High speed bridges for high speed local area networks: packets per second vs. bits per second

Packet delays imposed by state-of-the-art bridges are compared to delays imposed by the high-speed local area network (HSLAN) itself. The communication system for three different types of internet traffic, namely file transfer, interactive traffic, and a mixture of both is discussed. The analysis shows that even for long transmission medium, service capabilities of the HSLAN will not be the bottleneck but that, bridges available today generally are not able to process packets as fast as they can be forwarded by the HSLAN.<>