A network is also limited in its maximum size,
when Repeaters and/or hubs are used to extend a Thin Ethernet (10base2) or Twisted Pair Ethernet
(10baseT/UTP) network, on large
configurations, a Switch may become necessary to optimize network utilisation..
On Thin-Ethernet, the rules are:
- minimum 0.5 m between T-connectors
- maximum 185 m cable
length
- maximum of 30 nodes (i.e. connections)
An cable can be extended by installing Repeaters, which amplify
the signal:
A Repeater counts on each segment as a node and can be connected at ANY location in the
Thin-Ethernet cable.
However, if a network needs more than 2 repeater:
the following limitations apply:
When an Ethernet signal travels from its source to destination
station, it can travel through:
- maximum of 5 segments
- maximum of 4 Repeaters/hubs
- maximum of 3 populated segments
(Populated segments have more than 2 nodes connected,
un-populated segments have only a node at each end, so a
10baseT-segments is a non-populated segment).
And for this discussion, a 10BaseT-Hub is like a repeater and a
10baseT cable can be treated as a cable 10base2-cable with just 2
systems on it.
There can be more repeaters/hubs in the complete network, and an
Ethernet signal can pass-by more than 4 Repeaters/hubs, as long
it does not have to go THROUGH more than 4 Repeaters/hubs.
If these rules are violated, the network becomes unreliable.