXAMINATION PAPER

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ET2252
Date of Examination: Examiner: Examiner(s) Room: Time Allowed:

Network Technology
Semester 2, 2011 Dr Ahmad Zakeri SC114 2 hours 3 from 5

Number of Questions to be attempted:

All questions are equally weighted (unless otherwise stated) and are marked on the grade point scale

Materials Required: One eight page answer book Instructions to Students:

Mobile phones are not permitted in the exam. Only approved calculators may be used. You should write legibly in black or blue ink. Check your work carefully for inaccurate spelling, punctuation and grammar. You may not leave the examination room during the first hour or last 30 minutes of the examination.

An announcement will be made when there are 30 minutes of the examination time left.

(a)

Use sketches and additional text to describe the following network topologies: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) Bus, Ring, Mesh, Star, Line,

30%

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(vi) (b)

Tree.

In a data communication system, the timing of signalling events between distant modems is crucial to successful datatransmission. Explain how this is achieved in the case of synchronous and asynchronous data-transmission.

10%

(c ) Explain the terms "signal propagation delay" and "transmission delay as applied to the communications channels (data links) in data communications systems. (d) A 10000-bit block of data is transmitted between two computers over the following three types of data link at a transmission rate appropriate to the particular data link. (a) (b) (c) 40m of twisted-pair wire and a transmission rate of l0kbps; 4km of coaxial cable and a transmission rate of 1 Mbps; 40000 km of free space (satellite link) and a transmission rate of 10 Mbps.

20%

Assume the velocity of propagation of an electrical signal within data links (a) and (b) is 2 10 8 ms -1, and in free space (satellite link) is 3 10 8 ms -1. (i) (ii) Determine the ratio of propagation delay to transmission delay for each of the three types of data link. Discuss, using the findings in (i), how in general the roundtrip delay of a data link can be determined, and comment on any assessment that can be made in relation to the bandwidth of a data link.

20%

20%

(a)

(i) Briefly discuss the properties, types, application and limitations of the following: Baseband; Broadband. 15% 15%

(ii) State two major advantages that are associated with fibre optic cable as compared to cabling based on metallic
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conductors. 10% (b) Ethernet local area networks (LANs) currently established in the marketplace are: thin Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet

Discuss the characteristics of any ONE of the above Ethernet LANs, explaining its physical properties (including the topology it uses), advantages, disadvantages, ease of installation, and overall costs. (c) Token Ring, as an alternative to Ethernet, has desirable properties. List its advantages over Ethernet and discuss why Token Ring is not more popular in the marketplace.

30%

30%

(a)

Explain, with the use of flow diagrams, how Ethernet facilitates frame transmission, reception, and accommodates collision detection and avoidance. Compare and contrast token passing and CSMA/CD mediaaccess control protocols.

30%

(b)

20%

(c)

Contrast contention-based protocol and the token-passing approach to media access control. In each case identify one key weakness. (i) (ii) Outline the salient feature, components, and the function of the CAN protocol and give the typical transmission speeds. Briefly discuss how the nodes on a CANbus network are addressed.

20% 20% 10%

(d)

(a)

TCP/IP is the most widely used internetworking protocol suite. Discuss, with the aid of appropriate diagram, the correlation between the OSI reference model and the four-layered conceptualised TCP/IP model. Your diagram should indicate the

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layers of the conceptualised TCP/IP model that correspond to OSI layers. (b) The IP Class-based addressing scheme, or IP classful addressing scheme is one of the traditional IP addressing schemes. (i) Give a brief summary of the use of the IP classful addressing scheme. (ii) List the other three types of IP address scheme that are in common use and give a brief summary of the use of each scheme. (c ) Assuming the traditional IP classful address formats, determine the network Class, NetID and HostID if the IP address is given as: (i) 132.1.2.3 (ii) 192.168.35.101

15%

15%

20%

10% (d) The new generation of Internet Protocol is called IPv6. (i) Briefly discuss the primary motivating factor of creating IPv6? (ii) List the significant features of IPv6. (ii) Determine, in the context of new generation of IP addressing, the hexadecimal representation of the following link local multicast addresses: 67 a permanently-assigned multicast group address of a transient multicast group address of 317 10% 10% 10% 10%

(a)

What are the most important functions of network switches, WiFi access points and routers and how do they relate to each other? Suppose that due to an expansion in the number of nodes connected to an Ethernet LAN, network traffic increases to such an extent that performance begins to be compromised (i.e. due to the large number of collisions which are continually occurring). Briefly explain (with the aid of appropriate diagram) how you would address this problem.

30%

(b)

15%

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(c ) For the question posed in (Q5(b), explain why a repeater could not have been employed. (d) The maximum number of repeaters that should be employed on an Ethernet LAN is four. Explain why there is an upper limit on the number of such repeaters. Describe the operation of THREE of the following fieldbus technologies and discuss the key decision-making criteria, both technical and commercial, that you would consider when choosing a fieldbus protocol. P-Net World FIP Fieldbus Foundation DeviceNet Profibus

10%

10%

(e)

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