Networking Concepts and Protocols

Optical fiber offers the fastest transmission speeds amongst common networking mediums due to its ability to transmit light signals with minimal signal degradation, allowing for high bandwidth and long distances.

Channel coding is the process of introducing redundancy to the data stream for error detection and correction. This is handled by the physical layer, not the data link layer.

The media access control sublayer (MAC) is responsible for managing access to the physical medium. It handles addressing, collision avoidance, and other media-specific tasks.

CRC stands for Cyclic Redundancy Check. It's an error detection method that adds a checksum to data, allowing the receiver to verify data integrity upon arrival.

The network layer is responsible for routing and addressing packets, the units of data transmitted across networks.

A 4-byte IP address is divided into two parts: the network address and the host address. The network address identifies the network, and the host address identifies the specific device within the network.

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the core network layer protocol of the internet, responsible for routing and addressing packets across networks.

TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) are transport layer protocols. TCP provides reliable, ordered delivery of data, while UDP is faster but doesn't guarantee delivery.

RIP (Routing Information Protocol) is a distance-vector routing protocol used to exchange routing information between routers. It uses a hop count metric to determine the best path to a destination network.

The default administrative distance of RIP is 120. This means that RIP routes are considered less reliable than other routing protocols with lower administrative distances.

Classless routing protocols allow for the use of variable-length subnet masks (VLSM). This means that different subnets within a network can have different sizes, allowing efficient use of IP addresses.

IP EIGRP and RIPv2 can be redistributed into OSPF. Redistribution allows routers to share routing information from one protocol into another. This helps with network integration and better path selection.

RIPv2 is more suitable for networks with a large diameter, exceeding 17 hops. Unlike RIPv1, RIPv2 supports authentication features and can handle VLSM for efficient network management.

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. It’s an address that uniquely identifies a resource on the internet. For example, a web page, a file or a service.

IP is a connectionless protocol. This means that data is sent in packets without establishing a dedicated connection. There is no guarantee of delivery or order of packets, making it unreliable.

IP addresses are categorized into classes. Classes A, B, C, and D exist and are used to effectively manage and allocate IP addresses. Class F is a special reserved class not used for general addressing.

An IPv6 address consists of 128 bits, significantly larger than the 32-bit IPv4. This allows for a vast number of addresses, addressing the concerns of IPv4 address exhaustion.

IPv6 doesn't use broadcast addresses. Instead, it uses multicast and anycast addresses, providing more efficient and flexible communication methods.