MAC Protocols

Protocols

MAC Protocols

The MAC sublayer offers many different protocols for sharing a transmission medium, but the netWorks application focuses on three MAC protocols defined by the IEEE 802 committee. These protocols are

802.3 - CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access with collision detection) LAN, derived from Ethernet
802.4 - Token Bus LAN
802.5 - 4 MB and 16 MB Token Ring LAN

The details for these and other MAC protocols can be found in [Tanembaum 1996] and [Perlman 1992]. A brief overview of each of these protocols is presented in the following sections.

802.3

802.4

802.5

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