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If STP is enabled, it will detect duplicate paths and prevent, or block, one of them from forwarding traffic. In the following example, STP determined that traffic from LAN segment 2 to LAN segment 1 should flow through Bridges C and A because this path has a greater bandwidth and is therefore more efficient.
What happens if a link failure is detected? As shown in next figure, the STP process reconfigures the network so that traffic from LAN segment 2 flows through Bridge B.
STP will determine which path between each bridged segment is most efficient, and then assign a specific reference point on the network. When the most efficient path has been identified, the other paths are blocked. In the above 3 figures, STP first determined that the path through Bridge C was the most efficient, and as a result, blocked the path through Bridge B. After the failure of Bridge C, STP
