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AirLink+ 9
26-port 10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit & Fast Ethernet Switch
Switching Technology
Another approach to pushing beyond the limits of Ethernet technol-
ogy is the development of switching technology. A switch bridges
Ethernet packets at the MAC address level of the Ethernet protocol
transmitting among connected Ethernet or Fast Ethernet LAN seg-
ments.
Switching is a cost-effective way of increasing the total network
capacity available to users on a local area network. A switch in-
creases capacity and decreases network loading by dividing a local
area network into different segments, which don’t compete with
each other for network transmission capacity.
The switch acts as a high-speed selective bridge between the indi-
vidual segments. The switch, without interfering with any other
segments, automatically forwards traffic that needs to go from one
segment to another. By doing this the total network capacity is
multiplied, while still maintaining the same network cabling and adapter
cards.
Switching LAN technology is a marked improvement over the previ-
ous generation of network bridges, which were characterized by higher
latencies. Routers have also been used to segment local area net-
works, but the cost of a router, the setup and maintenance required
make routers relatively impractical. Today switches are an ideal
solution to most kinds of local area network congestion problems.