Collaborative computing/Broadcast vs. point-to-point links

Broadcast links and point-to-point links are two types of transmission technologies that are in widespread use. Point-to-point links is a connection between individual pairs of machines. In this connection, a short message from the source to the destination is sent which is called a “packet”. This packet may have to visit one or more intermediate machines before it reaches the destination, therefore finding good routes within the network is important in point-to-point transmission. A point-to-point transmission with one sender and one receiver is called unicasting. Broadcast links is in contrast a communication channel that is shared by all the machines in the network. The difference between point-to-point and broadcast, is that in broadcast networks, the packets are sent by any machine and received by all the other machines.

Reference: Tannenbaum, A.S. (2010). Computer Networks (5. ed.). Pearson.