Which statement is true about network hubs and switches?

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Multiple Choice

Which statement is true about network hubs and switches?

The important idea is how traffic is forwarded. Hubs act as simple repeaters at the physical layer and don’t inspect or learn frame addresses; they broadcast every incoming frame to all ports in the same collision domain. Switches, by contrast, operate at the data-link layer and learn which MAC addresses are reachable on which ports; they forward frames only to the port that leads to the destination MAC. If the destination MAC is not yet known, the switch floods the frame to all ports to locate the destination, but once the MAC table is populated, framing is sent directly to the correct port. This combination—switches forwarding based on MAC addresses while hubs broadcast to all ports—best matches how these devices actually behave. The other statements misstate one device: a hub does not forward by MAC addresses, a switch does not always broadcast to all ports, and a hub is not an application-layer device.

The important idea is how traffic is forwarded. Hubs act as simple repeaters at the physical layer and don’t inspect or learn frame addresses; they broadcast every incoming frame to all ports in the same collision domain. Switches, by contrast, operate at the data-link layer and learn which MAC addresses are reachable on which ports; they forward frames only to the port that leads to the destination MAC. If the destination MAC is not yet known, the switch floods the frame to all ports to locate the destination, but once the MAC table is populated, framing is sent directly to the correct port. This combination—switches forwarding based on MAC addresses while hubs broadcast to all ports—best matches how these devices actually behave. The other statements misstate one device: a hub does not forward by MAC addresses, a switch does not always broadcast to all ports, and a hub is not an application-layer device.

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