Application

Presentation
Session Application
Transport Application Transport
Network Transport Network
Data link Internet Data link
Physical Host-to-network Physical
(a) The seven-layer (b) The four-layer (c) The five-layer
OSI model TCP/IP model hybrid model

Figure 2.2: The OSI, TCP/IP and hybrid reference models

errors in it. Then, layer 3 will check the destination routing address embedded in the packet
and forward the packet to the next hop node if the destination routing address does not match
the current node’s routing address. If there is a match, it will pass the packet to layer 4 which
can then perform flow control by throttling the source transmission rate if buffer overflow is
imminent. Similarly, when a node has information to send to a destination, layer 4 will first
check if it needs to reduce the size of the packet to conform to the flow control restrictions
imposed by the destination and then pass the packet to layer 3. Layer 3 will add the routing
address of the destination and routing address of the current node to the packet. It will also
find the next hop node to reach the destination by going through the entries in the routing table
and pass the packet to layer 2. Layer 2 will add FEC and CRC redundancy to the packet and
pass it to layer 1 which then modulates the packet bits into signal suitable for transmission over
the physical channel.

A collection of layers and the protocols which constitute them is called a network architecture.
There are two well-known models for a network architecture - the OSI reference model and the
TCP/IP reference model.

2.1 The OSI Reference Model

The ISO OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) reference model was developed to promote the
international standardization of the various layers of a network architecture. It is often referred
to as just the OSI reference model or OSI model for brevity. It consists of seven layers which
are shown in Figure 2.2a. We discuss the responsibilities of each layer below.

• Physical Layer : The physical layer is mainly concerned with modulation and demodula-
tion, i.e. transforming information bits received from higher layers to signals suitable for
transmission across the physical channel and transforming received signals to bits which
can be passed on to higher layers.

• Data Link Layer : The data link layer is concerned with making the unreliable bit pipe
provided by the physical layer between adjacent nodes into an error-free bit pipe. It
achieves this using CRC and ARQ. The data link layer is also concerned with flow control
between adjacent nodes. Since adjacent nodes may be connected by a multiple access
channel, medium access control is also the responsibility of the data link layer. A sublayer
of the data link layer called the MAC sublayer addresses this issue.

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