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Explanation: The OSI physical layer provides the means to transport the bits that make up a frame across the network media. This layer accepts a complete frame from the data link layer and encodes it as a series of signals that are transmitted to the local media.

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Explanation: Crosstalk is a type of noise, or interference that occurs when signal transmission on one wire interferes with another wire. When current flows through a wire a magnetic field is produced. The produced magnetic field will interface the signal carried in the adjacent wire.

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Explanation: Network cabling include different types of cables:
UTP cable consists of four pairs of color-coded wires that have been twisted together and then encased in a flexible plastic sheath.
STP cable uses four pairs of wires, each wrapped in a foil shield, which are then wrapped in an overall metallic braid or foil.
Coaxial cable uses a copper conductor and a layer of flexible plastic insulation surrounds the copper conductor.
Fiber cable is a flexible, extremely thin, transparent strand of glass surrounded by plastic insulation.

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Explanation: Copper media is widely used in network communications. However, copper media is limited by distance and signal interference. Data is transmitted on copper cables as electrical pulses. The electrical pulses are susceptible to interference from two sources:
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) or radio frequency interference (RFI) – EMI and RFI signals can distort and corrupt the data signals being carried by copper media.
Crosstalk – Crosstalk is a disturbance caused by the electric or magnetic fields of a signal on one wire interfering with the signal in an adjacent wire.

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Explanation: Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is the interference that is caused by radio transmitters and other devices that are transmitting in the same frequency.

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Explanation: The data link layer is divided into two sub layers, namely Logical Link Control (LLC) and Media Access Control (MAC). LLC forms a frame from the network layer PDU into a format that conforms to the requirements of the network interface and media. A network layer PDU might be for IPv4 or IPv6. The MAC sub layer defines the media access processes performed by the hardware. It manages the frame access to the network media according to the physical signaling requirements (copper cable, fiber optic, wireless, etc.)

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Explanation: All data link layer protocols encapsulate the Layer 3 PDU within the data field of the frame. However, the structure of the frame and the fields that are contained in the header vary according to the protocol. Different data link layer protocols may use different fields, like priority/quality of service, logical connection control, physical link control, flow control, and congestion control.

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Explanation: Partial mesh topologies provide high availability by interconnecting multiple remote sites, but do not require a connection between all remote sites. A mesh topology requires point-to-point links with every system being connected to every other system. A point-to-point topology is where each device is connected to one other device. A hub and spoke uses a central device in a star topology that connects to other point-to-point devices.

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Explanation: Half-duplex communication occurs when both devices can both transmit and receive on the medium but cannot do so simultaneously. Full-duplex communication occurs when both devices can transmit and receive on the medium at the same time and therefore does not require media arbitration. Half-duplex communication is typically contention-based, whereas controlled (deterministic) access is applied in technologies where devices take turns to access the medium.

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Explanation: In an extended star topology, central intermediate devices interconnect other star topologies.

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Explanation: The Ethernet frame includes the source and destination physical address. The trailer includes a CRC value in the Frame Check Sequence field to allow the receiving device to determine if the frame has been changed (has errors) during the transmission.

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Explanation: Carrier sense multiple access collision detection (CSMA/CD) is the access method used with Ethernet. The access method rule of communication dictates how a network device is able to place a signal on the carrier. CSMA/CD dictates those rules on an Ethernet network and CSMA/CA dictates those rules on an 802.11 wireless LAN.

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Explanation: The data link protocol is responsible for NIC-to-NIC communications within the same network. Although there are many different data link layer protocols that describe data link layer frames, each frame type has three basic parts:
Header
Data
Trailer

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Explanation: The auto-MDIX enables a switch to use a crossover or a straight-through Ethernet cable to connect to a device regardless of the device on the other end of the connection.

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Explanation: The destination MAC address is used for local delivery of Ethernet frames. The MAC (Layer 2) address changes at each network segment along the path. As the frame leaves the web server, it will be delivered by using the MAC address of the default gateway.

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Explanation: Fast-forward and fragment-free switching are variations of cut-through switching, which begins to forward the frame before the entire frame is received.

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Explanation: The FCS field in a frame is used to detect any errors in the transmission and receipt of a frame. This is done by comparing the CRC value within the frame against a computed CRC value of the frame. If the two values do not match, then the frame is discarded.

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Explanation: Fast-forward switching begins to forward a frame after reading the destination MAC address, resulting in the lowest latency. Fragment-free reads the first 64 bytes before forwarding. Store-and-forward has the highest latency because it reads the entire frame before beginning to forward it. Both fragment-free and fast-forward are types of cut-through switching.

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Explanation: Modern switches can negotiate to work in full-duplex mode if both switches are capable. They will negotiate to work using the fastest possible speed and the auto-MDIX feature is enabled by default, so a cable change is not needed.

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Explanation: A switch using the store-and-forward switching method performs an error check on an incoming frame by comparing the FCS value against its own FCS calculations after the entire frame is received. In comparison, a switch using the cut-through switching method makes quick forwarding decisions and starts the forwarding process without waiting for the entire frame to be received. Thus a switch using cut-through switching may send invalid frames to the network. The performance of store-and-forward switching is slower compared to cut-through switching performance. Collision detection is monitored by the sending device. Store-and-forward switching does not use IPv4 Layer 3 and 4 information for its forwarding decisions.

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Explanation: When the store-and-forward switching method is used, the switch receives the complete frame before forwarding it on to the destination. The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) part of the trailer is used to determine if the frame has been modified during transit.​​ In contrast, a cut-through switch forwards the frame once the destination Layer 2 address is read. Two types of cut-through switching methods are fast-forward and fragment-free.

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Explanation: Important actions that a switch performs are as follows:
When a frame comes in, the switch examines the Layer 2 source address to build and maintain the Layer 2 MAC address table.
It examines the Layer 2 destination address to determine how to forward the frame. When the destination address is in the MAC address table, then the frame is sent out a particular port. When the address is unknown, the frame is sent to all ports that have devices connected to that network.

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Explanation: Logical link control is implemented in software and enables the data link layer to communicate with the upper layers of the protocol suite. Logical link control is specified in the IEEE 802.2 standard. IEEE 802.3 is a suite of standards that define the different Ethernet types. The MAC (Media Access Control) sublayer is responsible for the placement and retrieval of frames on and off the media. The MAC sublayer is also responsible for adding a header and a trailer to the network layer protocol data unit (PDU).

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Explanation: Cut-through switching provides lower latency switching for high-performance computing (HPC) applications. Cut-through switching allows more invalid frames to cross the network than store-and-forward switching. The cut-through switching method can make a forwarding decision as soon as it looks up the destination MAC address of the frame.

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Explanation: When a cable to an RJ-45 connector is terminated, it is important to ensure that the untwisted wires are not too long and that the flexible plastic sheath surrounding the wires is crimped down and not the bare wires. None of the colored wires should be visible from the bottom of the jack.

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Explanation: A straight-through cable is commonly used to interconnect a host to a switch and a switch to a router. A crossover cable is used to interconnect similar devices together like switch to a switch, a host to a host, or a router to a router. If a switch has the MDIX capability, a crossover could be used to connect the switch to the router; however, that option is not available. A rollover cable is used to connect to a router or switch console port.

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Explanation: Issuing the command ipconfig /all from the PC0 command prompt displays the IPv4 address and MAC address. When the IPv4 address 10.1.1.5 is pinged from PC0, the switch stores the source MAC address (from PC0) along with the port to which PC0 is connected. When the destination reply is received, the switch takes the destination MAC address and compares to MAC addresses stored in the MAC address table. Issuing the show mac-address-table on the PC0 Terminal application displays two dynamic MAC address entries. The MAC address and port entry that does not belong to PC0 must be the MAC address and port of the destination with the IPv4 address 10.1.1.5.

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Explanation: Data is transmitted on copper cables as electrical pulses. A detector in the network interface of a destination device must receive a signal that can be successfully decoded to match the signal sent. However, the farther the signal travels, the more it deteriorates. This is referred to as signal attenuation.

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Explanation: Optical fiber cable transmits data over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than any other networking media. Unlike copper wires, fiber-optic cable can transmit signals with less attenuation and is completely immune to EMI and RFI.