What Is Ethernet?
Ethernet technology provides rules that allow network-connected devices to talk to
one another without talking over each other. In a verbal conversation, when two
people speak at the same time, each may have difficulty understanding what the
other is saying. This is amplified when, say, 10 people are talking at once. Imagine
100 or 1000 at once.
The same is true for a data network. If two or more connected devices on a shared
network attempt to transmit data packets at the same time, a packet collision occurs.
The pulses of electricity or photons that make up a packet overlap when sent at the
same time over a shared copper or optical cable. This jumbles the sequence of "on"
pulses and "off" voids that are sent to indicate the bits and bytes of 1s and 0s that
make up a packet.
Ethernet was designed to solve the problem of packet collision. It provides network
devices with a set of rules that essentially says: "Make sure no one else is talking
before you talk. If you hear someone talking while you're talking, stop, listen, and
wait for the talking to end before you talk again."
Ethernet is commonly associated with connected devices in a wired LAN or WAN.
Using a wired Ethernet cable, devices are connected to an Ethernet switch.
Ethernet has the ability to use both wired and fiber cables, delivering not only data
but also power, now up to 90W with UPOE+.
More formally, Ethernet is a common name for the IEEE 802.3 standard based on
the Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol.
CSMA/CD defines when to transmit and what is to happen if a collision is detected,
as well as endpoint addressing, transmission speeds, and media. Ethernet has
evolved dramatically since its first application. Today it's the de facto protocol for IP-
based networks.
Where did Ethernet originate?
The concept of Ethernet has its roots in the late 1960s and the University of Hawaii's
Aloha Network. Aloha was a pioneering, experimental radio-communications network
connecting the Hawaiian Islands to a central time-shared computer on the main
campus, in Oahu.
Aloha was often referred to as one of the first wireless packet networks. It used two
radio frequencies, separating send and receive data that passed between user
terminals and the main hub connected to the computer. Designed for simplicity, the
network followed these rules:
Send a packet when you're ready and wait for a receipt
acknowledgement.
If no acknowledgement occurs, resend at some random time.
As use of the network grew, it became obvious that packet collision would severely
limit the capacity of the network as designed. Researching the problem for his
doctoral thesis, a young computer science student, Bob Metcalfe, devised a solution.
His innovation earned him not only his Harvard Ph.D. but a place in history as the
inventor of Ethernet. Metcalfe's solution: Listen before you talk.
In 1972, Metcalfe took Ethernet from idea to fruition with the first experimental
Ethernet system, created at Xerox PARC. The network had an initial speed of 2.94
Mbps and linked Xerox Altos mainframes, servers, and printers using inexpensive
coaxial cable.
At the time, Ethernet competed with Token Ring, ARCnet, Fiber Distributed Data
Interface (FDDI), and other proprietary protocols. It quickly rose to dominance as it
was open and reliable, yet inexpensive. Today, it supports speeds from 1 Mbps to
400 Gbps and beyond.
When was the Ethernet standard created?
Ethernet was formalized in 1983 as the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard. It is one of 12
in the IEEE 802 family of variable-size packet LAN standards. IEEE 802 services
and protocols focus on the physical and data link layers of a network. In the Open
Systems Interconnection (OSI) networking model, those layers are known as Layer 1
and Layer 2, respectively.
Based on the addressing scheme used in early implementations of Ethernet, the
IEEE 802 standards use Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, which are unique
identifiers typically assigned to endpoint access hardware by device manufacturers.
The most significant part of a MAC address identifies the manufacturer, which
assigns the remainder of the address, potentially providing a unique address. This
makes it possible for frames to be delivered within a network that interconnects
sender and receiver through some combination of Ethernet switches.
Routers are used to pass packets between networks and use IP addresses rather
than MAC addresses to tag packets' origination and destination points. Using the
U.S. Postal Service as an analogy, IP addresses are like ZIP codes, while MAC
addresses are like street addresses or post office boxes.
What are Ethernet frames?
In an Ethernet network, data is broken into packets, with each packet transmitted
using the CSMA/CD algorithm until it arrives at its destination without colliding with
any other packet. The first open slot after a transmission is reserved for an
acknowledge packet. A device or node is either transmitting or receiving at any
instant.
When sending data to another device on an Ethernet network, the MAC sublayer
(data link sublayer):
Encapsulates higher-level frames into frames appropriate for the
transmission medium
Adds a frame check sequence to identify transmission errors
Forwards the data to the physical layer as soon as the CSMA/CD
protocol permits, waiting as necessary to avoid collisions.
Is responsible for compensating for collisions by starting retransmission
when a collision (jam signal) is detected.
When receiving data from the physical layer, the frame check sequence in the MAC
block is used to ensure data integrity. It strips off the sender's Ethernet-packet
preamble and padding before passing the data to the higher layers.
The Ethernet switch creates the frame by encapsulating the Ethernet packet with a
preamble, which is used to synchronize the sender and receiver, followed by a 1-
octet start-frame delimiter byte.
The Ethernet packet includes the data encapsulated by a header and a frame check
value. The MAC header provides the source and destination MAC addresses as well
as a 2-octet EtherType code indicating IPv4 or IPv6, MACsec encryption, etc. The
frame ends with a frame check sequence (FCS), which is a 32-bit cyclic redundancy
check used to detect any in-transit corruption of data.
What is a CSMA/CD protocol?
When a frame is ready, the transmitting station checks to see whether the channel is
idle or busy. If the channel is busy, the station waits until the channel becomes idle.
If the channel is idle, the station starts transmitting and continually monitors the
channel to detect collision
