View Source: Ethernet - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A local area network first described by Metcalfe & Boggs of Xerox PARC in 1976.  Also known as IEEE 802.3

Data is broken into frames and each one is transmitted using the [CSMA/CD] algorithm until it arrives at the destination without colliding with any other packet.  A station is either transmitting or receiving or idle at any instant.  Newer equipment supports full-duplex, where a station can transmit acknowledgments without halting a receive.  Full duplex requires a switch with support, rather than a hub.  The bandwidth is from 10 Mbit/s (ethernet) to 100 Mbit/s (fast ethernet) to 1000 Mbit/s (gigabit ethernet.)  Some time ago, a 10 Gbit/s ethernet standard was agreed upon, and it is now (2002) possible to buy commercial equipment for this. Somewhere.

Ethernet cables are classified as "XbaseY", e.g. [10Base5], where X is the data rate in Mbps, "base" means "baseband" (as opposed to radio frequency) and Y was originally the maximum cable run from end to end (500m for [10Base5], nearly 200m for [10Base2], 100m for [10BaseT]), but the introduction of Fibre and [1000BaseT], the T more seems to refer to Twisted Pair these days.  The original cable was [10Base5] ("full spec"), others are [10Base2] and [10BaseT] which is now (2002) dissappearing.  [100BaseT] is the desktop standard, and [1000BaseT] is quite reasonable for servers.

Ethernet is at LAYER TWO - DATA LINK LAYER of the OSI model.

See Also
* [10Base2]
* [10Base5]
* [10BaseT]
* [100BaseT]
* [1000BaseT]
* [CSMA/CD]
* [OSIModel]
* [XeroxPARC]
* [EthernetSwitch]
* [EthernetRepeater]
* [EthernetBridge]
* [EthernetHub]

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Part of CategoryNetworking

36 pages link to Ethernet:

Last edited on Wednesday, October 15, 2003 4:46:36 pm by CraigBox

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