he media does not carry the frame as a single entity. The media carries signals, one at a time, to represent the bits that make up the frame.
There are three basic forms of network media on which data is represented:
Copper cable
Fiber
Wireless
The representation of the bits - that is, the type of signal - depends on the type of media. For copper cable media, the signals are patterns of electrical pulses. For fiber, the signals are patterns of light. For wireless media, the signals are patterns of radio transmissions.
Identifying a Frame
When the Physical layer encodes the bits into the signals for a particular medium, it must also distinguish where one frame ends and the next frame begins. Otherwise, the devices on the media would not recognize when a frame has been fully received. In that case, the destination device would only receive a string of signals and would not be able to properly reconstruct the frame. As described in the previous chapter, indicating the beginning of frame is often a function of the Data Link layer. However, in many technologies, the Physical layer may add its own signals to indicate the beginning and end of th