Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach,  
6th Edition 
 
Solutions to Review Questions and Problems 
 
 
 
 
Version Date: May 2012 
 
 
 
 
 
This  document  contains  the  solutions  to  review  questions  and  problems  for  the  5th  
edition of Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach by Jim Kurose and Keith Ross.  
These solutions are being made available to instructors ONLY.  Please do NOT copy or 
distribute  this  document  to  others  (even  other  instructors).    Please  do  not  post  any 
solutions on a publicly-available Web site. We’ll be happy to provide a copy (up-to-date) 
of this solution manual ourselves to anyone who asks. 
 
 
Acknowledgments:  Over  the  years,  several  students  and  colleagues  have  helped  us 
prepare this solutions manual. Special thanks goes to HongGang Zhang, Rakesh Kumar, 
Prithula Dhungel, and Vijay Annapureddy. Also thanks to all the readers who have made 
suggestions and corrected errors. 
 
 
 
 
 
All material © copyright 1996-2012 by J.F. Kurose and K.W. Ross. All rights reserved 
 
 
 
Chapter 1 Review Questions 
 
1.  There is no difference. Throughout this text, the words “host” and “end system” are 
used  interchangeably.  End  systems  include  PCs,  workstations,  Web  servers,  mail 
servers, PDAs, Internet-connected game consoles, etc. 
 
2.  From Wikipedia: Diplomatic protocol is commonly described as a set of international 
courtesy rules. These well-established and time-honored rules have made it easier for 
nations  and  people  to  live  and  work  together.  Part  of  protocol  has  always  been  the 
acknowledgment of the  hierarchical  standing of all present.  Protocol  rules are based 
on the principles of civility. 
3.  Standards  are  important  for  protocols  so  that  people  can  create  networking  systems 
and products that interoperate. 
 
4.  1.  Dial-up  modem  over  telephone  line:  home;  2.  DSL  over  telephone  line:  home  or 
small  office;  3. Cable to HFC:  home;  4. 100 Mbps  switched Ethernet: enterprise;  5. 
Wifi (802.11):  home and enterprise: 6. 3G and 4G: wide-area wireless. 
 
5.  HFC bandwidth  is  shared among the users. On the  downstream  channel,  all packets 
emanate from a single source, namely, the head end. Thus, there are no collisions in 
the downstream channel. 
 
6.  In most American cities, the current possibilities include: dial-up; DSL; cable modem; 
fiber-to-the-home. 
 
7.  Ethernet LANs have transmission rates of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps.  
 
8.    Today,  Ethernet  most  commonly  runs  over  twisted-pair  copper  wire.  It  also  can  run 
over fibers optic links. 
 
9.    Dial  up  modems:  up  to  56  Kbps,  bandwidth  is  dedicated;  ADSL:  up  to  24  Mbps 
downstream  and 2.5 Mbps upstream, bandwidth  is  dedicated; HFC,  rates  up to  42.8 
Mbps and upstream rates of up to 30.7 Mbps, bandwidth is shared. FTTH: 2-10Mbps 
upload; 10-20 Mbps download; bandwidth is not shared. 
 
10. There are two popular wireless Internet access technologies today: 
 
a)  Wifi (802.11) In a wireless  LAN, wireless users transmit/receive packets  to/from an  
base  station    (i.e.,  wireless  access  point)  within  a  radius  of  few  tens  of  meters.  The 
base  station  is  typically  connected  to  the  wired  Internet  and  thus  serves  to  connect 
wireless users to the wired network. 
b)  3G and 4G wide-area wireless access networks.  In 
systems,  packets  are 
transmitted over the same wireless infrastructure used for cellular telephony, with the 
base  station  thus  being  managed  by  a  telecommunications  provider.  This  provides 
wireless access to users within a  radius of tens of kilometers of the base station. 
these 
 
11.  At  time  t0  the  sending  host  begins  to  transmit.  At  time  t1 =  L/R1,  the  sending  host 
completes transmission and the entire packet is received at the router (no propagation 
delay). Because the router has the entire packet at time t1, it can begin to transmit the 
packet  to  the  receiving  host  at  time  t1.  At  time  t2  =  t1  +  L/R2,  the  router  completes 
transmission  and  the  entire  packet  is  received  at  the  receiving  host  (again,  no 
propagation delay). Thus, the end-to-end delay is L/R1 + L/R2. 
 
12. A circuit-switched network can guarantee a certain amount of end-to-end bandwidth 
for  the  duration  of  a  call.  Most  packet-switched  networks  today  (including  the 
Internet)  cannot  make  any  end-to-end  guarantees  for  bandwidth.  FDM  requires 
sophisticated analog hardware to shift signal into appropriate frequency bands. 
 
13. a)  2 users can be supported because each user requires half of the link bandwidth. 
 
      b)  Since each user requires 1Mbps when transmitting, if two or fewer users transmit 
simultaneously,  a  maximum  of  2Mbps  will  be  required.  Since  the  available 
 
bandwidth of the shared link is 2Mbps, there will be no queuing delay before the 
 
 
link. Whereas, if three users   transmit  simultaneously,  the  bandwidth  required 
will be 3Mbps which is more than the available bandwidth of the shared link. In 
 
 
this case, there will be queuing delay before the link. 
 
      c)   Probability that a given user is transmitting = 0.2 
 
      d)  Probability that all three users are transmitting simultaneously = 
 
=  (0.2)3 =  0.008.  Since  the  queue  grows  when  all  the  users  are  transmitting,  the 
fraction of time during which the queue grows (which is equal to the probability 
that all three users are transmitting simultaneously) is 0.008.  
 
 
 
 
14. If the two ISPs do not peer with each other, then when they send traffic to each other 
they  have  to  send  the  traffic  through  a  provider  ISP  (intermediary),  to  which  they 
have to pay for carrying the traffic. By peering with each other directly, the two ISPs 
can reduce their payments to their provider ISPs. An Internet Exchange Points (IXP)  
(typically in  a standalone building with  its own  switches)  is  a   meeting  point where 
multiple ISPs can connect and/or peer together. An ISP earns its money by charging 
each of the the ISPs that connect to the IXP a relatively small fee, which may depend 
on 
IXP. 
 
amount 
or 
received 
from 
the 
of 
traffic 
sent 
to 
the 
15. Google's private network connects together all its data centers, big and small. Traffic 
between the Google data centers passes over its private network rather than over the 
public Internet. Many of these data centers are located in, or close to, lower tier ISPs. 
Therefore, when Google delivers content to a user, it often can bypass higher tier ISPs. 
What motivates content providers to create these networks? First, the content provider 
has more control over the user experience, since it has to use few intermediary ISPs. 
Second,  it  can  save  money  by  sending  less  traffic  into  provider  networks.  Third,  if 
333133pp
ISPs  decide  to  charge  more  money  to  highly  profitable  content  providers    (in 
countries  where  net  neutrality  doesn't  apply),  the  content  providers  can  avoid  these 
extra payments.  
 
16. The delay components are processing delays, transmission delays, propagation delays, 
and  queuing  delays.  All  of  these  delays  are  fixed,  except  for  the  queuing  delays, 
which are variable. 
 
17. a) 1000 km, 1 Mbps, 100 bytes 
      b) 100 km, 1 Mbps, 100 bytes 
 
18. 10msec; d/s; no; no 
 
19. a) 500 kbps 
      b) 64 seconds 
      c) 100kbps; 320 seconds 
 
20. End system A breaks the large file into chunks. It adds header to each chunk, thereby 
generating multiple packets from the file. The header in  each packet includes the  IP 
address of the destination (end system B). The packet switch uses the destination IP 
address  in  the  packet  to  determine  the  outgoing  link.  Asking  which  road  to  take  is 
analogous  to  a  packet  asking  which  outgoing  link  it  should  be  forwarded  on,  given 
the packet’s destination address. 
 
21. The maximum emission rate is 500 packets/sec and the maximum transmission rate is  
350 packets/sec. The corresponding traffic intensity is 500/350 =1.43 > 1.  Loss will     
eventually  occur  for  each  experiment;  but  the  time  when  loss  first  occurs  will  be 
different  from  one  experiment  to  the  next  due  to  the  randomness  in  the  emission 
process. 
 
22.  Five  generic  tasks  are  error  control,  flow  control,  segmentation  and  reassembly, 
multiplexing,  and  connection  setup.  Yes,  these  tasks  can  be  duplicated  at  different 
layers. For example, error control is often provided at more than one layer. 
 
23.  The  five  layers  in  the  Internet  protocol  stack  are  –  from  top  to  bottom  –  the 
application  layer,  the  transport  layer,  the  network  layer,  the  link  layer,  and  the 
physical layer. The principal responsibilities are outlined in Section 1.5.1. 
 
24. Application-layer message: data which an application wants to send and passed onto 
the  transport  layer;  transport-layer  segment:  generated  by  the  transport  layer  and 
encapsulates  application-layer  message  with  transport  layer  header;  network-layer 
datagram:  encapsulates  transport-layer  segment  with  a  network-layer  header;  link-
layer frame: encapsulates network-layer datagram with a link-layer header. 
  
25. Routers process network, link and physical layers (layers 1 through 3). (This is a little 
bit  of  a  white  lie,  as  modern  routers  sometimes  act  as  firewalls  or  caching 
components,  and  process  Transport  layer  as  well.)  Link  layer  switches  process  link 
and physical layers (layers 1 through2). Hosts process all five layers. 
 
26. a) Virus 
Requires  some  form  of  human  interaction  to  spread.  Classic  example:  E-mail     
viruses. 
b) Worms 
  No  user  replication  needed.  Worm  in  infected  host  scans  IP  addresses  and  port 
 
numbers, looking for vulnerable processes to infect. 
 
27.  Creation of a botnet requires an attacker to find vulnerability in some application or 
system  (e.g.  exploiting  the  buffer  overflow  vulnerability  that  might  exist  in  an 
application). After finding the vulnerability, the attacker needs to scan for hosts that 
are  vulnerable.  The  target  is  basically  to  compromise  a  series  of  systems  by 
exploiting  that  particular  vulnerability.    Any  system  that  is  part  of  the  botnet  can 
automatically scan its environment and propagate by exploiting the vulnerability. An 
important  property of such botnets is  that the originator of the botnet  can remotely 
control  and  issue  commands  to  all  the  nodes  in  the  botnet.  Hence,  it  becomes 
possible  for  the  attacker  to  issue  a  command  to  all  the  nodes,  that  target  a  single 
node  (for  example,  all  nodes  in  the  botnet  might  be  commanded  by  the  attacker  to 
send  a  TCP  SYN  message  to  the  target,  which  might  result  in  a  TCP  SYN  flood 
attack at the target).  
 
28.  Trudy  can  pretend  to  be  Bob  to  Alice  (and  vice-versa)  and  partially  or  completely 
modify  the  message(s)  being  sent  from  Bob  to  Alice.  For  example,  she  can  easily 
change  the  phrase  “Alice,  I  owe  you  $1000”  to  “Alice,  I  owe  you  $10,000”. 
Furthermore,  Trudy  can  even  drop  the  packets  that  are  being  sent  by  Bob  to  Alice 
(and vise-versa), even if the packets from Bob to Alice are encrypted.  
 
 
Chapter 1 Problems 
Problem 1 
 
There  is  no  single  right  answer  to  this  question.    Many  protocols  would  do  the  trick.  
Here's a simple answer below: 
 
Messages from ATM machine to Server 
Msg name 
-------- 
HELO 
 
purpose 
------- 
Let  server  know  that  there  is  a  card  in  the 
ATM machine 
ATM card transmits user ID to Server 
User enters PIN, which is sent to server 
User requests balance 
 
PASSWD  
BALANCE 
WITHDRAWL   User asks to withdraw money 
user all done 
BYE 
 
Messages from Server to ATM machine (display) 
Msg name 
-------- 
PASSWD 
OK 
ERR 
purpose 
------- 
Ask user for PIN (password) 
last  requested  operation  (PASSWD,  WITHDRAWL) 
OK 
last  requested  operation  (PASSWD,  WITHDRAWL) 
in ERROR 
sent in response to BALANCE request 
user done, display welcome screen at ATM 
<-------------  ERR (not enough funds) 
 
<-------------  OK 
withdrawl 
-------------->  (check if valid userid) 
<-------------  PASSWD 
<-------------  OK (password is OK) 
--------------> 
<-------------  AMOUNT 
 
AMOUNT  
BYE 
 
Correct operation: 
 
client                          server 
 
HELO (userid) 
 
PASSWD   -------------->  (check password) 
 
BALANCE 
 
WITHDRAWL   -------------->  check if enough $ to cover   
 
 
ATM dispenses $ 
BYE 
 
 
In situation when there's not enough money: 
 
HELO (userid) 
 
PASSWD   -------------->  (check password) 
 
BALANCE 
 
WITHDRAWL   -------------->  check  if  enough  $  to  cover 
withdrawl 
 
error msg displayed 
no $ given out 
BYE 
 
 
<-------------  OK (password is OK) 
--------------> 
<-------------  AMOUNT  
-------------->  (check if valid userid) 
<-------------  PASSWD 
 
 
--------------> 
<-------------  BYE 
--------------> 
<-------------  BYE 
Problem 2  
At time N*(L/R) the first packet has reached the destination, the second packet is stored 
in the last router, the third packet is stored in the next-to-last router, etc. At time N*(L/R) 
+ L/R, the second packet has reached the destination, the third packet is stored in the last 
router,  etc.  Continuing  with  this  logic,  we  see  that  at  time  N*(L/R)  +  (P-1)*(L/R)  = 
(N+P-1)*(L/R) all packets have reached the destination.  
Problem 3  
 
a)  A  circuit-switched  network  would  be  well  suited  to  the  application,  because  the 
application  involves  long  sessions  with  predictable  smooth  bandwidth  requirements. 
Since  the  transmission  rate  is  known  and  not  bursty,  bandwidth  can  be  reserved  for 
each  application  session  without  significant  waste.  In  addition,  the  overhead  costs  of 
setting up and tearing down connections are amortized over the lengthy duration of a 
typical application session. 
 
b)  In  the  worst  case,  all  the  applications  simultaneously  transmit  over  one  or  more 
network links. However, since each link  has sufficient bandwidth to handle the sum 
of  all  of  the  applications'  data  rates,  no  congestion  (very  little  queuing)  will  occur. 
Given  such  generous  link  capacities,  the  network  does  not  need  congestion  control 
mechanisms. 
 
 
 
Problem 4 
 
a)  Between the switch in the upper left and the switch in the upper right we can have 4 
connections.  Similarly  we  can  have  four  connections  between  each  of  the  3  other 
pairs of adjacent switches. Thus, this network can support up to 16 connections.  
 
b)  We can 4 connections passing through the switch in the upper-right-hand corner and 
another  4  connections  passing  through  the  switch  in  the  lower-left-hand  corner, 
giving a total of 8 connections.  
c)  Yes. For the connections between A and C, we route two connections through B and 
two  connections  through  D.  For  the  connections  between  B  and  D,  we  route  two 
connections  through  A  and  two  connections  through  C.  In  this  manner,  there  are  at 
most 4 connections passing through any link.  
 
 
 
Problem 5 
 
Tollbooths  are  75  km  apart,  and  the  cars  propagate  at  100km/hr.  A  tollbooth  services  a 
car at a rate of one car every 12 seconds. 
 
a) There are ten cars. It takes 120 seconds, or 2 minutes, for the first tollbooth to service 
the 10 cars. Each of these cars has a propagation delay of 45 minutes (travel 75 km) 
before  arriving  at  the  second  tollbooth.  Thus,  all  the  cars  are  lined  up  before  the 
second  tollbooth  after  47  minutes.  The  whole  process  repeats  itself  for  traveling 
between the second and third tollbooths. It also takes 2 minutes for the third tollbooth 
to service the 10 cars. Thus the total delay is 96 minutes. 
  
b)  Delay  between  tollbooths  is  8*12  seconds  plus  45  minutes,  i.e.,  46  minutes  and  36 
seconds. The total delay is twice this amount plus 8*12 seconds, i.e., 94 minutes and 
48 seconds. 
 
Problem 6 
 
a) 
b) 
c) 
 seconds. 
 seconds. 
 seconds. 
d) The bit is just leaving Host A. 
e) The first bit is in the link and has not reached Host B. 
f) The first bit has reached Host B. 
g) Want 
km. 
 
Problem 7 
 
Consider the first bit in a packet. Before this bit can be transmitted, all of the bits in the 
packet must be generated. This requires 
 
sec=7msec. 
 
The time required to transmit the packet is 
 
sec=
sec. 
 
Propagation delay = 10 msec. 
smdprop/RLdtrans/)//(RLsmdendtoend536105.2105612083sRLm310648566102856224