What is CSMA/CA?

CSMA/CA stands for Carrier-Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance and is a media access method very similar to CSMA/CD. The difference is that the CD (collision detection) is changed to CA (collision avoidance). Instead of detecting and reacting to collisions, CSMA/CA tries to avoid them by having each computer signal its intention to transmit before actually transmitting. In effect, the transmitting computer gives a 'heads up' prior to transmitting.

Although CSMA/CA can prevent collisions, it comes with a cost in the form of the additional overhead incurred by having each workstation broadcast it's intention prior to transmitting. Thus, CSMA/CA is slower than CSMA./CD.