Can I use swticher instead of router in this case?

I don't quite understand when I read the following paragrpahy on Microsoft
Training Kit.

-------
Suppose you are designing a campus network with 200 host spead over four
buildings - Voter Hall, Twilight Hall, Monore Hall, and Sunderland Hall. You
want each of these four buildings to include 50 hosts. If you ISP has
allocated to you the Class C network 208.147.66.0, you can use the addresses
208.147.66.1-208.147.66.254 for your 200 hosts. However, because these hosts
are distributed among four physically separate locations, these hosts are not
all able to communicate with each other by means of local network broadcast.
By extending the subnet mask and borrowing 2 bits from the host ID portion of
your address space, you can divide the network into four logical subnets. You
can then use a router to connect the four physcial networks.
--------

I wonder if I can use a switcher instead of a router to connect other 4
switchers sitting on each building.

Take the above scenario as an example, the subnet mask is /28
(255.255.255.240).

I guess that the adoption of a router may bring the following advantages:
1. support accessibility of varied subnets.
2. reduce network traffic due to the decrease of the number of subnet's
hosts (default is 254, and it is 62 in this case)

I still not very clear “broadcast� in TCP/IP. When a host sends a data
package, if the destined host is in the same subnet as sender host, the data
package would be broadcasted in the subnet.
Does it imply that the smaller number of hosts in a subnet will bring more
efficiency?

Tell me something if I missed.

Thank you.

--
Self-Studying

=?Utf-8?B?QWFyb24=?=

You should upgrade the switcher to a switcher-oony

That is all.

--
Mostly Gizzards

A+ Network+ MCSE 2003


"Aaron" <> wrote in message
news:661112B9-DD1E-4C33-BDFF-...
>I don't quite understand when I read the following paragrpahy on Microsoft
> Training Kit.
>
> -------
> Suppose you are designing a campus network with 200 host spead over four
> buildings - Voter Hall, Twilight Hall, Monore Hall, and Sunderland Hall.
> You
> want each of these four buildings to include 50 hosts. If you ISP has
> allocated to you the Class C network 208.147.66.0, you can use the
> addresses
> 208.147.66.1-208.147.66.254 for your 200 hosts. However, because these
> hosts
> are distributed among four physically separate locations, these hosts are
> not
> all able to communicate with each other by means of local network
> broadcast.
> By extending the subnet mask and borrowing 2 bits from the host ID portion
> of
> your address space, you can divide the network into four logical subnets.
> You
> can then use a router to connect the four physcial networks.
> --------
>
> I wonder if I can use a switcher instead of a router to connect other 4
> switchers sitting on each building.
>
> Take the above scenario as an example, the subnet mask is /28
> (255.255.255.240).
>
> I guess that the adoption of a router may bring the following advantages:
> 1. support accessibility of varied subnets.
> 2. reduce network traffic due to the decrease of the number of subnet's
> hosts (default is 254, and it is 62 in this case)
>
> I still not very clear "broadcast" in TCP/IP. When a host sends a data
> package, if the destined host is in the same subnet as sender host, the
> data
> package would be broadcasted in the subnet.
> Does it imply that the smaller number of hosts in a subnet will bring more
> efficiency?
>
> Tell me something if I missed.
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> Self-Studying

Hi,
if one pc sends data to another pc in its own subnet, this data is cought by
the switch, the pcs are connected to.
if the switch (they are some intelligent to learn with the traffic on which
port a pc is connected) does not know where the destination pc is located /
on which port is connected, it has to send the data to all ports (pc's), too
to the upper switches and so to the next buildings to make possible to reach
even this pc's.
Then ALL lines in all buildings are busy (broadcast) !

If you have a router on top, the router get the data from the building's
switch but can decide whether the data is to send to another building or
not.
If not (when data goes to pc in same/building's subnet), then the lines of 3
buildings are not busy / free for their own traffic.

regards jk