COMPAQ NC3121
User Guide

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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 100Mbps shared hub, all nodes on the hub must share the 100Mbps of bandwidth. As stations are added to the hub, the effective bandwidth available to any individual station gets smaller. Shared hubs do not support full duplex. Think of a shared repeater hub as a single-lane highway that everyone shares. As the number of vehicles on the highway increases, the traffic becomes congested and transit time increases for individual cars. On a shared hub all nodes must operate at the same speed, either 10Mbps or 100Mbps. Fast Ethernet repeaters provide 100 Mbps of available bandwidth, ten times more than what�s available with a 10Base-T repeater. Repeaters use a well-established, uncomplicated design, making them highly cost effective for connecting PCs within a workgroup. These are the most common type of Ethernet hubs in the installed base.

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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 multi-lane highway and there is no sharing. 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 station is added to a 100Mbps switching hub, the new station receives its own dedicated 100 Mbps link and doesn�t impact the 100Mbps bandwidth of another station. Switching hubs can effectively increase the overall bandwidth available on the network, significantly improving performance. Switching hubs can also support full duplex.

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