Institute of Inf. Tech. - Informatikai intézet

Communication structures refers to the layout of the existing communication groups and channels.

We would like to introduce the four best known types of these layouts:

point-point: this is the most straightforward. It only involves two participants. It may be ’simplex’, which means that only one of the participants communicates (therefore the process is only a one-way process).

It may be ’full-duplex’, which means that the communication partners can equally send information to each other (for example Skype, or Hangouts where the participants can talk simultaneously).

Star-structure: in this case the whole process is controlled by a main unit and the other participants have to use this main unit in order to communicate with each other.

Nowadays modern routers and Wifi works in this way.

Bus structure: the participants have to send their messages through a shared channel (bus). Only one participant can send message at a time; the others have to wait until the transmission is complete.

Tree structure: almost the same as a bus structure, but the whole layout consists of hierarchy levels as well.

Of course mixed configurations are also well-known in these communication layouts.