Here are the answers to the exercise questions:
1. In a point-to-point network with N computers, each computer needs to be connected to every other computer with a dedicated link. The total number of links required is the number of ways of choosing an ordered pair of computers out of N computers, which is N(N-1). Since each link connects two computers, the total number of links is N(N-1)/2 = (N2-N)/2.
2. For bus topology, if a station breaks, all communication on the segment is disrupted. For star topology, only the broken station is affected, other stations can still communicate. For ring topology, the ring is broken and no station after