Connectivity Rules
Ethernet (10Mbps) networks have the following connectivity rules:
♦The maximum length of a twisted-pair cable segment is 100 meters. Cabling should be Category 3 or better.
♦Between any two end-stations in a collision domain, there may be up to five cable segments and four intermediate repeaters (hubs, hub stacks, or other repeaters).
♦If there is a path between any two end-stations containing five seg- ments and four repeaters, then at least two of the cable segments must be point-to-point link segments (e.g., 10BASE-T or 10BASE-FL), while the remaining segments may be populated (mixing) segments (e.g., 10BASE-2 or 10BASE-5).
Fast Ethernet (100Mbps) networks have the following connectivity rules:
♦The maximum length of a twisted-pair segment (that is, the distance between a port in the hub to a single-address network device such as a PC, server, or Ethernet switch) is 100 meters. Cabling and other wir- ing should be certified as Category 5 UTP or shielded twisted- pair(STP).
♦The maximum diameter in a collision domain is about 205 meters us- ing two Class II hubs (or hub stacks).
♦Between any two end-stations in a collision domain, there may be up to three cable segments and two Class II hubs or hub stacks.
