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Collisions and Detection
When a device on an Ethernet network begins transmitting data,
the data takes a finite amount of time to reach all hosts on the network.
Because of this delay, or latency, in transmitting traffic, a device
might detect an idle state on the wire just as another device initially
begins its transmission. As a result, two devices might send traffic
across a single wire at the same time. When the two electrical signals
collide, they become scrambled so that both transmissions are effectively
lost.
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