Study Guide for Chapters 1--5

Tom Kelliher, CS 318

Feb. 2, 2000

Chapter 1

1. Outline the growth and the impact of the Internet.

2. Why is computer networking complex?

3. How can one master this complexity?

Chapter 2

For some of the following, you need to use ping and traceroute on phoenix. To run traceroute, you may need to type /usr/sbin/traceroute. Alternatively, you can add the path /usr/sbin to your path. You may also need to read the man pages ( man command) for these commands.

1. Approximately speaking, when will one billion computers be connected to the Internet?

2. What does the -f option to ping do? Only the super-user may use this option. Why?

3. What does the -m to traceroute do?

4. Exercise 2.2. Record delays to both on- and off-campus machines, as well as the time of day.

5. Exercise 2.6.

Chapter 3

1. What are the advantages of twisted-pair wire and coaxial cable?

2. Could it be dangerous to look into the end of an active glass fiber?

3. What is GEO?

4. Exercises 3.6 and 3.7.

Chapter 4

1. What value does an RS-232 transmitter transmit while idle?

2. What voltages correspond to what logical values in RS-232?

3. In RS-232, how many bits are required to transmit a byte?

4. What is baud? Can it differ from bit rate?

5. What is a framing error?

6. What are the differences between full duplex, half duplex, and simplex transmission?

7. What are the ramifications of Nyquist's and Shannon's theorems?

8. Exercises 4.3 and 4.4.

Chapter 5

1. What is signal loss and what kind of a signal minimizes signal loss?

2. What are the three types of carrier modulation?

3. Dialup modems interface to PCs via RS-232 serial ports. Should the baud rate of the serial port be set lower, equal to, or higher than the baud rate of the dialup modem?

4. What is FDM and what does it allow?

5. What's the difference between baseband and broadband?

6. What is spread spectrum? What recently deceased Hollywood actress was involved in its creation? (She's named on the patent.)

7. Exercises 5.2 and 5.4.