ENVS 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Local Area Network
10 May 2018
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ENVS 1000 Lecture 8 Notes – General Channel Characteristics
Introduction
• The receiving computer is able to process a block of data all at once, instead of a
character or a byte at a time.
• Furthermore, it is usually easier to organize the data, since there are fewer individual
blocks of data to deal with.
• It simplifies synchronization of the sending and receiving systems.
• Packets provide a clearly delineated burst of data, with an identifiable start and stop
point.
• There are different types of packets defined for different situations.
• Some types of packets go by specific names, such as frame or datagram, which identify
their purpose.
• For long messages, there may be many packets.
• To recover the message, it is sometimes necessary to number the packets, so that they
may be reassembled in their original order at the receiving node.
• In addition to data transmission, packets can also be used for control of the network
itself.
• To do so, the data is replaced by control messages that specify the action to be taken.
• Packets are a fundamental unit of communication.
• The communication channel provides the path for the message between the two
communicating nodes in the model.
• Although the model represents the channel as a direct point-to-point connection
between the nodes, this is not generally the case.
• In reality, the channel can take many different forms.
• In the simplest case, it might be a direct connection between nodes in a local area
network.
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