What is the difference between a router and a bridge?
Some basic differences are bridge is layer 2 and router is layer 3 and broadcasts do not cross routers. Bridge – A bridge is used to connect two or more similar segments together (for example, Token-Ring to Token-Ring or Ethernet to Ethernet). A bridge has two purposes. The first is to extend the length and number of stations that a segment can support. Secondly, the bridge reduces overall traffic flow by only passing data packets that are not destined for a hardware address on a local segment. All broadcast and multicast traffic must cross a bridge – since no true destination can be known. In recent years, bridging technology has been used between dissimilar media (for example, Ethernet to FDDI), this sometimes may cause problems as we will see later. A bridge is considered an intelligent device. Router – Sometimes called a gateway, it is used to connect two or more (potentially extended) segments. The seg ments may be similar or dissimilar. Routing information beyond the hardware add
