*Ethernet network Question?*

XXNONAMEXX

What is designed to prevent multiple devices on an Ethernet network from transmitting at the same time? Thanks

Webmaster

It can and does occur that multiple nodes on the segment transmit at the same time. Of course the data never reaches it destination because the two frames would colide with each other. When this (a colission) occurs the nodes will wait for a random wait time before they (try to) transmit again. The time is provided by a so called backoff algorithm. This a short description of CSMA/CD, which is the access method used by Ethernet, and is the answer to your question. For more info:
www.techexams.net/technotes/networkplus/mediatopo.shtml