Networking Devices

2.1 Introduction
All networks are made up of basic hardware building blocks to interconnect network nodes, such as
Network Interface Cards (NICs), Bridges, Hubs, Switches, and Routers etc. These devices also need
cables to connect them.so; we are going to discuss these important devices.

2.2 Network Cables

Network Cable is the medium through which information usually moves from one network device to
another. There are several types of cable which are commonly used with LANs. In some cases, a
network will utilize only one type of cable, other networks will use a variety of cable types. The type
of cable chosen for a network is related to the network's topology, protocol, and size. Understanding
the characteristics of different types of cable and how they relate to other aspects of a network is
necessary for the development of a successful network

The following are the types of cables used in networks and other related topics.

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP) Cable

Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cable
Coaxial Cable
Fiber Optic Cable

2.2.1 Unshielded Twisted Pair Vs Shielded Twisted Pair

Twisted pair cables are widely used in transmitting information, especially across great distances. The
twist in the wire cancels out any magnetic interference that may develop in the wiring. There are two
common types of twisted pair cabling, STP and UTP. The S stands for Shielded, the U stands for
Unshielded, and the TP stands for twisted pair for both. STP simply has additional shielding material
that is used to cancel any external interference that may be introduced at any point in the path of the
cable. UTP cables have no protection against such interference and its performance is often degraded
in its presence. Using STP cables ensure that you get the maximum bandwidth from your cabling
even if the external condition is less than ideal.

The biggest drawback to using STP cables is the higher cost. The shielding is an additional material
that goes into every meter of the cable, thereby raising its total cost. The shielding also makes the cable
heavier and a bit more difficult to bend or manipulate in any way. This is not a big issue but
something that users should know when choosing between STP and UTP.
In terms of usage, UTP is the more prevalent and popular cabling that is used in most homes, offices,
and even in large scale businesses due to its lower cost. STP is commonly used by large scale
companies in high-end applications that require the maximum bandwidth. STP cables are also used in
outdoor environments where the cables are exposed to the elements and manmade structures and
equipment that may introduce additional interference. Good examples of this would be the
telephone/internet cables that run from your home, to the junction box, down to the establishments of
your provider or ISP.

For most common uses, it does not really matter whether you use STP or UTP as both would
probably perform well. UTP is the more logical choice as it is cheaper and much easier to find in the
majority of computer equipment retailers.

Summary:

1. STP cables are shielded while UTP cables are unshielded

2. STP cables are more immune to interference and noise than UTP cables
3. STP cables are better at maximizing bandwidth compared to UTP cables
4. STP cables cost more per meter compared to UTP cables
5. STP cables are heavier per meter compared to UTP cables
6. UTP cables are more prevalent in SOHO networks while STP is used in more high-end
applications

Unshielded Twisted Pair

Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) Cable

 Table 1: UTP cable Categories

UTP Category Data Rate MAX-Length Cable Type Application

CAT 1 Up to 1Mbps --- Twisted pair Old telephone
cable

CAT 2 Up to 4 Mbps --- Twisted pair Token ring

Networks

CAT 3 Up to 10Mbps 100m Twisted pair Token ring &

10BASE-T
Ethernet

CAT 4 Up to 16Mbps 100m Twisted pair Token ring

Networks

CAT 5 Up to 100m Twisted pair Ethernet, Fast

100Mbps Ethernet and
Token ring

CAT 5e Up to 1Gbps 100m Twisted pair Ethernet, Fast

Ethernet and
Gigabit
Ethernet

CAT 6 Up to 10Gbps 100m Twisted pair Gigabit

Ethernet, 10G
Ethernet (55
meters)

CAT 6a Up to 10Gbps 100m Twisted pair Gigabit

Ethernet, 10G
Ethernet (55
meters)

CAT 7 Up to 10Gbps 100m Twisted pair Gigabit

Ethernet, 10G
Ethernet (100
meters)

✓ The most commonly used Ethernet cable is Category 5 cable with a connector RJ-45.
 UTP Category 5 cable with a connector RJ-45

2.2.2 Coaxial Cable

A Coaxial cable is a cable used in the transmission of video, communications, and audio. This cable
has high bandwidths and greater transmission capacity. Most users relate to a coaxial or coax cable as
a cable used to connect their TVs to a cable TV service. However, these cables are also used in networks
and what allow a broadband cable Internet connection using a cable modem.

Coaxial cable
2.2.3 Fiber optic cable

A fiber optic cable defined in IEEE 802.8 is cable that contains optical fibers (usually glass) coated
in plastic that are used to send data by pulses of light. The coating helps protect the fibers from heat,
cold, electromagnetic interference from other types of wiring, as well as some protection from
ultraviolet rays from the sun. Fiber optics allow for a much faster data transmission than standard copper
wires, because they have a much higher bandwidth. They are common amongst corporate networks
or world-wide networks, such as Internet backbones, because of the capabilities of the cable. In
TV and stereo systems, an optical cable can be used to transmit sound from a DVD player or TV to
a sound system, such as a stereo receiver or sound bar. The optical cable can transmits high quality of
sound, ensuring little or no sound degradation.

Fiber optic cable

2.3 Network interface card (NIC)
A network interface card is a piece of computer hardware designed to allow computers to
communicate over a computer network. It provides physical access to a networking medium and
often provides a low-level addressing system through the use of MAC addresses. It allows users to
connect to each other either by using cables or wirelessly. The NIC provides the transfer of data
in megabytes.

Network Interface Card (NIC)

Every device on a network that needs to transmit and receive data must have a network interface
card (NIC) installed. They are sometimes called network adapters, and are usually installed into one
of the computer's expansion slots in the same way as a sound or graphics card. The NIC includes
a transceiver, (a transmitter and receiver combined). The transceiver allows a network device to
transmit and receive data through the transmission medium. Each NIC has a unique 48-bit Media
Access Control (MAC) address burned in to its ROM during manufacture. The first 24 bits make up a
block code known as the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) that is issued to manufacturers of
NICs, and identify the manufacturer. The issue of OUIs to organizations is administered by
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The last 24 bits constitute a sequential
number issued by the manufacturer.

The Media Access Control (MAC) address is sometimes called a hardware address or physical address,
and uniquely identifies the network adapter. It is used by many data link layer communications
protocols, including Ethernet, the 802.11 wireless protocol and Bluetooth. The use of a 48-bit address
allows for 248(281,474,976,710,656) unique addresses. A MAC address is usually shown in
hexadecimal format, with each octet separated by a dash or colon,

For example: 00-60-55-93-R2-N7

2.4 Repeater
A Repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it at a higher power level, or
to the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances without degradation.
In most twisted pair Ethernet configurations, repeaters are required for cable runs longer than 100
meters away from the computer. As signals travel along a transmission medium there will be a loss of
signal strength i.e. attenuation. A repeater is a non-intelligent network device that receives a signal on
one of its ports, regenerates the signal, and then retransmits the signal on all of its remaining ports.
Repeaters can extend the length of a network (but not the capacity) by connecting two network
segments. Repeaters cannot be used to extend a network beyond the limitations of its underlying
architecture, or to connect network segments that use different network access methods. They can,
however, connect different media types, and may be able to link bridge segments with different data
rates.

Repeater

Repeaters are used to boost signals in coaxial and twisted pair cable and in optical fibre lines. An
electrical signal in a cable gets weaker the further it travels, due to energy dissipated in conductor
resistance and dielectric losses. Similarly a light signal traveling through an optical fiber suffers
attenuation due to scattering and absorption. In long cable runs, repeaters are used to periodically
regenerate and strengthen the signal.
2.5 Hub
A Hub contains multiple ports. When a packet arrives at one port, it is copied to all the ports of the
hub for transmission. In a hub, a frame is passed along or "broadcast" to every one of its ports. It
doesn't matter that the frame is only destined for one port. The hub has no way of distinguishing
which port a frame should be sent to. Passing it along to every port ensures that it will reach its intended
destination. This places a lot of traffic on the network and can lead to poor network response times.
Additionally, a 10/100Mbps hub must share its bandwidth with each and every one of its ports. So
when only one PC is broadcasting, it will have access to the maximum available bandwidth. If,
however, multiple PCs are broadcasting, then that bandwidth will need to be divided among all of those
systems, which will degrade performance.

Network Hub

2.6 Bridge
A network Bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model.
Bridges do not copy traffic to all ports, as hubs do, but learn which MAC addresses are reachable
through specific ports. Once the bridge associates a port and an address, it will send traffic for that
address only to that port. Bridges do send broadcasts to all ports except the one on which the broadcast
was received.

Bridges learn the association of ports and addresses by examining the source address of frames that it
sees on various ports. Once a frame arrives through a port, its source address is stored and the bridge
assumes that MAC address is associated with that port. The first time that a previously unknown
destination address is seen, the bridge will forward the frame to all ports other than the one on which
the frame arrived.
Bridges don't know anything about protocols, but just forward data depending on the destination address
in the data packet. This address is not the IP address, but the MAC (Media Access Control) address that
is unique to each network adapter card. The bridge is basically just to connect two local- area networks
(LANs), or two segments of the same LAN that use the same protocol. Bridges can extend the length
of a network, but unlike repeaters they can also extend the capacity of a network, since each port on
a bridge has its own MAC address. When bridges are powered on in an Ethernet network, they start to
learn the network's topology by analyzing the source addresses of incoming frames from all attached
network segments (a process called backward learning). Over a period of time, they build up a routing
table.

The bridge monitors all traffic on the segments it connects, and checks the source and destination
address of each frame against its routing table. When the bridge first becomes operational, the routing
table is blank, but as data is transmitted back and forth, the bridge adds the source MAC address of
any incoming frame to the routing table and associates the address with the port on which the frame
arrives. In this way, the bridge quickly builds up a complete picture of the network topology. If the
bridge does not know the destination segment for an incoming frame, it will forward the frame to all
attached segments except the segment on which the frame was transmitted. Bridges reduce the
amount of traffic on individual segments by acting as a filter, isolating intra-segment traffic. This can
greatly improve response times.
2.7 Switch
The switch is a relatively new network device that has replaced both hubs and bridges in Local Area
Networks. A switch uses an internal address table to route incoming data frames via the port
associated with their destination MAC address. Switches can be used to connect together a number of
end-user devices such as workstations, or to interconnect multiple network segments. A switch that
interconnects end-user devices is often called a Workgroup Switch. Switches provide dedicated full-
duplex links for every possible pairing of ports; effectively giving each attached device its own network
segment, this significantly reduces the number of intra-segment and inter-segment collisions. A
switch normally has numerous ports, with the intention being that most or the entire
network is connected directly to the switch, or another switch that is in turn connected to a switch.

24 and 48 port Network Switches

2.8 Router
Router is a networking device that forward data packets between networks using headers and
forwarding tables to determine the best path to forward the packets. A network environment that
consists of several interconnected networks employing different network protocols and architectures
requires a sophisticated device to manage the flow of traffic between these diverse networks. Such a
device, sometimes referred to as an intermediate system, but more commonly called a Router, must
be able to determine how to get incoming packets (or datagrams) to the destination network by the
most efficient route. Routers gather information about the networks to which they are connected, and
can share this information with routers on other networks. The information gathered is stored in the
router's internal routing table, and includes both the routing information itself and the current status of
various network links. Routers exchange this routing information using special routing protocols.

A router is connected to at least two networks, commonly two LANs or WANs or a LAN and its
Internet Service Provider's network. Routers are located at gateways, the places where two or more
networks connect, and are the critical device that keeps data flowing between networks and keeps the
networks connected to the Internet. When data is sent between locations on one network or from one
network to a second network the data is always seen and directed to the correct location by the router.
The router accomplishes this by using headers and forwarding tables to determine the best path for
forwarding the data packets, and they also use protocols such as The Internet control message
protocol (ICMP) to communicate with each other and configure the best route between any two
hosts.

The Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) is a supporting protocol in the Internet protocol suite;
it is used by network devices, including routers, to send error messages and operational information
indicating, for example, that a requested service is not available or that a host or router could not be
reached

Routee