Quote:
Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26
I assume your asking about my statement that token ring is antiquated?
Only in that it lost... my understanding (I may be misinformed) is that in the late 80's and early 90's token Ring and Ethernet were at odds... a little like Beta Max and VHS for lack of a better example. Token ring might have actually been the better solution (Betamax) as it had the potential to provide bigger packets which would mean less processing and therefore congestion at switches etc.. for more throughput data. But it lost the battle to Ethernet, not because of proprietary greed, but because Ethernet technology out paced Token in technological advancements... due to those tech advancements Ethernet is the clear standard... using token ring now would be cumbersome and costly as the technology is not there to support it.
Again I have bits and pieces... its been awhile since I took school on this but I believe when you say Hybrid fiber-coax you are talking about the physical layer and not the network layer where I believe topology falls... not quite the same. ... I think... lol, you may be talking the transport layer actually... bah...\
DSL works on a different topology and perhaps shaw has never changed just due to logistics... DSL connections go directly to each home from the demarcation point. There is no adverse affect from your neighbor downloading the bit torrent Jenna Jameson freeleech pack. It does not affect you and once the data hits the the fiber optic demarcation point there is no chance its maxing out the network capacity. This is the point in where the study comes into play. Technology has allowed the existing physical layer on the backbone of these large networks to handle way more data than they could have on that same fiber a few years ago. Cable will always be burst faster but never be as consistent.
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This is a superb introduction to DOCSIS technology, and an absolute must read if you have any interest in networking at all:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news...net-access.ars
I bet you had no idea your TCP/IP packets are travelling inside a QAM encoded VIDEO stream..that's right, your internet access comes to you via a digital video signal!