Question

How does a mac protocol in wireless differ from wired?

Answer 1

It’s interesting that one would say this, considering that wired protocols came first. You then have to ask yourself, why were MACs included? I mean, they actually serve no purpose — don’t tell your CS teacher that or they’ll have a cow. A MAC address pretty much announces itself before it gets an IP address. The IDing computer could very well use a random string of numbers before the initial IP is assigned and it would’ve been less trouble to implement. MACs aren’t permanent as iPhones randomly change them with every wifi connection — I think Androids do too. MACs exist solely to propagate the 7-layer networking scheme, which isn’t really required for networking and there are many less complex and more beneficial schemes out there.