Difference between Hub and Switch Hub Switch It has no intelligence It is an Intelligent device and maintains a MAC address table It always do broadcasts It uses broadcast and Unicast It works with 0’s and 1’s(Bits) It works with Physical addresses (i.e.MAC addresses) It has 1 broadcast Domain It has Broadcast domain by default It has 1 Collision Domain Number of Collision domains depend upon the number of ports It works with shared bandwidth It works with fixed bandwidth It operates at physical layer It operates at Data link Layer Transmission Mode:   Half Duplex Transmission Mode: Half/Full Duplex 4/12 ports are available Switch is Multi-port bridge 24/48 ports Data Transmission Form:  Electrical signals or bits Data Transmission Form: Frame (L-2 Switch), Packet (L-3 switch) Speed: 10 Mbps Speed: 10/100 Mbps, 1 Gbps

Comparison between Network Bridge and Network Repeater: Bridge Repeater Bridge is hardware device that operates at both physical layer and data link layer of OSI model Repeater is the hardware device that operates at physical layer It uses MAC address of stations/devices to deliver frames to destination It cannot understand physical address or hardware address or MAC address of device It can understand frame format It cannot understand frame format It perform frame filtering It does not perform frame filtering In the network, if collision occurs in the one segment is not forwarded to another segment by bridge. Repeater forward the collision from one segment to another, which causes the same issue to be occured on all other segment in the network. Transparent bridge can also operate over devices with more than two ports. It has only two ports

Network Device:Repeater Ø    Repeater is an  electronic device  that receives a  signal  and retransmits it. Ø   It is networking device Ø   It operates only at physical layer of OSI reference model Ø   The basic purpose of a repeater is to extend the length of Local Area Network (LAN) Ø   It connects two segments of same network , overcoming the distance limitations of transmission media (Generally at Hill stations ) Ø   It has two ports Ø   A repeater receives a signal and before it becomes too weak or corrupted; regenerates the original bit patterns (0 & 1) and sends the refreshed signal. Ø   A repeater enables signals to travel longer distances over a network. Ø   It regenerate analog or digital signals distorted by transmission loss Ø   According to the types of signals that they regenerate , repeaters can be classified into two types       ·        Analog repeater       ·        D

Network Interface Card(NIC): Ø   A network interface card (NIC) is a  hardware component , typically a circuit board or  chip , which is installed on a computer so that it can connect to a network.  Ø   Without NIC a computer cannot be connected over a network. Ø   A  network interface Card  is also known as a  network interface controller ,  network adapter ,  LAN adapter  or  physical network interface , Ethernet Card , LAN card ) Ø   NIC allows both wired and wireless communications . Ø   Network interface card is generally used for   communications between computers connected via local area network (LAN) as well as communications over large-scale network (Internet ) through Internet Protocol (IP). Ø   The NIC uses the  OSI model  to send signals at the physical layer , transmit data packets at the network layer and operate as an interface at the  TCP/IP  layer. Ø   The network card operates as a middleman between a computer and a data network. Ø     For