Ethernet Switches

-> a resurgence of bridge technology in a simpler, lower-cost, and higher-performance device with many more ports being supported. 

-> Most switches may operate at wire speed, providing much better performance than a traditional bridge. For example, a single 10 Mbps Ethernet interface can support a maximum theoretical transmission of 14,880 pps for 64-octet (minimum-size) frames. 

-> The switching logic inside the switch buffers the received frames, identifies the appropriate output port and retransmits the frame when this port becomes available. The decisions needed by the switch to identify the output port is based on the destination MAC address contained in each packet. Generally, this forwarding decision does not consider other information buried deep inside the packet. 

-> Unlike a bridge, a switch can forward data with very low latency, providing performance that is closer to single-LAN performance than bridged-LAN performance.

-> Ethernet Switches come in a variety of shapes and forms - ranging from the simplest low cost devices with a small number of ports to expensive high performance switches with a wealth of features to control and manage the data transmission in large networks.

A low cost stackable 10 Mbps Ethernet-only switch for economical work group performance enhancement