About this interactive
What a repeater does, from the lesson:
- A signal is ones and zeros, power on and power off. Over distance it degrades and picks up interference until the far device cannot read it. Copper Ethernet runs about 100 meters; fiber much further.
- A repeater takes the signal in before it weakens too far and sends a clean copy out the other side. That extends the network. Undersea fiber has repeaters spaced along it for the same reason.
- It works at Layer 1: it reads no addresses, so it cannot choose where traffic goes, join different networks, or block anything.
What you'll learn
- Decide whether a repeater solves a network problem: it does when a signal degrades over distance, and does not when the problem needs addresses, routing, filtering or a working cable
- Explain a repeater as a Layer 1 device that takes in a weakening signal and sends a clean copy on, extending the link
Aligned to
CompTIA Network+
1.2
Compare and contrast networking appliances, applications, and functions.
Key terms
- Repeater
- A Layer 1 network device that receives a weakened signal and reconstructs it to extend the transmission distance of a network connection.
- Attenuation
- The gradual degradation of a signal's strength and clarity as it travels over a physical medium across distance.
- Physical Layer
- Layer 1 of the OSI model, responsible for the transmission of raw bits over a physical medium.
Topics
Repeater
Attenuation
Layer 1
Physical Layer
Interactive
Streak Sort
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