Networking basics Four lessons with no technical background: what a network and its devices are, the layers that organise how devices talk, the cables that carry the signal, and the addresses each device is known by.
Lessons 0 Overview Four lessons with no technical background: what a network and its devices are, the layers that organise how devices talk, the cables that carry the signal, and the addresses each device is known by. 1 What is a network? Devices, kinds and measures From zero: devices connected and exchanging data by agreed rules. You meet the kinds and shapes of networks, their devices, and the difference between speed and delay. 2 Layers: the OSI and TCP/IP models and encapsulation Why communication is split into layers, what each of the seven does, and how your message is wrapped in headers going down and unwrapped going up. You try it yourself in the layer explorer and the packet builder. 3 Cables and the physical layer: copper, fibre and Ethernet Everything above it depends on it: how data becomes electricity, light or radio waves, how Cat5e, Cat6 and Cat6A differ, when to pick fibre, why the 100 metre limit exists, what frame Ethernet carries, and how to read the port lights before you suspect anything else. 4 Addresses: IP, MAC, ARP and IPv6 Every device has two addresses: a fixed MAC in its card, and an IP that changes with the network. You learn to read IPv4 in binary, private and public addresses, how ARP joins the two, then IPv6, now half the internet. 5 Wrap-up and resources The takeaways and glossary of this track.