Medium Access Control is the layer that controls the hardware responsible for direct interaction with the transmission medium.
Note
The transmission medium is the physical wire for a wired transmission or waves used for a wireless transmission.
It is introduced when multiple devices may want to access the same transmission medium, hence techniques like multiplexing or flow control are required.
Additionally, it will encapsulate higher level frames with a header and padding if needed appropriate for the transmission medium.
Multiple Access Protocols
There are a number of categories for Multiple Access Protocols, including: