Bandwidth utilization of a large local area network

DECnet Area 2, a local area network (LAN) that is part of Digital Equipment´s worldwide Easynet, is described. It is comprised of several baseband Ethernet segments connected by local Ethernet repeaters and standard LAN Bridge 100 devices, which extend a LAN. Measurements carried out to determine whether the capacity of the Ethernet had been reached or exceeded are discussed. The measurements showed that the bandwidth was not reached or exceeded. They also showed that the measured traffic load and the numbers of devices connected to the Ethernet did not pose traffic throughput problems to the user community. In addition, it was found that a larger LAN configuration could be achieved by using Ethernet bridges and taking advantage of address filtering, which distributes and thus reduces traffic loads on specific segments.<>