Now that you understand what a transmission medium is, we will discuss ways in which devices are connected, both physically and electronically, so that they can communicate with each other. First, we will look at how guided transmission media are commonly connected physically to form the physical topology of a local area network. Then, we will examine three logical topologies, the electronic schemes used to connect network devices.
Physical topology is the physical layout of the guided transmission media.
The most common physical topologies are the bus, the star, and the star-wired ring. When the trunk cable is installed, it is run from area to area and device to device close enough to each device so that all devices can be connected to it with short drop cables and T-connectors. The distributed bus topology is illustrated in Figure 6. The simplest form of the physical star topology consists of multiple cables one for each network device attached to a single, central connection device. The simplest form of the physical star topology is illustrated in Figure 7.