The technology topic that has been chosen for this paper is connectivity technologies. These technologies are a part of the Local Area Network (LAN) as well as the Wide Area Network (WAN) technologies. The connectivity technologies that will be discussed are bridges, routers, hubs, and gateways. Bridges and hubs are used in the LAN connections for a business. Bridges can also be used in a WAN environment. Routers and gateways can be used in either a LAN or WAN environment. These connectivity tools are an integral part of connecting long distance LANs or WANs, breaking heavy traffic in either LANs or WANs, and having multiple LANs within a given location. Each one to the tools (routers, bridges, gateways, and hubs) have features that set them apart from the rest, while all of them in some way, work together to help create effective communication for a business. They have important facets that are individually or collectively necessary to connecting LAN's and WAN's and to ensure that the business works to its fullest potential.
A bridge is the physical link required to connect two different LANs that use a similar communications scheme. They also require that the same addressing method is used. Having the same addressing method means the internetworking between two ethernet networks or the internetworking of two token ring networks. You cannot internetwork between a token ring and an ethernet network. The fact that their addressing methods are different due to the way sent data is initialized at the source address, the way in which it is received by the destination address, and whether or not the data passes over the nodes or is directly read by all the nodes. A ...