Media Access Control

What Does Media Access Control Mean?

Media access control (MAC) is a sublayer of the data link layer (DLL) in the seven-layer OSI network reference model. MAC is responsible for the transmission of data packets to and from the network-interface card, and to and from another remotely shared channel.

Techopedia Explains Media Access Control

The basic function of MAC is to provide an addressing mechanism and channel access so that each node available on a network can communicate with other nodes available on the same or other networks. Sometimes people refer to this as the MAC layer.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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