Serial hubs allow the transparent connectivity of serial devices such as industrial instruments, point-of-sale (POS) terminals, and barcode printers with local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs). The hub plugs into a USB port on the computer and provides four or more USB ports for peripherals. The peripherals themselves may also contain hubs. For example, a monitor may have a built-in USB hub in order to provide a convenient desktop location for plugging in other devices. USB hubs are available with either 4 ports or 7 ports. To connect serial devices to a USB port on a PC, a USB to serial connection is needed, which can be established using USB serial adapters. Serial hubs support many different serial communication protocols. Examples include an RS232, RS422 and RS485. A user can connect hubs in serial to expand a network and provide easy connectivity for plugging in other devices. A serial port server enables adding serial ports to a system. It transfers data between a computer’s serial port (COM port) and an Ethernet local area network (LAN). Serial hubs are used by applications to access network-based serial devices as if they are locally attached.