The data-link layer at Alice's computer communicates with the data-link layer at router
R2. The data-link layer at router R2 communicates with the data-link layer at router R4,and so on. Finally, the data-link layer at router R7 communicates with the data-link
layer at Bob's computer. Only one data-link layer is involved at the source or the destination, but two data-link layers are involved at each router. The reason is that Alice's
and Bob's computers are each connected to a single network, but each router takes
input from one network and sends output to another network. Note that although
switches are also involved in the data-link-layer communication, for simplicity we have
not shown them in the figure.