NETGEAR FS562, Installation Manual, Page: 13 / 50

Installation Guide for the Model FS562 and Model FS566 Fiber Switches
Introduction 1-3
The Model FS562/FS566 switch can be used to partition a 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps network to
enhance the capacity of the network to support advanced applications. In addition, the switch
provides a link between traditional 10 Mbps networks and faster 100 Mbps networks. By installing
a Model FS562/FS566 switch, a user can connect any 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps device to the switch
without worrying about the running speed of the device. The Model FS562/FS566 switch provides
a built-in upgrade path; you can remove a 10 Mbps connection and replace the connection with a
100 Mbps connection with little or no change to the rest of the network.
The Model FS562/FS566 switch can be effectively used to join multiple 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet
segments and to extend the reach of the network. Copper-based Fast Ethernet networks have a
network diameter of up to 200 meters. The Model FS562/FS566 switch can be used to join these
200-meter segments to enable them to function as a single logical network. With one Model
FS562/FS566 switch, the reach extends to 400 meters. With two switches, the reach extends to
2 kilometers (km) when both switches are operating at full-duplex. For an illustration of using the
switch to extend a network, refer to Figure 3-3 on page 3-4.
Because the Model FS562/FS566 switch is an ISO media access control (MAC) layer device, the
switch is network protocol independent and compatible with all popular networks such as the
Internet or TCP/IP, NetWare, DECnet, Microsoft
®
NETBEUI, and LANTASTIC.
Features
The Model FS562/FS566 switch has the following key features:
• Six automatic speed-sensing (autosensing) 10/100 Mbps UTP ports to provide fast information
exchange, resource sharing, and client or peer-to-peer communication using simple Category 5
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable
• Two (Model FS562 switch) or six (Model FS566 switch) 100BASE-FX Fast Ethernet fiber
ports
• Automatic address-learning function to build the packet-forwarding information table
The table contains up to 4,000 MAC addresses (that is, the switch can support networks with
as many as 4,000 devices).