Assignment:
1. State three advantages of an Ethernet-based metropolitan area network over a SONET-based metropolitan area network.
2. Which type of network application requires more elaborate software: connection-oriented or connectionless? Explain.
3. Create an analogy similar to the telephone call/sending-a-letter scenarios that demonstrates the differences between connection-oriented and connectionless network applications.
4. Explain the difference between a network node and a network station.
5. Does a datagram network require any setup time before a packet is transmitted? If so, when and how often?
6. Does a virtual circuit network require any setup time before a packet is transmitted? If so, when and how often?
Thinking Outside the Box #4
One form of congestion avoidance is the permit system, in which a node must have a permit before it can transmit. Suppose a wide area network is using a permit system to control suggestion. What happens if, for some unknown reason, all the permits disappear? How can this event be detected? How can this event be repaired?