BUFFERED REPEATER WITH INDEPENDENT ETHERNET COLLISION DOMAINS

A repeater device (205, 206, 208) for forwarding a data packet from a first Ethernet collision domain to a second Ethernet collision domain has a plurality of ports (204B, B-2, B-3, B-4), each port for connection to an independent Ethernet collision domain, each port has an associated receive buffer and a transmit buffer of a transmitting port (210, 212, 214, 216) . A data packet received at the receiving port is then first stored in that port 's receive buffer, is forwarded to the transmit buffer of the transmitting port , and is then transmitted from the transmit buffer by the transmitting port.