FS518T.Manual.FINAL 5/19/00 12:55 PM Page 9
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Congratulations on your purchase of the NETGEAR Model FS518T Fast Ethernet Switch. This switch provides you with a
To relieve server and backbone bottlenecks, the Model FS518T switch also has two Gigabit Ethernet
Benefits of Using Switching Technology
A majority of installed networks today are based on shared network technology. With this technology, a number of users or groups of users share a total available network bandwidth (or network capacity) of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or other amounts of network bandwidth. For example, with a total of 10 users, the average bandwidth available to each user on a 10 Mbps network is calculated as 10/10 Mbps, which equals 1 Mbps of bandwidth per user. On a 100 Mbps (Fast Ethernet) network, the average bandwidth available to each of the 10 users is 100/10 Mbps, which equals 10 Mbps of bandwidth per user.
Ethernet switches significantly increase network throughput by segmenting network traffic. They check traffic coming in to each port to learn which network device
is located on which segment. Based on this information, switches forward cross- segment traffic only to the appropriate segment. The traffic will not show up in the other segments because it is filtered out. In this way, network capacity is fully reserved for traffic destined for that segment only, and other segments will not be saturated with unnecessary traffic.
Ethernet switches provide private, dedicated, 10 Mbps (or 100 Mbps) capacity to each connected PC/server or hub/workgroup segment, which is significantly higher than in a shared environment. The higher bandwidth enables the use of applications such as multimedia, imaging, video, or
introduction