"Steve Holden" <s..e@h...b.comwrote:
>
Right, but collisions are *so* twentieth-century, aren't they. With a
properly-implemented switched infrastructure Ethernet interfaces can
transmit and receive at the same time.
This is true, while "A" and "B" are not simultaneously trying to address
"C" - Then you need something like store and forward, on the fly...
: - ) better known as "routing"...
Some (most?) of the little switches I have seen are too dumb even to
allow "A" to talk to "B" while "C" is talking to "D" - they just broadcast
the first "talker"'s message to all the "listeners" - little better than
active hubs, destroying the end point's hardware capability to talk and
listen at the same time.
I think the keywords here are "properly implemented" - its actually not a
trivial problem, as the switch has to know or learn who is where, and set
up paths accordingly, in real time. This is hard to do without store and
forward.
- Hendrik