Common Issues and Solutions for Ethernet LAN Expansion

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As nodes are added to a shared Ethernet LAN, the likelihood of collisions increases, which in turn consumes more network bandwidth, adversely effecting performance.

A traditional hub-based Ethernet LAN is a shared medium network where all devices connected to the network share the same bandwidth, and there is no dedicated communication path between devices. As the number of users added to the network increases, there are several problems that can occur:

1. Greater chance for collisions: As more users are added to the network, the probability of collisions increases. In a hub-based Ethernet LAN, only one device can transmit data at a time, and all other devices must wait their turn. When two or more devices attempt to transmit at the same time, a collision occurs, and the data packets are lost. The more users on the network, the more likely it is that collisions will occur, leading to slower network performance.

2. Unnecessary consumption of network bandwidth: In a hub-based Ethernet LAN, all devices share the same bandwidth. As the number of users increases, the available bandwidth is divided among more users, resulting in slower network performance for all users. Additionally, broadcast and multicast traffic are sent to all devices on the network, even those that do not need the traffic. This results in unnecessary consumption of network bandwidth, which can lead to slower network performance.

In contrast, in a switched Ethernet LAN, each device has its own dedicated communication path to the switch, which eliminates the problems associated with hub-based Ethernet LANs. Switches maintain a MAC address table that associates the MAC addresses of devices with the switch ports they are connected to. As a result, devices only receive the traffic they need, and there are no collisions or unnecessary consumption of network bandwidth.