Repeaters and hubs
A repeater is an electronic device that receives a network signal, cleans it of unnecessary noise, and regenerates it. The signal is retransmitted 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 that runs longer than 100 meters. A repeater with multiple ports is known as a hub. Repeaters work on the physical layer of the OSI model. Repeaters require a small amount of time to regenerate the signal. This can cause a propagation delay which can affect network performance. As a result, many network architectures limit the number of repeaters that can be used in a row, e.g., the Ethernet 5-4-3 rule.
Hubs have been mostly obsoleted by modern switches; but repeaters are used for long distance links, notably undersea cabling.
Bridges
A network bridge connects multiple network segments at the data link layer (layer 2) of the OSI model to form a single network. Bridges broadcast to all ports except the port on which the broadcast was received. However, bridges do not promiscuously copy traffic to all ports, as hubs do. Instead, bridges learn which
MAC addresses are reachable through specific ports. Once the bridge associates a port with an address, it will send traffic for that address to that port only.
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, the bridge assumes that the MAC address is associated with that port and stores its source address.
The first time a bridge sees a previously unknown destination address, the bridge will forward the frame to all ports other than the one on which the frame arrived.
Bridges come in three basic types:
Local bridges: Directly connect LANs
Remote bridges: Can be used to create a wide area network (WAN) link between LANs. Remote bridges, where the connecting link is slower than the end networks, largely have been replaced with routers. Wireless bridges: Can be used to join LANs or connect remote devices to LANs.
Internet: <http://en.wikipedia.org> (adapted).
The signal regeneration that is performed by repeaters can cause small propagation delays that can affect the performance of a computer network.
