uses a hub as the center of its Ethernet universe. All workstations acts as spokes and feed into
the hub. You can make changes to workstations without impacting the network or other
workstations. The maximum length of a 10BaseT segment is 100 meters (328 feet). Repeaters
can be used to extend this cable length.
100 meters--hence the name 10Base2. 10Base2 uses Thinnet, or thin coaxial cable. Thinnet has
a maximum length of 185 meters. There is also a minimum cable length of at least 0.5 meters
and a maximum limit of 30 computers per 185-meter segment.
only three cable segments can have stations attached--thus, the 5-4-3 rule (five cable segments,
four repeaters, three active cable segments).
meters--hence the name 10Base5. 10Base5 uses Thicknet, or thick coaxial cable. Thicknet can
support up to 100 nodes per backbone segment. A Thicknet segment can be 500 meters long for
a total of 2500 meters. The 5-4-3 rule applies with 10Base5 as well.
optimum for long cable runs between campuses. The maximum distance for a 10BaseFL
segment is 2000 meters.
cables are attached to a hub. 100BaseX uses three media specifications:
bridge or router can segment the network. When traffic gets heavy, bridges and routers can
become bottlenecks as the internetwork traffic increases. Ethernet switches can remove the
bottleneck, enabling high-speed data exchanges, all while providing an increase in available
bandwidth for each connected station. The Ethernet switch lets you increase the aggregate LAN
bandwidth by creating dedicated network segments and interconnecting the virtual segments.
As long as the switch's total bandwidth is not exceeded, each virtual segment added to the
network increases the network's aggregate speed. Because they work at the second layer of the
OSI model, switches are similar to bridges. However, switches can provide higher performance.
Switches can connect two types of Ethernet segments interchangeably. Shared segments or