What Is A Bus Topology?

Date First Published: 23rd May 2022

Topic: Computer Networking

Subtopic: Network Setups

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

CONTENTS

Advantages and Disadvantages Of A Bus Topology

Learn more about what a bus topology is in this article.

A bus topology, also known as a line topology, is an older type of network topology where all nodes of the network are directly connected to a central cable, known as a backbone or a bus. This central cable connects all the nodes to each other and terminators are at the end of the cable and data travels through the network backbone until it reaches the correct node.

Note:

The word ‘bus’ in bus topology refers to the cable that all the nodes connect to and share data. A node on a bus topology is referred to as a ‘station’ and all stations have an equal transmission priority.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of A Bus Topology

The advantages of a bus topology are:

It provides an easy way of connecting more nodes to the network, since they can be added by joining additional cables.
It is suitable for small networks due to its simple design.
It is cheaper, since, unlike a star topology, less cabling is required.

The disadvantages of a bus topology are:

If the central cable breaks down or experiences a failure, it will cause all the nodes to be disconnected.
Since data is half-duplex, meaning that it cannot be sent in both directions at the same time, this network topology is unsuitable for networks with large amounts of traffic. They are used when a cheap and temporary network is required that does not require a high data transfer rate.
It can be harder to identify issues that individual devices are experiencing.
Terminators are required at each end of the central cable.