A device for connecting nodes to a LAN (see first write-up). An Ethernet hub, or repeater, sends traffic to all attached stations, which have to share access. All stations detect a collision. A Token Ring hub, on the other hand, passes the token to each node.

A hub is a relatively cheap way to connect nodes while keeping cabling simple. However, they are still shared-access, so performance will degrade with as the number of nodes becomes larger.