The benefits of Ethernet switching Traditional shared Ethernet
is a baseband medium which means that only one station can send
data onto the medium at any one time. Multiple signals cannot be
multiplexed as in the case of a broadband medium. On a shared
Ethernet hub stations resolve access contention by listening on
the receive pair of wires to check if any other station is
sending data. The implementation of Ethernet switching instead
of shared Ethernet entails the following improved operational
features: Dedicated collision domains Each port on a switch is
in its own collision domain and therefore a station connected to
the LAN via a switch port rather than a hub port does not have
to compete for access to the wire by listening for collisions
before sending data. This increases the effective bandwidth on
the LAN. Traffic filtering and forwarding A switch functions as
a multi-port bridge and learns the location of each station's
MAC address by listening to live traffic. For each frame that it
switches, it wi