Which networking device broadcasts every incoming frame to all connected devices?

Which networking device broadcasts every incoming frame to all connected devices?

• A. Router
• B. Switch
• C. Bridge
• D. Hub

Answer: (D)

A hub broadcasts every incoming frame to all connected devices because it acts as a simple physical-layer repeater. It doesn’t read or use any addressing information; when a frame arrives on one port, the hub repeats that signal out to every other port. This means every device on the same collision domain sees the frame, regardless of the destination MAC address. That behavior makes hubs simple but inefficient, since traffic is flooded to all hosts and collisions are common in shared Ethernet. In contrast, a switch (and a bridge) examines addresses and forwards frames only to the appropriate port, building a MAC address table to keep traffic localized and reduce unnecessary broadcasts. Routers operate at a higher layer and route between networks rather than simply rebroadcasting frames within a single segment. This is why the hub is the device described by the scenario.

A hub broadcasts every incoming frame to all connected devices because it acts as a simple physical-layer repeater. It doesn’t read or use any addressing information; when a frame arrives on one port, the hub repeats that signal out to every other port. This means every device on the same collision domain sees the frame, regardless of the destination MAC address. That behavior makes hubs simple but inefficient, since traffic is flooded to all hosts and collisions are common in shared Ethernet.

In contrast, a switch (and a bridge) examines addresses and forwards frames only to the appropriate port, building a MAC address table to keep traffic localized and reduce unnecessary broadcasts. Routers operate at a higher layer and route between networks rather than simply rebroadcasting frames within a single segment. This is why the hub is the device described by the scenario.