Learn Computer Networking Fundamentals: 67 Flashcards on Cabling, Hardware and Network Topologies
Deck SF3034 promises OSI and TCP/IP but teaches cabling, switches, routers and topologies. Here is what the 67 cards really cover, plus the layers to add.
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Deck SF3034 — "Networking: OSI, TCP/IP & Protocols" has 67 cards, and the first thing to know is that the title oversells two of its three topics. The OSI model is named in four cards ("layers 1 and 2", "layer 2", "the lower three layers") but its seven layers are never listed. TCP/IP gets exactly two cards. What the deck actually delivers — and delivers well — is the physical foundation of networking: transmission media, the hardware boxes, packet switching, topologies, and the PAN-to-WAN size ladder. Study it as a hardware-and-cabling deck and it becomes a solid CompTIA Network+ warm-up.
Study this deck: Networking: OSI, TCP/IP & Protocols
1 / 10Computer network
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
What the cards actually look like
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Three main types of transmission media for computer networks | Electrical cable, optical fiber, and free space (wireless) |
| Twisted pair cabling and why are the wires twisted | 4 pairs of copper wires; twisting reduces crosstalk and electromagnetic induction |
| Size of an Ethernet MAC address | Six octets, with the three most significant octets identifying the NIC manufacturer |
| Network bridges and switches differ from hubs | They only forward frames to the ports involved; a hub forwards to all ports |
| Router | Forwards packets between networks using routing tables, without broadcasting |
| Key difference between routing and bridging | Routing assumes structured addresses where similar addresses imply proximity; bridging uses unstructured MAC addresses |
| Wave division multiplexing in optical fiber | Multiple data streams on different wavelengths of light, pushing rates to trillions of bits per second |
| Ring network topology | Each node connects to its left and right neighbor; used by Token Ring and FDDI |
| At what altitude are geosynchronous satellites stationed? | 35,400 km (22,000 miles) above the equator |
| Most striking example of an overlay network | The Internet itself, initially built as an overlay on the telephone network |
The notions you will actually walk away with
Coaxial, UTP and STP category ratings, single-mode vs multi-mode fiber, terrestrial microwave and its 40-mile line-of-sight relays, IEEE 802.3, 802.11, 802.1D spanning tree and 802.1Q VLANs, NICs and MAC addresses, repeaters, the Ethernet 5-4-3 rule, hubs, bridges, switches, routers, modems, firewalls, protocol stacks, network packets and their control information, MTU and fragmentation, packet switching vs circuit switching, routing tables, SONET, ATM cells, bus / star / ring / mesh topologies, overlay networks, and the full scale ladder: PAN, LAN, SAN, CAN, backbone, MAN, WAN. Plus a genuinely good history block — Licklider's Intergalactic Computer Network (1962-63), the NPL network's 768 kbit/s packet switching in 1968-69, Metcalfe and Boggs inventing Ethernet at Xerox PARC in 1973 after ALOHAnet, and Datapoint's token-passing ARCNET in 1976.
Two fixes before your first session
Write the seven OSI layers yourself. The deck assumes them without teaching them. Add seven cards (physical, data link, network, transport, session, presentation, application) and four more for TCP vs UDP, the three-way handshake, common port numbers, and IPv4 vs IPv6 addressing. Those are the exam items the deck's title promised and skipped.
Rewrite the 5-4-3 card. Its back says the rule limits repeater count to prevent propagation delay, but never says what 5, 4 and 3 stand for: 5 segments, 4 repeaters, 3 populated segments. Put the numbers in the answer or the card teaches nothing.
Two smaller things: card 8 tracks Ethernet to 800 Gbit/s as of 2025 while card 60 caps LANs at 100 Gbit/s from 2010 — both true, different scopes, so review them back to back. And most fronts are truncated declaratives ("Router", "Modem", "Internet protocol suite also called"); treat them as fill-in-the-blank prompts and say the definition out loud before flipping.
Already through this one? Cloud Computing and DevOps is the natural next deck in the same category — it picks up exactly where SF3034's physical layer stops.
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