Ethernet is a frame-based computer network technology, originally developed at Xerox in the early 70s. The standard definitions - which are at layers 1 and 2 of the good old OSI 7-layer model, and so cover the frame format, electical properties and signalling - are part of the IEEE 802.3 family.

While the gory details of ethernet are beyond the remit of this forum, a few salient points are highlighted:

• When most people think of "ethernet", they think of Cat 5 UTP network connections in a home or office environment. However, the ethernet protocol may utilise a large range of carrier media, including Cat 5 UTP cabling, co-axial cable (now largely obsolete), and optical fibre links.

• The ethernet protocol may operate at 10Mb/s, 100Mb/s and 1Gb/s. 10Gb/s services are now becoming common in high performance environments. While the technology of each of these speeds and media differs, the Ethernet frame format remains common to them all.

• Ethernet is generally used as a Local Area Network (LAN) technology, however it is occasionally deployed in a wide-area environment, with links of tens of kilometers.

• Wireless LAN technology is often referred to as "Wireless Ethernet" - however it utilises a different - albeit similar - frame format, as defined by IEEE 802.11. Therefore, this is not strictly Ethernet.

See Also

• Art-Net
• Pathport
• Architecture for Control Networks (ACN)

External Links

• Wikipedia article on Ethernet