Signal Topology

The mapping of the actual connections between the nodes
of a network, as evidenced by the path that the signals
take when propagating between the nodes.Note: The term 'signal topology' is often used
synonymously with the term 'logical topology', however,
some confusion may result from this practice in certain
situations since, by definition, the term 'logical
topology' refers to the apparent path that the data
takes between nodes in a network while the term 'signal
topology' generally refers to the actual path that the
signals (e.g., optical, electrical, electromagnetic,
etc.) take when propagating between nodes.ExampleIn an 802.4 Token Bus network, the physical topology may
be a physical bus, a physical star, or a hybrid physical
topology, while the signal topology is a bus (i.e., the
electrical signal propagates to all nodes simultaneously
[ignoring propagation delays and network latency] ), and
the logical topology is a ring (i.e., the data flows
from one node to the next in a circular manner according
to the protocol).