networking hardware networking hardware also known as network equipment or computer networking devices are physical devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network specifically they mediate data in a computer network units which are the last receiver or generate data are called hosts or data terminal equipment range networking devices may include gateways routers network bridges modems wireless access points networking cables line drivers switches hubs and repeaters and may also include hybrid network devices such as multilayer switches protocol converters bridge routers proxy servers firewalls network address translators multiplexers network interface controllers wireless network interface controllers isdn terminal adapters and other related hardware the most common kind of networking hardware today is a copperbased ethernet adapter which is a standard inclusion on most modern computer systems wireless networking has become increasingly popular especially for portable and handheld devices other networking hardware used in computers includes data center equipment such as file servers database servers and storage areas network services such as dns dhcp email etc as well as devices which assure content delivery taking a wider view mobile phones pdas and even modern coffee machines may also be considered networking hardware as technology advances and ipbased networks are integrated into building infrastructure and household utilities network hardware will become an ambiguous term owing to the vastly increasing number of network capable endpoints specific devices typical core network devices include gateway an interface providing a compatibility between networks by converting transmission speeds protocols codes or security measures router a networking device that forwards data packets between computer networks routers perform the traffic directing functions on the internet a data packet is typically forwarded from one router to another through the networks that constitute the internetwork until it reaches its destination node switch a device that connects devices together on a computer network by using packet switching to receive process and forward data to the destination device unlike less advanced network hubs a network switch forwards data only to one or multiple devices that need to receive it rather than broadcasting the same data out of each of its ports it works on osi layer 2 bridge a device that connects multiple network segments it works on osi layers 1 and 2 repeater an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it at a higher level or higher power or onto the other side of an obstruction so that the signal can cover longer distances repeater hub for connecting multiple ethernet devices together and making them act as a single network segment it has multiple inputoutput io ports in which a signal introduced at the input of any port appears at the output of every port except the original incoming repeater hubs also participate in collision detection forwarding a jam signal to all ports if it detects a collision hubs are now largely obsolete having been replaced by network switches except in very old installations or specialized applications hybrid network devices include multilayer switch a switch that in addition to switching on osi layer 2 provides functionality at higher protocol layers protocol converter a hardware device that converts between two different types of transmission for interoperation bridge router brouter a device that works as a bridge and as a router the brouter routes packets for known protocols and simply forwards all other packets as a bridge would hardware or software components which typically sit on the connection point of different networks for example between an internal network and an external network include proxy server computer network service which allows clients to make indirect network connections to other network services firewall a piece of hardware or software put on the network to prevent some communications forbidden by the network policy network address translator nat network service provided as hardware or as software that converts internal to external network addresses and vice versa other hardware devices used for establishing networks or dialup connections include multiplexer a device that selects only one signal from several electrical input signals network interface controller nic a device connecting a computer to a wirebased computer network wireless network interface controller a device connecting the attached computer to a radiobased computer network modem device that modulates an analog carrier signal such as sound to encode digital information and that also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information used for example when a computer communicates with another computer over a telephone network isdn terminal adapter ta a specialized gateway for isdn line driver a device to increase transmission distance by amplifying the signal used in baseband networks only computer hardware data circuitterminating equipment list of networking hardware vendors node networking residential gateway telecommunications equipment wikimedia commons has media related to network hardware usf explanation of network hardware vtemajor fields of computer sciencenote this template roughly follows the 2012 acm computing classification systemhardware printed circuit board peripheral integrated circuit very large scale integration systems on chip socs energy consumption green computing electronic design automation hardware acceleration computer systemsorganization computer architecture embedded system realtime computing dependability networks network architecture network protocol network components network scheduler network performance evaluation network service software organization interpreter middleware virtual machine operating system software quality 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