network segment

networking A part of an Ethernet or other network, on

which all message traffic is common to all nodes, i.e. it is

broadcast from one node on the segment and received by all

others. This is normally because the segment is a single

continuous conductor, though it may include repeaters(?).

Since all nodes share the physical medium, collisiondetection or some other protocol is required to determine

whether a message was transmitted without interference from

other nodes. The receiving node inspects the destination

address of a packet to tell if it was (one of) the intended

recipient(s).

Communication between nodes on different segments is via one

or more routers.

(1996-10-16)