Data Links

Abstract

It is often necessary to provide a connection between two computing devices which can be anywhere from a few inches to a few kilometers apart. For the purposes of this discussion, we define computing devices as electronic terminals which exchange signals in digital form. Figure 8-1 shows an example, where a piece of digital terminal equipment (e. g., a computer terminal) communicates with a piece of digital communications equipment (e. g., a modem) using a fiber link. Figure 8-2 shows a different example, where a piece of digital terminal equipment (DTE) communicates with a piece of digital communications equipment (DCE) using a pair of wires, but the digital communications equipment communicates to another piece of digital communications equipment using a fiber link.