Talk:Medium access control

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Computing: Networking C‑class Mid‑importance

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Telecommunications C‑class Mid‑importance

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This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.

Is it and Address?

An adress is a descriptor that describes a location within a framework. If one has knowledge of the framework and its rules, the address is sufficient to locate something. This is not true of a MAC. Despite its common usage, a MAC is not an address. it is an identifier, and a reasonable attempt at a globally unique one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Enkidofriend (talk • contribs) 21:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Media or Medium Access Control Layer?

The correct form as used in the standards is "MEDIA access control". Whether that's correct grammatically is up for debate in some forum (fora?) perhaps - but not here please.--Snori 19:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

i was confused by that too - are we talking of the same thing? i am looking for an explanation of the medium access control (MAC) sub-layer as in:

http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/files/ECMA-ST/ECMA-392.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.156.182.86 (talk) 01:52, 17 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've searched the IEEE 802.3 (2012) standard and see a handful of "Medium access control" instances and hundreds of "Media access control" instances. I propose we go with the later which would mean renaming the article. ~Kvng (talk) 14:50, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, IEEE 802 (2014) says "medium access control" more than it says "media access control", as does IEEE 802.11 (2016). I propose we ask somebody at the IEEE which we should use. :-) Guy Harris (talk) 20:53, 28 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you're serious, I do have contacts in IEEE Standards that I could ask about this. WP:TITLE basically says we should go by what readers are likely to be most familiar with. On Wikipedia I see 70 instances of "Medium access control" and 180 for "Media access control". On Google, results are more evenly split. ~Kvng (talk) 16:39, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Medium" denotes an individual node, whereas "Media" indicates multiple nodes. While it is not incorrect to say "medium" in this context, it is improper. Referring to the "Media Access Control" or "MAC" sublayer is to properly mention its function: to talk to the "media" (as in "many mediums"). I have worked in IT and have held multiple industry certifications, and this is the first time I've seen the single-case word "Medium" used in the name. 71.125.11.157 (talk) 19:56, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Medium" denotes an individual medium ("The materials or empty space through which signals, waves or forces pass."), whereas "Media" indicates multiple media (plural of medium). A medium, such as a thick yellow cable, may have multiple hosts attached to it as nodes. Guy Harris (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is what I said. Yes, a "medium" is an individual piece of material or other such item (wave, signal, etc) that the signal passes to/through/from. Media is the industry term for the collection of items which pass the signal, thus it is known as the Media Access Control layer. For reference, please look at Comptia and Cisco's certifications. Here's information from Professor Messer: https://www.professormesser.com/network-plus/n10-007/access-control/ I hope this helps. 71.125.11.157 (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Checksum verification in the MAC sublayer?

I felt certain before reading this article that all forms of reliability insurance measures were the alotted responsibility of the Logical Link Control sublayer of the Data link layer, rather than of the MAC layer. If I'm right, shouldn't the point on error detection and correction by means of checksum verification belong in the article on the Logical Link Control sublayer?

- Dominio

I think I found the precise information. See my contrib. Regards. Gtabary 13:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the checksum verification is actually one of the things that the MAC layer DOES do. See 802.3-2002 section 4.1.4. Why do people keep saying that the MAC address is handled in the MAC layer? That is WRONG. It is handled much higher, in the ARP cache. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.96.165.138 (talk) 14:19, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added the FCS verification back, and the IEEE reference again. Bentogoa keeps deleting it. Apparently he wants everyone to think that a MAC is just a MAC address.

Function of MAC (controller)

The statement "the MAC address is not actually handled in the MAC layer" seems suspect. Is there a reference for this? I have seen hardware that directly contradicts this (Look at the altera TSE which runs at 1G for instance). Also letting the hardware handle address filtering doesn't preclude the use of software ARP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.215.48.7 (talk) 15:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress which affects this page. Please participate at Talk:Logical Link Control - Requested move and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 03:21, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Connection-oriented or connectionless?

I generally think of lower layer protocols (e.g. those in data link and network layers; physical?) being connectionless and higher level ones (transport to application layer) being connection-oriented, but I could be wrong. I am just saying in general. WorldQuestioneer (talk) 22:08, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And what are you suggesting may need to be changed in the article to reflect that? Guy Harris (talk) 22:35, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]