Reducing the collision domain size can be the result of installing network devices (usually switches and/or network bridges) that use microsegmentation.

Unlike network hubs and regular repeaters that usually broadcast every single packet, LAN switches are able to filter and forward packets by their MAC address (Media Access Control). The switch basically reads the 48-bit MAC address from the network card and is able to filter or stop frames inside the LAN or a certain network domain....

The following steps elaborate how to use the Ping utility to perform progressively more distant tests on your network connectivity.

Ping the loopback address – type ping 127.0.0.1
Successfully pinging the loopback address verifies that TCP/IP is both installed and configured correctly on the local client. If your loopback test fails, then it means IP stack is not answering. If any TCP drivers get corrupted, or if your network adapter is not functioning properly, or if any of the other service is interrupting IP , then lack of response might can occur. Open event viewer, and look for problems reported by setup or by the TCP/IP service....

A computer network can be segmented physically but also logically. A collision domain is one of the logical network segments in which the data packets can collide to each other. One of the most common protocols used when referring to a collision domain is the Ethernet protocol. Collision domains are often referred as ‘Ethernet segments’.

The term of ‘collision domain’ is also used when describing the circumstances in which a single network device sends packets throughout a network segment and forces every other device in that network segment to pay attention to those packets....

IP addresses were originally organized into classes. The address class determined the potential size of the network.

The class of an address specified which of the bits were used to identify the network, the network ID, or which bits were used to identify the host ID, host computer. It also defined the total number of hosts subnets per network. There were five classes of IP addresses: classes A through E....

127.0.0.1 is the standard IP address used for a loopback network connection.

This means that if you try to connect to 127.0.0.1, you are immediately looped back to your own machine....

IP (Internet Protocol) is the primary network protocol used on the Internet, developed in the 1970s. Every device connected to the public Internet is assigned a unique number known as an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods (also called a ‘dotted-quad’) and look something like 127.0.0.1.

An IP address has two parts: the identifier of a particular network on the Internet and an identifier of the particular device (which can be a server or a workstation) within that network....

ISP is the short for Internet Service Provider, a company that provides access to the Internet. For a monthly fee, the service provider gives you a software package, username, password and access phone number. Equipped with a modem, you can then log on to the Internet and browse the World Wide Web and USENET, and send and receive e-mail.

An ISP has the equipment and the telecommunication line access required to have a point-of-presence on the Internet for the geographic area served. The larger ISPs have their own high-speed leased lines so that they are less dependent on the telecommunication providers and can provide better service to their customers. Among the largest national and regional ISPs are AT&T WorldNet, IBM Global Network, MCI, Netcom, UUNet, and PSINet....

A modem modulates outgoing digital signals from a computer or other digital device to analog signals for a conventional copper twisted pair telephone line and demodulates the incoming analog signal and converts it to a digital signal for the digital device.

The most familiar example is a voiceband modem that turns the digital ‘1s and 0s’ of a personal computer into sounds that can be transmitted over the telephone lines of Plain Old Telephone Systems (POTS), and once received on the other side, converts those 1s and 0s back into a form used by a USB, Serial, or Network connection. Modems are generally classified by the amount of data they can send in a given time, normally measured in bits per second, or “bps”....

In electronic communication, bandwidth is the width of the range (or band) of frequencies that an electronic signal uses on a given transmission medium. Bandwidth in hertz is a central concept in many fields, including electronics, information theory, radio communications, signal processing, and spectroscopy. Bandwidth is expressed in terms of the difference between the highest-frequency signal component and the lowest-frequency signal component. Since the frequency of a signal is measured in hertz (the number of cycles of change per second), a given bandwidth is the difference in hertz between the highest frequency the signal uses and the lowest frequency it uses. A typical voice signal has a bandwidth of approximately three kilohertz (3 kHz); an analog television (TV) broadcast video signal has a bandwidth of six megahertz (6 MHz) — some 2,000 times as wide as the voice signal.

In computer networks, bandwidth is often used as a synonym for data transfer rate – the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period (usually a second). This kind of bandwidth is usually expressed in bits (of data) per second (bps). Occasionally, it's expressed as bytes per second (Bps). A modem that works at 57,600 bps hastwice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps. In general, a link with a high bandwidth is one that may be able to carry enough information to sustain the succession of images in a video presentation. ...

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the basic communication language or protocol of the Internet. Originally designed for the UNIX operating system, TCP/IP software is now available for every major kind of computer operating system. To be truly on the Internet, your computer must have TCP/IP software.

TCP/IP is a two-layer program. The higher layer, Transmission Control Protocol, manages the assembling of a message or file into smaller packets that are transmitted over the Internet and received by a TCP layer that reassembles the packets into the original message. The lower layer, Internet Protocol, handles the address part of each packet so that it gets to the right destination. Each gateway computer on the network checks this address to see where to forward the message. Even though some packets from the same message are routed differently than others, they’ll be reassembled at the destination. ...