CompTIA A+ Lesson 4: Comparing Local Networking Hardware

A network technician used a tool that energizes each wire in a cable. When the technician sent energy to some of the wires, the LED on the tool did not light up. What tool was the technician using?

Toner probe

Tone generator

Cable tester

Loopback plug

Cable Tester

The technician was using a cable tester, which is a pair of devices that attach to each end of a cable and energize each wire in the cable to test if the wire is conducting a signal.

A wireless network technician is upgrading the access points in a conference center to provide better Wi-Fi connectivity during conferences. What standard will provide connectivity to the most clients?

MU-MIMO

Wi-Fi 5

OFDMA

Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) can support up to eight clients, giving it better performance in congested areas. Wi-Fi 6 also adds support for uplink MU-MIMO and OFDMA.

A technician is assisting the CISO in wirelessly transferring data between their smart watch and their corporate PC. As the CISO's request uses two devices in close proximity, what network method has a limited range?

Wi-Fi

LAN

PAN

WLAN

PAN

A personal area network (PAN) refers to using wireless connectivity to connect to devices at a range of a few meters and can be used to share data between a PC and mobile devices and wearable technology devices, such as smartwatches.

A network technician is installing a device with an inductor that will copy all the traffic coming through the cable to a monitor port. What type of device is the technician installing?

SMF

MMF

Active TAP

Passive TAP

Passive TAP

The technician is installing a passive test access point (TAP) which is a box with ports for incoming and outgoing network cabling that physically copies the signal from the cabling to a monitor port.

A college that has several campuses located in different parts of the city has hired a network technician. What type of network will the technician most likely be working on?

LAN

Wi-Fi

MAN

WAN

MAN

The network technician will be working on a metropolitan area network (MAN), which can be a company with multiple connected networks within the same metropolitan area.

A network technician is upgrading the wireless network so that it can take advantage of "multiple input multiple output" (MIMO) to increase reliability and bandwidth. What standard is the technician upgrading the wireless network to?

802.11n

802.11g

802.11b

802.11a

802.11n

The technician is upgrading the wireless network to 802.11n which uses MIMO to increase reliability and bandwidth by multiplexing signal streams from 2–3 separate antennas.

A network technician needs to replace a broken Ethernet cable. What connector will the technician use to terminate the new cable that is also known as 8P8C?

F-type

RJ-45

SC

LC

RJ-45

Modular RJ-45 connectors terminate twisted pair cabling for Ethernet. RJ45 connectors are also known as "8P8C," standing for eight-position/eight-contact.

A technician is able to use the standard adapter built into a computer's motherboard to connect to the company's network using a patch cable. What kind of network is the company using?

Bluetooth

Gigabit Ethernet

Fiber optic

Wi-Fi

Gigabit Ethernet

The company is using Gigabit Ethernet as many PC motherboards have a built-in 1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet compatible adapter.

A company hired a network technician to manage the part of their network that is based on the 802.11 standard. What type of network will the technician be managing?

LAN

Wi-Fi

MAN

WAN

Wi-Fi

The technician will be managing the Wi-Fi portion of the company’s network. Most Wi-Fi networks are based on the IEEE 802.11 series of standards.

A small company hired a network technician to upgrade its network. Surprisingly the company was still using a legacy hardware device that configures a network into a star topology. What device was this?

Managed switch

PoE-enabled switch

Hub

Patch panel

HUB

The company was using a hub, which is a legacy network hardware device that configured networks in what is referred to as a "star topology" because each end system is cabled to a concentrator (the hub).

An organization located on a large piece of rural property needs to connect its office building on the north side of the property with its warehouse and shipping operation on the south side of the property. The organization decides to connect the locations using long-range fixed wireless. What frequency spectrum must the organization use to ensure that nobody else can use the same frequency band?

Unlicensed

Licensed

802.11ax

DFS

Licensed

A licensed frequency spectrum means that the organization purchases the exclusive right to use a frequency band within a given geographical area from the regulator.

All the employees in a lawyer’s office communicate with the internet and each other through the same appliance. What kind of network is the office using?

SOHO

Zigbee

PAN

MAN

SOHO

The office uses a small office home office (SOHO) LAN, which is a business-oriented network using a single networking appliance to provide LAN and internet connectivity.

A network technician is trying to locate a box of Cat 6A UTP cable in a closet full of unmarked boxes with different types of cabling in them. How will the technician be able to tell which box contains Cat 6A UTP cabling? (Select all that apply.)

The words “twisted pair cable” is on the cable jacket.

The TIA/EIA standard is on the cable jacket.

The Cat specification is on the cable jacket.

The cable type is on the cable jacket.

The Cat specification is on the cable jacket.

The technician can locate the cable by looking at the cable jacket since manufacturers print the Cat specification on the cable jacket. The technician would find "CAT 6A" on the cable jacket.

The cable type is on the cable jacket.

The technician will locate the cable by looking at the cable jacket because manufacturers print the cable type, such as unshielded twisted pair (UTP) or foiled/unshielded twisted pair (F/UTP) on the cable jacket.

A network technician needs to deploy a computer on an Ethernet network and notices that the computer will sit on a shelf directly under a fluorescent light. What type of cable will the technician use?

STP

UTP

Coax

Fiber optic

STP

The technician will use shielded twisted pair (STP) which provides extra protection against interferences in environments with high levels of external interference, such as fluorescent lighting.

A network technician sets up the wireless network in such a way that each client device connects to the network via an access point (AP). What type of configuration is this?

Frequency bands

Infrastructure mode

DFS

Channels

Infrastructure mode

Infrastructure mode means that the technician configures each client device (station) to connect to the network via an access point (AP).

An administrator needs to supply power to a handset through the switch; however, the switch does not support Power over Ethernet (PoE). How can the administrator solve this problem?

A managed switch

An unmanaged switch

A power injector

A hub

A power injector

If a switch does not support PoE, the administrator can use a device called a "power injector." The administrator connects one port on the injector to the switch port and the other port to the device.

A network technician is connecting a computer to the network using Ethernet. How is the physical connection to the cable made?

Using the MAC address

Using the RJ45 port

Using a patch panel

Using PoE

Using the RJ45 port

In Ethernet communications, a RJ45 port in the computer's network interface card (NIC) establishes the physical connection to the cable.

A network technician is upgrading a legacy network for a small business and is replacing their legacy hub with a device that learns MAC addresses and uses them to forward frames to only the destination port, rather than sending them out to every port. What kind of device is the technician replacing the hub with?

NIC

Patch panel

PoE

Switch

Switch

The technician replaces the hub with a switch that tracks MAC addresses for each of its ports and uses learned MAC addresses to forward frames to the destination port only.

A network technician is upgrading a grocery store’s checkout lines with contactless payment devices. What type of wireless technology are the payment devices based on?

802.11a

Bluetooth

RFID

NFC

NFC

The payment devices are based on near-field communications (NFC), which can work as both tag and reader to exchange information with other NFC devices.

A company hired an administrator to manage their computers that host the employees’ shared resources and applications. What kind of computers will the administrator manage?

Client

SAN

Server

Datacenter

Server

The administrator will manage the company’s server computers. A company dedicates a server computer to running network applications and hosting shared resources.