Fixed-time Online (Inspera) Exam Instruction Sheet

University of Bath

Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering

EE30029 & Digital Networks & Protocols

Please read the Guidance for Students before attempting this exam. The Guidance
contains information about submitting your exam attempt.

This is an open book exam. You may refer to your own course and revision notes and look
up information in offline or online resources, for example textbooks or online journals.
This exam starts at: 09:30 on 25/01/22.

This exam is designed to take approximately 2 hours to complete.

You will have an additional 45 minutes of submission time for checking your work,
collating your answers and uploading files. You are advised to allow sufficient time
for minor technical issues when submitting your work.

The exam will close at the end of the submission time, after which you will not be
able to submit an attempt.

Which questions should be answered: Answer ONLY 3 (out of the 4) questions

Filenames: If you are required to upload a file as part of your exam attempt, to
maintain anonymity please use the following naming convention for your file:
CandidateNumberUnitCodeQuestionNumber.pdf (e.g. 01234AR10001Q2a.pdf).If the
exam only requires one file to be submitted, you do not need to include the question
number(s).

Additional materials needed to complete the assessment: Calculator

Academic Integrity for Remote Exams

When you registered as a student you agreed to abide by the University's regulations
and rules, and agreed that you would access and read your programme handbook.
These documents contain references to, and penalties for, unfair practices such as
collusion, plagiarism, fabrication or falsification. The University's Quality Assurance
Code of Practice, QA53 Examination and Assessment Offences, sets out the
consequences of committing an offence and the penalties that might be applied.

EE30029
By submitting your exam as instructed, you confirm that:

1. You have not impersonated, or allowed yourself to be impersonated by, any

person for the purposes of this assessment.

2. This assessment is your original work and no part of it has been copied from
any other source except where due acknowledgement is made. The
University may submit your work through a plagiarism detection service.

3. You have not previously submitted this work for any other unit/course.

4. You give permission for your assessment response to be reproduced,

communicated, compared and archived for plagiarism detection,
benchmarking or educational purposes.

5. You understand that plagiarism is the presentation of the work, idea or

creation of another person or organisation as though it is your own. It is a form
of cheating and is a very serious academic offence that may lead to
disciplinary action.

6. You understand that this assessment is undertaken without invigilation, and

that you have not communicated with and will not communicate with anyone
concerning this assessment before the deadline for submission unless it is
expressly permitted by the assessment instructions.

7. No part of this assessment has been produced for, or communicated to, you
by any other person, unless it is expressly permitted by the assessment
instructions.

If you have any questions about the exam you should contact the exams helpline.
Information and contact details can be found on our help and advice webpage.

Useful Data:

𝑟 1
∑∞ 𝑛
𝑛=0 𝑛 𝑟 = for r  1 ∑∞ 𝑛
𝑛=0 𝑟 = for r  1
(1−𝑟)2 (1−𝑟)

IA/SRP Page 2 of 5 EE30029

 1. (a) Explain how an Ethernet local area network (LAN) uses contention
to share a network between users. [5 marks]

(b) A signal propagates at 8 𝜇sec/km on an Ethernet LAN cable

segment length that is 500 metres long. The transmission rate is
10 Mbits/sec and the length of the frames is between 72 bytes and
1526 bytes. Estimate the maximum utilisation and the data
throughput in the cases where there are:

(i) 2 active stations;

(ii) 200 active stations [10 marks]

(c) Discuss the steps needed to make this Ethernet LAN operate
successfully over a length of 3700 metres. [5 marks]

2. (a) Briefly describe where the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

and the Internet Protocol (IP) are used in the Open System
Interconnection (OSI) layer structures, and how they facilitate data
transfer between two stations on a Local Area Network. [6 marks]

(b) The minimum header formats for TCP and IP Version 6 (IPv6) are:

TCP Header IPv6 Header

Field Size Field Size
Source Port 2 bytes Version 4 bits
Destination Port 2 bytes Traffic Class 1 byte
Sequence Number 4 bytes Flow Label 20 bits
Acknowledgement 4 bytes Payload Length 2 bytes
Header length & 2 bytes Next Header 1 byte
Flags
Window Size 2 bytes Hop Limit 1 byte
Checksum 2 bytes Source Address 16
bytes
Urgent Pointer 2 bytes Destination 16
Address bytes

Discuss how error control is achieved at the TCP and IP layers

when using IPv6, why error detection in a packet is used in
preference to error correction coding, and the protection offered
[8 marks]
against burst errors.

(c) Determine the effective bit error rate that the lower layers must
present to the TCP layer if no more than 5% of the TCP packets
are to be in error. Also determine the proportion of TCP packets
that will be lost when operating in this regime. [6 marks]

IA/SRP Page 3 of 5 EE30029

 3. (a) In the context of network modelling, briefly explain what is meant
by:

(i) the mean Busy period;

(ii) the mean service rate;
(iii) the mean Throughput;
(iv) the mean system delay;
(v) the mean waiting time. [5 marks]

(b) Sketch the ‘state-transition diagram’ for a network consisting of

two nodes connected by a single link that can be modelled as an
M/M/1 queue with an arrival rate of 1000 messages s-1 and
service rate 4000 messages s-1.

Using this model, determine the:

(i) probability that the network is empty;

(ii) mean throughput of the network;
(iii) mean system delay;
(iv) mean waiting time. [5 marks]

(c) The network of 3(b) above is to be upgraded either by (1) adding

a second link also with service rate of 4000 messages s-1 or (2)
replacing the single link with another of twice the service rate (i.e.
8000 messages s-1). Discuss the advantages and disadvantages
of both options. [10 marks]

IA/SRP Page 4 of 5 EE30029

 4. (a) Briefly describe the difference between broadcast and switched
networks. [4 marks]

(b) 01100
10011
A network has the following topology matrix, 𝑀 = 10000
01000
[01000]

(i) How many nodes has the network?

(ii) Draw a schematic of the network.
(iii) Name the type of network.
(iv) Describe the entire network’s resilience to link failure. [4 marks]

(c) (i) With the aid of a sketch, briefly describe what is meant by
a satellite bus network.
(ii) Briefly describe Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) as
used in a satellite communications channel to
accommodate N earth stations and explain why an M/D/1
queue could be an appropriate model for such a channel. [7 marks]

(d) A satellite sequential TDMA system, with 14 earth stations, has a

frame duration 2 ms. If each earth station generates 50 packet s-1
at random and a packet takes 1.2 × 10−4 s to transmit, determine

(i) The frame efficiency.

(ii) The mean waiting time at each earth station.
(iii) The mean system delay at each earth station. [5 marks]

IA/SRP Page 5 of 5 EE30029