In a shared network environment, computers are connected to hubs called repeaters. All ports of the repeater hub share a fixed amount of bandwidth, or data capacity. On a 100 Mbps shared hub, all nodes on the hub must share the 100 Mbps of bandwidth. As stations are added to the hub, the effective
Think of a shared repeater hub as a
On a shared hub all nodes must operate at the same speed, either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps. Fast Ethernet repeaters provide 100 Mbps of available bandwidth, ten times more than what’s available with a
Repeaters use a
In a switched network environment, each port gets a fixed, dedicated amount of bandwidth. In the highway scenario, each car has its own lane on a
In a switched environment, data is sent only to the port that leads to the proper destination station. Network bandwidth is not shared among all stations, and each new station added to the switch gets access to the full bandwidth of the network.
If a new user is added to a 100 Mbps switch, the new station receives its own dedicated 100 Mbps link and doesn’t impact the 100 Mbps bandwidth of another station. Switches can effectively increase the overall bandwidth available on the network, significantly improving performance. Switches can also support full duplex.
For more information on Fast Ethernet, visit our Network Products web site at http://www.intel.com/network.
30 Intel EtherExpress PRO/100+ TX PCI LAN Controller User’s Guide