What is a potential consequence of using unmanaged switches in a network?

Using unmanaged switches in a network can lead to increased traffic congestion due to their lack of intelligent traffic management features. Unmanaged switches operate by simply forwarding incoming data packets to all connected devices (broadcasting), without any filtering or prioritization. This results in all devices receiving the same data, regardless of whether they need it, which can significantly increase the overall traffic on the network.

Moreover, unmanaged switches do not support features such as VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) or Quality of Service (QoS), which are essential for managing bandwidth and controlling traffic flows. Without these features, the network can easily become overwhelmed by broadcast traffic, especially in environments with many devices, leading to degraded performance and increased latency. Thus, the absence of these management capabilities in unmanaged switches is what contributes to the potential for heightened congestion in network traffic.