Assume propagation delay is less than transmission delay on a link connecting host A to B.

If
host A starts transmission at t=0, at time equal to transmission delay, where is the first bit of the
packet?
At host A
In the link
At host B

Suppose N packets arrive simultaneously at a router every T seconds. Suppose the packets are of
size S bits and the transmission rate of the router is R bps.
What should the minimum value of T be such that the queuing delay does not grow without
bound?
NR/S
(N-1)S/R
(N-2)S/R
NS/R
Answer Description
For the queuing delay to not increase without bound, its important that the queue is
empty before the next batch of packets arrive. The time it takes to send out
(transmit) N packets is NS/R. So T is NS/R.

0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
At this value of T, what is the average queuing delay experienced by a packet?
The delay experienced by the first packet in the batch is 0. By the second packet is
S/R. The third is 2S/R and so on.
Averaging it yields [ 0 + S/R + 2S/R + ............ + (N-1)S/R ] / N = (N-1)S / (2R)

NS/R
NS/2R
(N-1)S/2R
(N-2)S/2R
Bit Length

 0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
On a 1 Mbps link, where light travels at 2*10^8m/s, what would the bit length be in
meters? Format to use X (no decimals, eg. 365)

No choice

File transfer time: What is the time required in sec (from 1st bit sent to last bit received) to
send 10 MB of data?
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Assume a 1 Gbps link with a propagation delay of 10 ms. Specify time in sec. Format X.xxx (3
decimal places. Eg. 99.999, 9.999)
0 / 2 points
0 / 1 attempts
Assume a 100 kbps link with a propagation delay of 10 ms. Specify time in sec. Format X.xxx (3
decimal places. Eg. 99.999, 9.999)
Hint
Total time = Tx time + Propagation time
Bits
0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
Suppose two hosts A and B are connected by a 1 Mbps link of length 10 km.
Suppose the speed of light over the link is 2 * 10^8 m/s. If a 5 MB file were to be
transferred between the hosts as back-to-back packets, how many bits will be in the
link at any given time? Format X (e.g. 100)

 File fragmentation
A-----R-----B
Hosts A and B are connected via a router R. Suppose the Bandwidth of the A to R link as well as
R to B link is 10 Mbps. Assume propagation delay on each link is 10 us and processing speed at
R is 30 us. Assume the router needs to retrieve the entire packet before processing. Calculate the
time (in us) it takes to transmit 10k bits from A to B.
0 / 4 points
0 / 2 attempts
Assume the 10k bits are sent as two 5k bit packets back-to back.Specify the time in us
(microsec). Format X (e.g. 1000)
Hint
Pipelining plays a role here
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
Assume the 10k bits are sent as a single packet. Specify the time in us (microsec). Format X (e.g.
1000)
See Figure. Suppose the I/O bus within a host has a speed of 100 Mbps, would it be
possible to sustain a rate of 100 Mbps on the outgoing link? Why or why not. Justify
your answer.

See Figure. Suppose a workstation is configured as a router with an internal I/O bus speed of 10
Gbps. Assume DMA mode of memory access and that the CPU has to examine the headers (all at
once) to determine the route of the packet. If the total headers size is 10% of the total packet size
and the router has to output packets at a rate of 1 million packets per sec, what should be the
packet size in bits such that the router can sustain this outgoing rate?
p < 5000
p > 5000
p < 4762
p > 4762
10dB attenuation means the signal strength
halved
doubled
reduced by factor of ten
increased by factor of ten

If a cable suffers 3dB attenuation per 100m and if the transmit power is 100mw.
What is the received power if the cable length is 1km? Express the received power
in mw. Format X.x (E.g. 1.1)
No choice
Determine the distance between a transmitter and receiver of a wireless 900Mhz
link if the transmit power is 1 watt, received power is 0.1 nano watt. Assume free
space path loss model. Ignore antenna gains (not covered in class). Express the
distance in km. Format X.xx (E.g. 3.45)
No choice

Which among the following does NOT causes distortion of a signal?

reflection
mobility
attenuation
linear amplification
A noiseless 4 KHz channel can support which of the following data rates (in kbps) if
binary pulses are employed?
Top of Form
4
8 (wrong)
16
all of the above
Bottom of Form

SNR Reuired --To achieve 50 kbps data rate on a 5 khz channel, what SNR (in dB) is
needed? Format X (E.g. 13) 30

Max data rate -- A transmission line has a bandwidth of 1 Mhz. When 10 dBm power is
transmitted, the receiver receives -60 dBm. The noise level at the receiver is -100 dBm. What is
the maximum theoretical rate (in Mbps) that can be achieved on this link? Format X.x (E.g 5.1)
Note dBm is nothing but power ratio in decibels (dB) of the observed power referenced to one
milliwatt (mW). So it boil downs to 10log_10(P in mw). Eg. 0dBm = 10 log_10(1mw)
Packet error rate
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts

What is the Packet Error Rate (PER) in percentage at a bit error rate of 10^-7 if
packet size is 10k bits.
1-(1-10 power-7)1000
Top of Form
1%
0.1%
0.01%
0.001%
Bottom of Form
Signal bandwidth
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts

See figure. What is the bandwidth in Mhz occupied by the signal if T is 1us? Format
X (e.g. 2) or answer "inf" for infinity. 1 inf
Clock Synchronization
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Which of the following encodings do not provide proper clock synchronization?
Top of Form
NRZ
NRZI
Manchester
4B/5B
Bottom of Form
102
Which of the following encodings have problem with long sequence of 1's
Top of Form
NRZ
NRZI
Manchester
4B/5
Bottom of Form

Manchester encoding can be thought of as XB/YB encoding. What are X,Y? Format
X,Y (E.g. 1,3 )4,5
No choice

Assume a bit duration of 1ms. Suppose the sender clock is r`unning 5% slower than the receiver
clock and the receiver samples the bit in what it believes to be the middle of the bit. If NRZ
encoding is used, at what bit position starting from 1, can the receiver possibly make an error.
This means the sender sends first bit from 0 to 1.05ms, second bit from 1.05 to 2.1ms and so on.
The receiver samples first bit at 0.5, second bit at 1.5 and so on.
Express answer as a bit position (starting from 1). Format X (e.g. 7)

4B/5B
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
When employing 4B/5B encoding, what would the below bit sequence translate to?
0011 1000 1111
101011001011101
Format: bit sequence without spaces (E.g. 001100011011010)
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
Can you design an encoding scheme with an even stronger requirement of no more
than 2 consecutive 0's in the encoded bit stream?
What would be the efficiency of such a scheme?
4B/5B

NCCCCC

DLL FRAME
Can errors in one frame affect the next frame?
Top of Form
yes
no
Bottom of Form

 Byte Stuffing
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Suppose the last two bytes of the BiSYNC protocol are DLE ETX, what sequence of
bytes precede CRC?
Top of Form
DLE DLE DLE ETX ETX
DLE DLE ETX
DLE DLE ETX ETX
DLE DLE DLE ETX
Bottom of Form
Bit Stuffing
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
If the following bit pattern is received as part of HDLC data, what does the HDLC
decoder output after removing stuffed bits?
1101111101001
Express the answer as a sequence of bits with no spaces (e.g. 1100110011)
Escape characters
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Can this sequence 'A DLE DLE ETX' appear in the data portion of the transmission
when using the Bisync protocol, where A is the ASCII character 'A'.
Top of Form
yes
no
Bottom of Form
Error Control

Hamming distance
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts

If a code has a hamming distance of 7, how many errors can it detect? Format X (e.g. 2)
6
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
If a code has a hamming distance of 7, how many errors can it correct? Format X (e.g. 1)
3
If a code contains the following code words:

c1 = 0101010, c2 = 1111111, c3 = 1010101, c4 = 0000000 and c5 = 1100001

What is the hamming distance of this code?

Mr. Error Prone wants to decide on whether to use error correction or detection on a link with
packet error rate of 10^-5. Suppose the packet size is 923 bits and he is considering BCH ( BoseChaudhuri-Hocquenghem) code for error correction, where 1023 code bits are sent for 923 data
bits and CRC for error detection ,where 32 bits are added to 923 data bits.
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
What is the transmission overhead of the error correction in %? Transmission overhead is the
percentage of 'additional' bits transmitted per data bit. Format X.x (e.g. 15.3)
0 / 4 points
0 / 2 attempts
What is the transmission overhead of the error detection in %? Transmission overhead is the
percentage of 'additional' bits transmitted per data bit. Format X.x (e.g. 15.3)
Puzzle
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
A bit challenging but fun nonetheless...
An absent minded professor's glasses are inside one of three rooms. He wants to send five of his

students in groups to the three rooms to check for his glasses. One of his students may lie, while
others always tell the truth about whether they found the glasses in the room or not.
How should the professor divide the students into groups so that he can determine where his
glasses are?
Also, how can he determine in which room his glasses are?
Could the professor determine where his glasses are if there were only four students, and only
one of them might lie?
Map this problem to error correcting codes and solve.

Detection
Single bit parity
0 / 3 points
0 / 1 attempts
Smarty Pants wants to enhance single bit party scheme and decided to use two
redundant bits. One bit represents the parity of all odd-numbered bits and second
bit the parity of all even-numbered bits.
Example: 0111 is encoded as 011110 (assuming 'even-parity').

Whats the hamming distance of this code? Note message bits can be any number,
redundant bits are 2. Answer Format X (e.g. 5)

Has he done better than single bit parity in terms of hamming distance? Do not
answer this in the box, just for your thinking.
NCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCcc
Two dimensional parity
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts

What is the general set of circumstances under which a 4-bit error cannot be
detected by a two dimensional parity?
Hint
Rectangle
NCCCCCCCCCCCCCc

Internet Checksum
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
The IP protocol implements Internet checksum over just the IP header. As the packet
passes through the routers, one field called TimeToLive (TTL) (8-bits long) in the IP
header is decremented at each router. So, each router needs to decrement this field
and then update the checksum in the header. Is there a way to update the
checksum without having to recalculate the checksum over the entire header?

Hint
16-bit word in checksum calculation is made up of two bytes. Consider two cases,
where TTL field falls in low byte order (least significant byte) and another where it
falls in higher byte order (most significant byte).
NCCCCCCCCCCCCCc
CRC
0 / 2 points
0 / 1 attempts
For a generator polynomial of x^3+x^2+1, what is the CRC value if the message is
10011010? Express answer as a bit sequence with no spaces (Eg. 011)
CRC Burst Errors
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
Show that any bursts of length <= k can be detected if C(x) includes a constant
term (x^0 term).

RDT
Packet sequence

 0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
Tracing revealed the following sequence of packets sent by a sender employing stop
and wait protocol. '0' and '1' refer to the sequence number in the packet.

000110000101110

Which of the following is most likely to produce the pattern.

Bad
Bad
Bad
Bug

forward channel (data path)

reverse channel (ack path)
timeout setting
in error detection algorithm (reproducible bug)

Stop and wait

0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
In stop and wait protocol, suppose both sender and receiver retransmit the previous
packet on receipt of a duplicate ACK or data frame.

Draw a timeline to show the sequence of events which will happen if somehow the
first data frame is duplicated.
NCCCCCCCCCCCCc
Stop and wait data rate:
Suppose the stop and wait protocol is employed over a link A to B, where the A to B
link bandwidth is 1Mbps with a propagation delay of 20ms and B to A link bandwidth
is 10Mbps with a propagation delay of 10ms (reverse link different from forward
link). Suppose that the data packet size is 1000 byte and ACK size is 100 byte.
0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
What is the throughput achieved by the protocol? Ignore other delays. Express
answer in kbps. Format X (e.g. 512)

0 / 2 points
0 / 1 attempts

If you are designing a new RDT protocol, what should your target throughput be i.e
what is the maximum throughput that can (potentially) be achieved over this link?
Express the answer in kbps. Format X (Eg. 250).

Sliding Window
Sending Window:
Assume a link with data rate of 1Mbps and one way latency of 40ms. Assume a
packet size of 1000 bytes.
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
What should the sending window size be (in packets) over this link? Format X (e.g.
7)

0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
For SWS as obtained in previous question, if RWS was set to 1, what would the
minimum number of bits needed to represent the sequence number? Format X (e.g.
8)

Alternating bit protocol

0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Is the alternating bit protocol the same as Go-Back-N protocol with a sender and
receiver window size of 1?
yes
no
Sliding Window ACK
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
In the sliding window protocol, can the sender receive an ACK for a packet that falls
outside its current window? If so, specify the scenario under which this occurs as
well.
Minimum sequence number

 0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
Derive a general rule for the minimum sequence number space in terms of SWS and
RWS.

Sliding Window Timeline-1

0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
Draw a timeline of the sliding window protocol with SWS=RWS=3. Assume frames
4,5,6 are lost (first copies only). Use a time-out of 2*RTT and that the sender retransmits the lost frames on timeout. Draw the timeline till the frames 4,5,6 are
successfully received at the receiver.
Sliding Window Timeline-2
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
Same problem as before except that the sender retransmits frames on receiving
first duplicate ACK.
Draw a timeline of the sliding window protocol with SWS=RWS=3. Assume frames
4,5,6 are lost (first copies only). Use a time-out of 2*RTT. Draw the timeline till the
frames 4,5,6 are successfully received at the receiver.
Sliding Window Selective Ack
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
Draw a timeline of the sliding window protocol that employs selective
acknowledgment with SWS=RWS=4. Assume frames 4,5 are lost. Use a time-out of
2*RTT. Show the timeline till frame 11 is sent.

Ethernet
Hub vs switch
0 / 0 points
0 / 1 attempts
A switch can connect 10Mbps and a 100Mbps link, while a hub cannot. Why?
Ethernet adaptor

 0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
How many Ethernet adaptors can potentially be manufactured? Express it as a
power of 2. Format 2^X (e.g. 2^10).
Ethernet Address
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
If the first bit in an Ethernet MAC address is a zero, the address is what type of
address?
unicast
broadcast
multicast
Collision domains
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
In the figure shown, how many collision domains are there? Format X (e.g. 8)

Competing nodes
0 / 2 points
0 / 1 attempts
See Fig. Identify the collision domains. In the largest collision domain, how many
nodes are competing for the channel? Format X (e.g. 9)

Switching : No need
Time of Transfer:
Suppose Host A is connected to another Host B via a switch. The data rate of the
link connecting the hosts to the switch is Rbps. Assume a packet length of L bits. In
the calculation below, ignore processing, propagation and queuing delay.

A ---- S ---- B
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
If circuit switching was used to forward the packet, how much time would it take to
send the packet from A to B after connection establishment? Assume a dedicated
wire is allocated to the connection (not TDM).
L/R
R/L
2L/R
3L/R
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
If using packet switching, how much time would it take to send the packet from A to
B?
L/R
2L/R
3L/R
4L/R

Payload Size
0 / 4 points
0 / 2 attempts
Suppose that 100kBytes of user data has to be sent from host A to host B passing
through 4 switches employing packet switching. Suppose the data rate on each of
the link is 1Mbps and that each packet carries a header of 40bytes.
What value of payload size (payload in the packet excluding header) minimizes the
total delay in delivering the user data?
Total delay: first bit was sent from A to when last bit was received at B.
Ignore propagation/processing delay. Express the answer in bytes. Format X (e.g.
200)

Packet vs Circuit Switching:

In this question, we will compare circuit with packet switching. Suppose N (B for
Bytes) of user data has to be sent from host A to host B passing through 3 switches
employing packet switching. Suppose the data rate on each of the link is 1Mbps and
propagation delay is 1ms.
For circuit switching, assume that a 1000B packet has to be sent from source to
destination and back from destination to source before the user data can be sent.
During this connection set-up time, assume that each switch introduces 1ms of
processing delay (packet fully removed from link before processing). After
connection set up, assume a dedicated wire is allocated to the connection. There is
no processing delay at the switches during the data transfer phase.
For packet switching, assume a payload size of 1000B and a header size of 20B. For
forwarding the packet, each switch incurs 1ms processing delay. Also assume that
the file size is a multiple of 1000B.
0 / 5 points
0 / 2 attempts
For what value of N is the total delay in delivering the user data (first bit from
sender to last bit received at receiver) less for circuit switching compared to packet
switching.
Express N in Kilobytes in the answer. Format X (E.g. 200)

0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
For what value of N (minimum), the total number of bytes sent (including payload,
headers, connection-setup packets, bytes sent by sender/receiver ) in the network
"less" for circuit switching compared to packet switching?
Express N in Kilobytes in the answer. Format X. E.g. 200 (to indicate 200KB)

Sharing
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
Suppose, you have a 1 Mbps link being shared by 3 users at a switch. Each user is
active only 10% of the time and when active needs 400kbps .

If packet switching was being used, for what fraction of the time (expressed in
percentage) can the queue at the switch grow. Express your answer in X.yy format.
Eg. 0.25 (to indicate 0.25%).

Thernet Switching
Data Rate:
A 10 port bridge supports 10Mbps on each port and interconnects
Ethernet segments. The total number of hosts the bridge supports
is 30 across all ports.
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
What is the maximum data rate a backlogged host can achieve? Assume that there
is at least one host per port. Express your answer in Mbps. Format X (e.g. 5)

0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
What is the minimum data rate a backlogged host can achieve? Assume that there
is at least one host per port. Express your answer in kbps. Format X (e.g. 120)

Learning bridge
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
What would a learning bridge do when it receives a packet with destination address
as ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff?
send it on all ports
send it on all ports except the one on which received
drop it
look up forwarding table to determine correct port

See Figure. The bridges (square boxes) are learning

bridges with initial empty tables. The following
transmissions take place.
A sends to C
D sends to B
B sends to A
E sends to D
E sends to B
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
After the above transmissions, which bridges still do not learn where E is?
All learn
B1
B3
B1,B3
0 / 4 points
0 / 2 attempts
After the above transmissions, which bridge has least amount of entries in its
learning table?
Specify the name of the bridge. E.g. B1

STP
Layer
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
At what layer does the spanning tree protocol work?
Data-Link
Network

Transport
Application

Multi-paths
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
In some cases, the spanning tree protocol produces multiple paths between the
same two LAN segments.
Yes
No

Spanning Tree.
See Figure
0 / 4 points
0 / 2 attempts
In the Extended LAN topology after running the spanning tree protocol, which all
ports will 'definitely' or 'possibly' be disabled? Mark all that apply.
B3-A
B4-A
B2-C
B2-F
B2-E
B5-E
Hint
'Possibly' because there are two equally valid options for root port.
0 / 3 points
0 / 2 attempts
Suppose bridge B1 failed. Determine which ports will 'definitely' or 'possibly' be
disabled after the spanning tree protocol kicks in again? Mark all that apply.
B2-E

B4-A
B5-C
B5-E

Application Layer
DNS Records
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Can hosts within the same subnet (sharing the same subnet id) be in different DNS
domains?
Yes
No

0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
In DNS records, can many names map to the same value? If so, specify an example.
If not, why not?
Yes
No

Email prottocols
Vacation daemons
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Vacation daemons work by sending an automated out of office emails. Who
implements these daemons, user agent or message transfer agent? Note that one
does use user-agent to set them up but who actually sends (not forwards) the reply
emails?
User-agent

Message-transfer-agent
Web mail protocol
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
What protocol does web mail (at the user-end) use?
SMTP
POP3
IMAP
HTTP

HTTP Messages:
A user wishes to download a webpage which has 3 embed images within it.
Assume that request message size is 100B and TCP's MSS is 1400B. Also assume
that all objects reside on the same server.
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
How many HTTP request messages are sent? Format X (e.g. 5)

0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
How many HTTP response messages are sent? Format X (e.g. 2)

Non-persistent connection
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Can a non-persistent connection carry multiple HTTP request messages in the same
TCP segment?
Yes
No

TCP connections

 0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
Suppose a base HTML page with two objects embed within have to be retrieved
from the same server. How many TCP connections will be opened assuming HTTP
operates over persistent connections? Format X (e.g. 5)

RTTs:
Suppose a user wants to access a webpage with 5 embed objects all residing on the
same server. Assume that length of the request messages is 100B and all objects
are under 200B. Assume a TCP MSS of 1400B.
0 / 2 points
0 / 2 attempts
How many RTT would it take to display the webpage fully assuming non-persistent
HTTP with no parallel TCP connections?
Format X (e.g. 26)

0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
How many RTT would it take to display the webpage fully assuming non-persistent
HTTP with parallel TCP connections?
Format X (e.g. 26)

0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
How many RTT would it take to display the webpage fully assuming persistent HTTP
with pipelined TCP connections?
Format X (e.g. 26)

Web caching
0 / 1 points
0 / 1 attempts
When requesting web objects, does web caching reduce delay for all objects or only
for some of the objects?
All objects

Some objects