Networking basics - Ethernet Fundamentals

Most of the traffic on the Internet originates and ends with Ethernet connections. From its beginning in the 1970s, Ethernet has evolved to meet the increasing demand for high speed LANs. When a new media was produced, such as optical fiber, Ethernet adapted to take advantage of the superior bandwidth and low error rate that fiber offers. Now, the same protocol that transported data at 3 Mbps in 1973 is carrying data at 10 Gbps.
The success of Ethernet is due to the following factors: Simplicity and ease of maintenance, Ability to incorporate new technologies, Reliability, Low cost of installation and upgrade
With the introduction of Gigabit Ethernet, what started as a LAN technology now extends out to distances that make Ethernet a metropolitan-area network (MAN) and wide-area network (WAN) standard.
The original idea for Ethernet grew out of the problem of allowing two or more hosts to use the same medium and prevent the signals from interfering with each other. This problem of multiple user access to a shared medium was studied in the early 1970s at the University of Hawaii. A system called Alohanet was developed to allow various stations on the Hawaiian Islands structured access to the shared radio frequency band in the atmosphere.  This work later formed the basis for the Ethernet access method known as CSMA/CD.
The first LAN in the world was the original version of Ethernet. Robert Metcalfe and his coworkers at Xerox designed it more than thirty years ago. The first Ethernet standard was published in 1980 by a consortium of Digital Equipment Company, Intel, and Xerox (DIX). Metcalfe wanted Ethernet to be a shared standard from which everyone could benefit, so it was released as an open standard. The first products developed using the Ethernet standard were sold during the early 1980s. Ethernet transmitted at up to 10 Mbps over thick coaxial cable up to a distance of two kilometers. This type of coaxial cable was referred to as thicknet and was about the width of a small finger.

Từ khóa: Networking basics, mạng cơ bản, kỹ thuật mạng, công nghệ mạng, Cisco Networking, Ethernet Fundamentals