I will try to explain how the OSI model works so that it
is easier to understand for those that have trouble with
the concept. Think of communications in terms of people.
Each person that you talk to is like a computer with its
own capacity to compute and / or calculate information.
If I speak directly with you and share information, that
is like a peer to peer network. There really isn't
any "hardware" at the physical layer involved to conduct
this activity unless you were a beautiful woman, in which
case I might have to use my hardware to communicate to you
my thoughts.
Needless to say, however, think of regular communications
between people as being similar to a wireless network.
It's communicating across a medium that we can't see. When
I speak to you on the phone though, we are still
communication over a phone network that involved telephone
lines, telephones, switches, etc.
We speak in analog
frequencies and the phone company takes care of the rest
to convert this communication to digital through a phone
switch and then converts it back to analog on your end to
relay it to your phone.
While speaking to each other might represent a peer-to-
peer network, if I were to ask you a question and you
didn't know the answer, you might ask someone else. Then,
that person might say "I don't know, but I will get you
the answer." This relaying of information down the line
to get ME an answer is similar to a computer network. The
problem here is that with humans the information shared
between hosts (people) can change from person to person.
That is why network protocols are very important as it
relates to packet transfer. Protocols define the rules so
that information...