When upgrading your traditional 10Mbps Ethernet network or extending your 100Mbps Fast Ethernet network, switches are required, the AT-FS232 switch provides the ideal solution. The AT-FS232 will connect any two copper networks - irrespective of speed, and allow any copper network to be extended over a Fast Ethernet fiber link up to distances of 100km. Many new backbone switch products now support the industry standard IEEE 802.1Q specification for VLANs (Virtual LANs), which requires extra long data packets to be sent on the network. The AT-FS232 switch has been designed to be fully compatible with these long packets, allowing them to be used in modern networks. Switches not supporting this feature will discard these extra long packets, making them unsuitable for modern networks. The switches can be used almost anywhere due to their small physical size and external power supply. Alternatively, they can be mounted in a chassis along with Allied Telesis' media converters. This allows users to construct any mix of network conversions, with the additional option of a redundant power supply. The Missing Link feature allows the ports on the media converter to pass the "Link" status of their connections to each other. When the media converter detects a problem with one of the ports, such as the loss of connection to a node, it shuts down the connection to the other port, thus notifying the node that the connection has been lost. The value to this type of network monitoring and fault notification is that some hubs and switches can be configured to take a specific action in the event of the loss of connection on a port. In some cases, the unit can be configured to seek a redundant path to a disconnected end-node or send out a trap to a network management station alerting the network administrator of the problem. The Smart Missing Link mode is one step advance from the Missing Link mode. In SML mode, a downstream Link LED is forced to blink to indicate the link status of the local section is OK, but at the section where the physical link is down, the Link LED will be forced off. This special feature is useful in determining where the actual link is down and where the link is still good.