Hiya Mike,
On 19-10-97, whilst lying in the gutter of the information super highway, I 
heard Mike Bilow whispering to Bernhard Kuemel about Home Network,
 MB> apart (unless an intermediate repeater is used).  The general
 MB> Ethernet rule that there cannot be more than three repeaters between
 MB> any two nodes applies here.
Can you point me to a reference for this? I know it's right but we have a 
customer who insist's you can daisy chain forever and won't believe that's 
his prob. We're blowed if we can find a technical reference to prove the 
point.
 BK>> How many ports do such concentrators have? 8?
 MB> Concentrators are available as small as 4 ports and as large as 32
 MB> ports.  All concentrators can be "cascaded," either with a special
36 on a big Bay hub.
 BK>> How much do they cost and how much the cables?
 MB> In the U.S., we see small 4-port or 5-port concentrators for about
 MB> US$50.  A decent 16-port concentrator would cost about US$200.  More
 MB> expensive options can be obtained, including stackability, remote
 MB> SNMP management, and eventually store-and-forward switching, running
 MB> the price up to US$2000.
3Com PS40 Port switched hubs with SNMP and Transcend are currently around the 
300 pound mark which usually does a straight dollar-pound translation. Quite 
snappy boxes as well.
  /| /        neil.croft@pillarbox.coracle.com
 / |/eil =o)        2:250/410 @ fidonet
  http://osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/~ca5cru/fido/pbox.html
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