Tag: MAC Layer

You can take this quiz online at http://www.net-intro.com/quiz/ When using a WiFi network to talk to the Internet, where does your computer send its packets? a) A gateway b) A satellite c) A cell phone tower32 CHAPTER 3. LINK LAYER d) The Internet Central Office How is the link/physical address for a network device assigned?a)…

base station: Another word for the first router that handles your packets as they are forwarded to the Internet.broadcast: Sending a packet in a way that all the stations connected to a local area network will receive the packet.gateway: A router that connects a local area network to a wider area network such as the…

So now we have looked at the “lowest” layer in our four-layer architecture. And we have only taken a simple look at how the Link layer works. There are many other details that must be designed into a link layer like connection distance, voltage, frequency, speed, and many others. A key benefit of the layered…

Sometimes when a link layer has many transmitting stations and needs to operate at near 100% efficiency for long periods of time, the design takes a different approach. In this approach, there is a “token” that indicates when each station is given the opportunity to transmit data. Stations cannot start a transmission unless they have…

Because many computers are sharing the same radio frequencies, it’s important to coordinate how they send data. When there’s a crowd of people in a room, they can’t all talk at the same time or everything will be garbled. The same thing happens when multiple WiFi radios transmit at the same time on the same…

When your laptop or phone is using WiFi to connect to the Internet, it is sending and receiving data with a small, low-powered radio. The radio in your computer can only send data about 300 meters, so your computer sends your packets to the router in your home, which forwards the packets using a link…

The lowest layer of our Internet Architecture is the Link layer. We call it the “lowest layer” because it is closest to the physical network media. Often the Link layer transmits data using a wire, a fiber optic cable, or a radio signal. A key element of the Link layer is that usually data can…