EXPLOITING THE BANDWIDTH OF FIBER OPTIC CABLE-EMPLOYMENT BY MULTIPLE USERS
3.1 Sharing the Transmission MediumYou are the network manager of a company. You have a Source-User link requirement given to you. In response you install a premises fiber optic data link. The situation is just like that illustrated in Figure 2-1. However, the bandwidth required by the particular Source-User pair, the bandwidth to accommodate the Source-User speed requirement, is much, much, less than is available from the fiber optic data link. The tremendous bandwidth of the installed fiber optic cable is being wasted. On the face of it, this is not an economically efficient installation. You would like to justify the installation of the link to the Controller of your company, the person who reviews your budget. The Controller doesn't understand the attenuation benefits of fiber optic cable. The Controller doesn't understand the interference benefits of fiber optic cable. The Controller hates waste. He just wants to see most of the bandwidth of the fiber optic cable used not wasted. There is a solution to this problem. Don't just dedicate the tremendous bandwidth of the fiber optic cable to a single, particular, Source-User communication requirement. Instead, allow it to be shared by a multiplicity of Source-User requirements. It allows it to carve a multiplicity of fiber optic data links out of the same fiber optic cable.The technique used to bring about this sharing of the fiber optic cable among a multiplicity of Source-User transmission requirements is called multiplexing. It is not particular to fiber optic cable. It occurs with any transmission medium e.g. wire, microwave, etc., where the available bandwidth far surpasses any individual Source-User requirement. However, multiplexing is particularly attractive when the transmission medium is fiber optic cable. Why? Because the tremendous bandwidth presented by fiber optic cable presents the greatest opportunity for sharing between different Source-User pairs.Conceptually, multiplexing is illustrated in Figure 3-1. The figure shows 'N' Source-User pairs indexed as 1, 2, . . . There is a multiplexer provided at each end of the fiber optic cable. The multiplexer on the left takes the data provided by each of the Sources. It combines these data streams together and sends the resultant stream out on the fiber optic cable. In this way the individual Source generated data streams share the fiber optic cable. The multiplexer on the left performs what is called a multiplexing or combining function. The multiplexer on the right takes the combined stream put out by the fiber optic cable. It separates the combined stream into the individual Source streams composing it. It directs each of these component streams to the corresponding User. The multiplexer on the right performs what is called a demultiplexing function
3.1 Sharing the Transmission MediumYou are the network manager of a company. You have a Source-User link requirement given to you. In response you install a premises fiber optic data link. The situation is just like that illustrated in Figure 2-1. However, the bandwidth required by the particular Source-User pair, the bandwidth to accommodate the Source-User speed requirement, is much, much, less than is available from the fiber optic data link. The tremendous bandwidth of the installed fiber optic cable is being wasted. On the face of it, this is not an economically efficient installation. You would like to justify the installation of the link to the Controller of your company, the person who reviews your budget. The Controller doesn't understand the attenuation benefits of fiber optic cable. The Controller doesn't understand the interference benefits of fiber optic cable. The Controller hates waste. He just wants to see most of the bandwidth of the fiber optic cable used not wasted. There is a solution to this problem. Don't just dedicate the tremendous bandwidth of the fiber optic cable to a single, particular, Source-User communication requirement. Instead, allow it to be shared by a multiplicity of Source-User requirements. It allows it to carve a multiplicity of fiber optic data links out of the same fiber optic cable.The technique used to bring about this sharing of the fiber optic cable among a multiplicity of Source-User transmission requirements is called multiplexing. It is not particular to fiber optic cable. It occurs with any transmission medium e.g. wire, microwave, etc., where the available bandwidth far surpasses any individual Source-User requirement. However, multiplexing is particularly attractive when the transmission medium is fiber optic cable. Why? Because the tremendous bandwidth presented by fiber optic cable presents the greatest opportunity for sharing between different Source-User pairs.Conceptually, multiplexing is illustrated in Figure 3-1. The figure shows 'N' Source-User pairs indexed as 1, 2, . . . There is a multiplexer provided at each end of the fiber optic cable. The multiplexer on the left takes the data provided by each of the Sources. It combines these data streams together and sends the resultant stream out on the fiber optic cable. In this way the individual Source generated data streams share the fiber optic cable. The multiplexer on the left performs what is called a multiplexing or combining function. The multiplexer on the right takes the combined stream put out by the fiber optic cable. It separates the combined stream into the individual Source streams composing it. It directs each of these component streams to the corresponding User. The multiplexer on the right performs what is called a demultiplexing function
First, the Transmitter and Receiver are still present even though they are not shown. The Transmitter is considered part of the multiplexer on the left and the Receiver is considered part of the multiplexer on the right.Secondly, the Sources and Users are shown close to the multiplexer. For multiplexing to make sense this is usually the case. The connection from Source-to-multiplexer and multiplexer-to-User is called a tail circuit. If the tail circuit is too long a separate data link may be needed just to bring data from the Source to the multiplexer or from the multiplexer to the User. The cost of this separate data link may counter any savings effected by multiplexing.Thirdly, the link between the multiplexer, the link in this case realized by the fiber optic cable, is termed the composite link. This is the link where traffic is composed of all the separate Source streams.Finally, separate Users are shown in Figure 3-1. However, it may be that there is just one User with separate ports and all Sources are communicating with this common user. There may be variations upon this. The Source-User pairs need not be all of the same type. They may be totally different types of data equipment serving different applications and with different speed requirements.Within the context of premise data communications a typical situation where the need for multiplexing arises is illustrated in Figure 3-2. This shows a cluster of terminals. In this case there are six terminals. All of these terminals are fairly close to one another. All are at a distance from and want to communicate with a multi-user computer. This may be either a multi-use PC or a mini-computer. This situation may arise when all of the terminals are co-located on the same floor of an office building and the multi-user computer is in a computer room on another floor of the building. The communication connection of each of these terminals could be effected by the approach illustrated in Figure 3-3. Here each of the terminals is connected to a dedicated port at the computer by a separate cable. The cable could be a twisted pair cable or a fiber optic cable. Of course, six cables are required and the bandwidth of each cable may far exceed the terminal-to-computer speed requirements
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