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Replace your hub with a switch

A heavy collision in my Ethernet network occurred after installing a hub with cross cable. Can you offer any suggestions?

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Hubs are an OSI "layer one" device. Traffic entering one port is forwarded to all other ports. Each hub that is connected to another hub increases the size of the collision domain. Since Ethernet is a base-band technology (meaning only one device can transmit at any given moment) collisions are going to increase rapidly as you add additional devices or interlinked hubs. Most organizations have replace hubs with switches. Switches segment collision domains. Replace those hubs with a switch and the problem you described will vanish!

This was first published in February 2003

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