Which circuit type connects many devices on the same shared circuit, usually cheaper but with multiple devices sharing the medium?

Which circuit type connects many devices on the same shared circuit, usually cheaper but with multiple devices sharing the medium?

• A. Multipoint circuit
• B. Point to Point circuit
• C. Star network
• D. Tree network

Answer: (A)

The key idea here is a shared medium where many devices are connected to the same circuit and all can access that single path. This is characteristic of a multipoint setup, often called a bus-like arrangement, where one cable serves multiple devices and devices tap into it rather than each having its own dedicated link. Because the medium is shared, the cost of wiring tends to be lower—you don’t run a separate cable for every device—and the trade-off is that bandwidth is shared among all users and collisions or contention can occur as more devices transmit. In contrast, a point-to-point circuit links only two endpoints with a dedicated path, so there’s no sharing of a common medium. A star network provides each device with a separate link to a central node (hub/switch), so the medium is not shared among all devices. A tree network is a hierarchical arrangement of such links, again not a single shared medium for all devices.

The key idea here is a shared medium where many devices are connected to the same circuit and all can access that single path. This is characteristic of a multipoint setup, often called a bus-like arrangement, where one cable serves multiple devices and devices tap into it rather than each having its own dedicated link. Because the medium is shared, the cost of wiring tends to be lower—you don’t run a separate cable for every device—and the trade-off is that bandwidth is shared among all users and collisions or contention can occur as more devices transmit.

In contrast, a point-to-point circuit links only two endpoints with a dedicated path, so there’s no sharing of a common medium. A star network provides each device with a separate link to a central node (hub/switch), so the medium is not shared among all devices. A tree network is a hierarchical arrangement of such links, again not a single shared medium for all devices.