1.2 Dual-speed Hub Technology
Dual-speed hub is designed to support connections with different speeds in the same hub. It makes a network planning simpler, especially when an environment is containing 10Mbps Ethernet and 100Mbps Fast Eth- ernet technologies. It also allows a smooth migration from an Ethernet network to a Fast Ethernet network.
A dual-speed hub is actually equipped with one 10Mbps repeater and one 100Mbps repeater in one hub unit. Each repeater serves one shared network segment. The repeater receives transmissions from any of its ports and retransmits them to all its other ports. The TP port of the hub can auto-sense the speed (10M or 100M) of its connection and switch to either 10Mbps shared segment or 100Mbps shared segment automati- cally. The internal design of a dual-speed hub, KF-16M, is illustrated as follows:
Figure 1-2 Dual-speed Hub Design
