Chapter 4. Media Access Control Layer

This chapter provides a working description of Ethernet as defined by the IEEE 802.3 and ISO/IEC 8802.3 standards. Correctly speaking, Ethernet is not limited to the Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer, but instead encompasses the medium up through the MAC Control Layer (see Figure 4-1). This chapter summarizes Ethernet from the medium up through the MAC Layer—despite the chapter title being MAC Layer only. The chapter does not attempt to describe all the available technical details.

Figure 4-1. 802.3 Ethernet in relation to the OSI Model

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