What is Ethernet?

   Ethernet was designed by Bob Metcalfe in 1973, it is a standard communications protocol embedded in software and hardware devices, intended for building a local area network (LAN). Ethernet is the most widely-installed local area network (LAN) technology. Specified in a standard, IEEE 802.3, Ethernet was originally developed by Xerox from an earlier specification called Alohanet (for the Palo Alto Research Center Aloha network) and then developed further by Xerox, DEC, and Intel. It includes Standard Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet.

Standard Ethernet

   At early stage of Ethernet, it has only 10Mbps throughput per hour called standard Ethernet. Ethernet can transmission through thick coaxial, thin coaxial cable, unshielded twisted pair, shielded twisted pair and fiber optic and so on. It developed a different physical layer standard for different transmission media under the IEEE 802.3 Standard.

Fast Ethernet

   With the development of the network, the standard Ethernet has been difficult to meet the needs of the growing network data speed. In 1995, IEEE announced IEEE802.3u 100base-T standard that is Fast Ethernet. The speed of transmission can reach to 100Mbps.Fast Ethernet has three subclasses:100BASE－TX ,100BASE－FX,100BASE－T4.

Gigabit Ethernet

   Gigabit Ethernet is a term describing various technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second, as defined by the IEEE 802.3-2008 standard. It came into use beginning in 1999, gradually supplanting Fast Ethernet in wired local networks where it performed considerably faster.

10 Gigabit Ethernet

   The 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard was first published in 2002.It defines a version of Ethernet with a nominal data rate of 10 Gbit/s, ten times faster than Gigabit Ethernet .As of 2009 10Gb Ethernet is replacing 1Gb as the backbone network and has begun to migrate down to high-end server systems.

40/100 Gigabit Ethernet

   40/100 Gigabit Ethernet are high-speed computer network standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE),They support sending Ethernet frames at 40 and 100 gigabits per second over multiple 10 Gbit/s or 25 Gbit/s lanes.
   
    All in all, Ethernet is a protocol that controls the way data is transmitted over a local area network (LAN) .With the development and evolution of Ethernet; it became the internet's key technology. Despite Ethernet's old age, developers continue to improve the technology. Today, the technology continues to power majority of the world's local area networks. The evolution continues to meet the needs of the ever-increasing demand for networking performance in the future.