Learning Bridge

A learning bridge has all the capabilities of a basic bridge, but it has one advantage. A learning bridge reduces (to some degree) the ammount of broadcast traffic on the LANs. A learning bridge listens to all frames in the two LAN segments just as a basic bridge does and learns where each physcial address is located. The learning bridge makes a list of the physical addresses and which port they are connected to. Because it stores each frame as it receives it, it then forwards frames selectively based on the LAN to which that physical address is located. Whenever the learning bridge encounters a frame containing a physical address it does not know, it forwards that frame out all other ports to the other LANs.