thinQmaster Virtual testing partner Adaptive practice exams that find your weak spots and drill them. Every answer explained. From $69
Enroll

thinQmaster

Find your exam

Five questions free, before you decide.

Step 1 · choose a vendor

In one of our camps? Your practice exams come with the tuition — they are on your study page already.

Networking Fundamentals · Foundational

Full-Duplex

Communication in which a device sends and receives at the same time over separate paths, eliminating collisions.

Definition

Full duplex is the norm on switched Ethernet, effectively doubling aggregate capacity. Twisted-pair Gigabit Ethernet uses all four pairs bidirectionally with echo cancellation, and fiber uses separate strands or wavelengths for each direction. CSMA/CD is disabled in full-duplex mode.

Example

A 1 Gbps full-duplex link carries 1 Gbps in each direction simultaneously.

Exam tip

Full duplex means no collisions; any collisions indicate a problem.

Don't confuse it with

Related terms