Bridge vs Crossover Cable – Differences Explained

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Is there a difference between a bridge and a crossover cable between two machines?

Best Answer

Yes. A crossover cable approximates a hub moreso than a bridge as the hub simply forwards all frames out of all ports. The bridge will keep a mac-address table or bridge table and will forward frames to only those ports that see traffic from said host.

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Ethernet – What’s the difference between an Ethernet cable and a UTP cable

The accurate answer is that they are not Ethernet cables. The cables themselves are not limited to transmitting Ethernet, nor is Ethernet restricted to using just UTP cables.

In the first case, they are often used with many different types of signaling, including as examples voice and serial.

In the second case, you can run Ethernet over coax, fiber, or shielded cables as well.

However, it is common for people to call them Ethernet cables as this is probably their most widely used purpose. So from a "connotation" standpoint, it isn't entirely inaccurate to call them Ethernet cables, especially when dealing with non-technical users.

Difference Between Client Mode and Independent Bridge in an AP

The difference between an independent bridge and a "client AP" is (poorly) explained in mode 5 description:

These units are wireless driverless clients.

It means that a terminal using an independent bridge does need to have a specific driver to be able to communicate with it (printers, Set-Top-Boxes and such). On the contrary, if you use an AP as a client, you might need to install the AP-specific driver on the computer using it.

As such, most of the time an independent bridge is more useful than an AP made client to connect wire-only devices to a wireless network.

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Related Solutions

Ethernet – What’s the difference between an Ethernet cable and a UTP cable

Difference Between Client Mode and Independent Bridge in an AP

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