The invention relates to a method and a device for acquiring
electronic information about transmission speeds between nodes of an acyclical network, in particular of an IEEE 1394
bus network, precisely one transmission link being present between in each case two of the nodes of the network, and a respective
PHY transmission speed of the transmission link being determined by a minimum value of
PHY speeds of the nodes of the network
lying on the transmission link, in the case of the method the respective
PHY transmission speed being determined for one subset of the transmission links in the network by acquiring the PHY speeds of the nodes
lying on the transmission links and electronically acquiring minimum values of the PHY speeds; and the respective PHY transmission speed being electronically acquired for another subset of the transmission links, which is different from the one subset of transmission links, on the basis of one of the PHY speeds which have been determined for the nodes
lying on the transmission links of the one subset, and electronic
topology information about a topology of the network being electronically acquired using optimization means which are formed in a node of the network. The device is provided for carrying out the method.