Chapter 13

Wired LANs:
Ethernet

Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Permission required for reproduction or display.
 Chapter 5: Outline

13.1 ETHERNET PROTOCOL

13.2 STANDARD ETHERNET

13.3 FAST ETHERNET

13.4 GIGABIT ETHERNET

13.5 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET

 Chapter 13: Objective

 The first section discusses the Ethernet protocol in general. It

explains that IEEE Project 802 defines the LLC and MAC sub-
layers for all LANs including Ethernet. The section also lists the
four generations of Ethernet.

 The second section discusses the Standard Ethernet. The

section first describes some characteristics of the Standard
Ethernet. It then discusses the addressing mechanism, which is
the same in all Ethernet generations. The section next discusses
the access method, CSMA/ CD, which we discussed in Chapter
12. The section then reviews the efficiency of the Standard
Ethernet. It then shows the encoding and the implementation of
this generation.
 Chapter 13: Objective (continued)

 The third section describes the Fast Ethernet, the second

generation, which can still be seen in many places. The section
first describes the changes in the MAC sublayer. The section
then discusses the physical layer and the implementation of this
generation.

 The fourth section discusses the Gigabit Ethernet, with the rate
of 1 gigabit per second. The section first describes the MAC
sublayer. It then moves to the physical layer and
implementation.
 The fifth section touches on the 10 Gigabit Ethernet. This is a
new technology that can be used both for a backbone LAN or as
a MAN (metropolitan area network).
 13-1 ETHERNET PROTOCOL

The data-link layer and the

physical layer are the territory of
the local and wide area networks.
This means that when we discuss
these two layers, we are talking
about networks that are using
them. As we see in this and the
following two chapters, we can
have wired or wireless networks.
We discuss wired networks in this
13.5
 13.13.1 IEEE Project 802

In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE started a

project, called Project 802, to set standards to enable
intercommunication among equipment from a variety
of manufacturers.
Project 802 does not seek to replace any part of the
OSI model or TCP/IP protocol suite.
Instead, it is a way of specifying functions of the
physical layer and the data-link layer of major LAN
protocols.
The relationship of the 802 Standard to the TCP/IP
protocol suite is shown in Figure 13.13.

13.6
 Figure 13.1: IEEE standard for LANs

The IEEE has subdivided the data-link layer into two sublayers:
logical
link control (LLC) and media access control (MAC).
IEEE has also created several physical-layer standards for different
LAN protocols.

13.7
 13.13.2 Ethernet Evolution
The Ethernet LAN was developed in the 1970s by
Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs
Since then, it has gone through four generations:
Standard Ethernet (10 Mbps)
Fast Ethernet (100 Mbps)
Gigabit Ethernet (1 Gbps)
10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gbps).
 13-2 STANDARD ETHERNET

We refer to the original Ethernet

technology with the data rate of 10 Mbps
as the Standard Ethernet.
Although most implementations have
moved to other technologies in the
Ethernet evolution, there are some
features of the Standard Ethernet that
have not changed during the evolution.
We discuss this standard version first to
pave the way for understanding the other
13.9
 13.2.1 Characteristics

Characteristics of the Standard Ethernet.

•Connectionless and Unreliable Service.
•The Ethernet frame contains seven fields,
as shown in Figure 13.3

13.10
Figure 13.3: Ethernet frame

Preamble: alert the receiving system to the coming frame.

(SFD): a flag that defines the beginning of the frame. Ethernet frame is a variable-length frame
so It needs a flag to define the beginning of the frame.
Destination address (DA). contains the link layer address of the destination station.
Source address (SA): contains the link-layer address of the sender.
Type: defines the upper-layer protocol.
Data: carries data encapsulated from the upper-layer protocols.
CRC: contains error detection information.
In this case a CRC-32: The CRC is calculated over the addresses, types, and data field. If the
receiver calculates the CRC and finds that it is not zero (corruption in transmission), it discards the
frame.

Frame Length : Ethernet frame needs to have a minimum length of 512 bits or 64 bytes:
header and trailer (18 byte)
The minimum length of data from the upper layer is 64 − 18 = 46 bytes.
If the upper-layer packet is less than 46 bytes, padding is added to make up the difference.
 13.2.2 Addressing

Each station on an Ethernet network (such as a PC,

workstation, or printer) has its own network
interface card (NIC). The NIC fits inside the station
and provides the station with a link-layer address.
The Ethernet address is 6 bytes (48 bits), normally
written in hexadecimal notation, with a colon
between the bytes. For example, the following shows
an Ethernet MAC address:

13.12
Example 13.1
Show how the address 47:20:1B:2E:08:EE is sent out
online.
Solution
The address is sent left to right, byte by byte; for each byte,
it is sent right to left, bit by bit, as shown below:

13.13
 Figure 13.4: Unicast and multicast addresses

If the least significant bit of the first byte in a destination address is 0, the address is
unicast; otherwise, it is multicast.

with the way the bits are transmitted, the unicast/multicast bit is the first received bit.

The broadcast address is a special case of the multicast address (the recipients are all
the stations on the LAN).

13.14
Example 13.2
Define the type of the following destination addresses:
a.4A:30:10:21:10:1A
b.47:20:1B:2E:08:EE
c.FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF

Solution
To find the type of the address, we need to look at the
second hexadecimal digit from the left. If it is even, the
address is unicast. If it is odd, the address is multicast. If all
digits are Fs, the address is broadcast. Therefore, we have
the following:

13.15
Example 13.2 (continued)
a. This is a unicast address
because A in binary is 1010
(even).
number is even if its binary representation ends in a 0

b. This is a multicast address

because 7 in binary is 0111
(odd).
number is odd if its binary representation ends in a 1

c. This is a broadcast address

because all digits are Fs in
hexadecimal.

13.16
 Figure 13.5: Implementation of standard Ethernet
Transmission in the standard Ethernet is always broadcast.
how the actual unicast, multicast, and broadcast transmissions are distinguished from
each other?
Unicast: all stations receive the frame, the intended recipient keeps it; the rest discard
it.
Multicast: all stations receive the frame, the stations that are members of the group
keep it; the rest discard it.
In a broadcast transmission, all stations (except the sender) receive and keep the
frame.

13.17
 13.2.3 Access Method

Since the network that uses the standard Ethernet

protocol is a broadcast network, we need to use an
access method to control access to the sharing
medium.
The standard Ethernet chose CSMA/CD with 1-
persistent method, discussed earlier in Chapter 12,
Section 13.3.
Let us use a scenario to see how this method works
for the Ethernet protocol:
Assume station A in Figure 13.5 has a
frame to send to station D.

13.18
 Station A measures the level of energy on the medium to check whether
any other station is sending.
 If there is no signal energy on the medium, it means that no station is
sending (or the signal has not reached station A) Station A starts
sending its frame.
 If the signal energy level is not zero the medium is being used by
another station Station A continuously monitors the medium until it
becomes idle  It then starts sending the frame.
 Station A needs to keep a copy of the frame in its buffer until it is sure
that there is no collision.
 The medium sensing does not stop Station A needs to send and receive
continuously. Two cases may occur:
n Station A has sent 512 bits and no collision is sensed (the energy level did
not go above the regular energy level), the station then is sure that the
frame will go through and stops sensing the medium.
n Station A has sensed a collision one of the bits sent by A collided with a
bit sent by another station  both stations should refrain from sending
and keep the frame in their buffer for resending when the line becomes
available  to inform other stations that there is a collision, the station
sends a 48-bit jam signal to alert other stations about the collision  After
that, the stations need to increment the value of K (number of attempts).
If after increment K = 15,then the network is too busy, the station needs
to abort its effort and try again. If K < 15, the station can wait a backoff
 13.2.4 Efficiency of Standard Ethernet

The efficiency of the Ethernet is defined as the ratio

of the time used by a station to send data to the time
the medium is occupied by this station.

The practical efficiency of standard Ethernet has

been measured to be

parameter “a” is the number of frames that can fit on the

medium. It can be calculated as:
a = (propagation delay)/(transmission delay )

13.20
Example 13.3
In the Standard Ethernet with the transmission rate of 10
Mbps, we assume that the length of the medium is 2500 m
and the size of the frame is 512 bits. The propagation speed
of a signal in a cable is normally 2 × 108 m/s.

The example shows that a = 0.24, which means only 0.24 of

a frame occupies the whole medium in this case.
The efficiency is 39 percent, which is considered moderate;
it means that only 61 percent of the time the medium is
occupied but not used by a station.
13.21
 13.2.5 Implementation

The Standard Ethernet defined several

implementations, but only four of them became
popular during the 1980s. Table 13.1 shows a
summary of Standard Ethernet implementations.

13.22
 Table 13.1: Summary of Standard Ethernet
implementations

10BaseX:
•the number defines the data rate (10 Mbps)
•the term Base means baseband signal: which means that the bits are
changed to a digital signal and directly sent on the line.
•X approximately defines either the maximum size of the cable in 100
meters (for example 5 for 500 or 2 for 185 meters) or the type of cable, T
for unshielded twisted pair cable (UTP) and F for fiber-optic.

13.23
 Figure 13.6: Encoding in a Standard Ethernet

All standard implementations use digital signaling

(baseband) at 10 Mbps.
At the sender, data are converted to a digital signal
using the Manchester scheme.
At the receiver, the received signal is interpreted as
Manchester and decoded into data.

13.24
 Figure 13.7: 10Base5 implementation

10Base5 was the first Ethernet to use a bus topology with an external
transceiver connected via a tap to a thick coaxial cable.
The transceiver is responsible for transmitting, receiving, and
detecting collisions.
The transceiver is connected to the station via a transceiver cable
that provides separate paths for sending and receiving.
This means that collision can only happen in the coaxial cable.
The maximum length of the coaxial cable must not exceed 500 m.
13.25
 Figure 13.8: 10Base2 implementation

10Base2
also uses a bus topology, but the cable is much thinner and more flexible
than 10Base5.
The transceiver is normally part of the network interface card (NIC), which is
installed inside the station.
The collision occurs in the thin coaxial cable.
This implementation is more cost effective than 10Base5 because thin coaxial
cable is less expensive than thick coaxial and the tee connections are much
cheaper than taps. Installation is simpler because the thin coaxial cable is
very flexible.
 Figure 13.9: 10Base-T implementation

10Base-T or twisted-pair Ethernet:

Uses a physical star topology. The stations are connected to a hub via
two pairs of twisted cable (one for sending and one for
receiving) between the station and the hub.
Any collision here happens in the hub.
The maximum length of the twisted cable here is defined as 100 m.

13.27
 Figure 13.10: 10Base-F implementation

10Base-F
Uses a star topology to connect stations to a hub. The stations are
connected to the hub using two fiber-optic cables.

13.28
 13.2.6 Changes in the Standard

Before we discuss higher-rate Ethernet protocols, we

need to discuss the changes that occurred to the 10-
Mbps Standard Ethernet. These changes actually
opened the road to the evolution of the Ethernet to
become compatible with other high-data-rate LANs.

Bridged Ethernet.
Switched Ethernet.
Full-Duplex Ethernet.

13.29
 Figure 13.11: Sharing bandwidth

In an unbridged Ethernet network, the total capacity (10

Mbps) is shared among all stations

For example, if two stations have a lot of frames to send,

they probably alternate in usage. When one station is
sending, the other one refrains from sending. We can say
that, in this case, each station
on average sends at a rate of 5 Mbps.
13.30
 Figure 13.12: A network with and without bridging

A bridge divides the network into two or more networks.

Bandwidthwise, each network is independent.

a network with 12 stations is divided into two networks, each with 6

stations and a capacity of 10 Mbps.
The bridge acts as a station in each segment.
The 10-Mbps capacity in each segment is now shared between 7
stations, not 12 stations. (10/7 Mbps instead of 10/12 Mbps).

13.31
 Figure 13.13: Collision domains

The collision domain becomes

much smaller and the
probability of collision is
reduced
tremendously.

Without bridging, 12 stations

contend for access to the
medium;

With bridging only 3 stations

contend for access to the
medium.
13.32
 Figure 13.14: Switched Ethernet

Instead of having two to four networks, why not have N networks,

where N is the number of stations on the LAN?

layer-2 switch is an N-port bridge with additional sophistication

that allows faster handling of the packets.
The bandwidth is shared only between the station and the switch
(5 Mbps each).
The collision domain is divided into N domains.

13.33
 Figure 13.15: Full – duplex switched
Ethernet
full-duplex switched
Ethernet:
Using two links instead of
using one link between the
station and the switch; one to
transmit and one to receive.

It increases the capacity of

each domain from 10 to 20
No Need for CSMA/CD:
Mbps.
Each station is connected to the switch via two separate links
Each link is a point-to-point dedicated path between the station and
the switch. There is no longer a need for carrier sensing or collision
detection.
MAC Control Layer
In Standard Ethernet, There is no explicit flow or error control to
inform the sender that the frame has arrived at the destination
without error.
In full-duplex switched Ethernet, MAC control sublayer is added
between the LLC sublayer and the MAC sublayer to provide flow and
13.34
 13-3 FAST ETHERNET

In the 1990s, Ethernet made a big jump

by increasing the transmission rate to
100 Mbps, and the new generation was
called the Fast Ethernet.
The designers of the Fast Ethernet
needed to make it compatible with the
Standard Ethernet.
The MAC sublayer was left unchanged.
But the features of the Standard Ethernet
that depend on the transmission rate,
13.35
had to be changed.
 13.3.1 Access Method

We remember that the proper operation of the CSMA/CD

depends on the transmission rate, the minimum size of
the frame, and the maximum network length.
If we want to keep the minimum size of the frame, the
maximum length of the network should be changed.
In other words, if the minimum frame size is still 512
bits, and it is transmitted 10 times faster, the collision
needs to be detected 10 times sooner, which means the
maximum length of the network should be 10 times
shorter (the propagation speed does not change).

13.36
 13.3.2 Physical Layer

To be able to handle a 100 Mbps data rate,

several changes need to be made at the
physical layer.

Topology
To connect two stations  point-to-point.
Three or more stations star topology with a
hub or a switch at the center.

13.37
 Figure 13.16: Encoding for fast Ethernet

one scheme would not perform equally well for all three
implementations.
Therefore, three different encoding schemes were chosen
100Base-TX uses two 100Base-FX uses two 100Base-T4: Uses four
pairs of twisted-pair cable pairs of fiber-optic pairs of category 3 UTP for
(category 5 UTP or STP). cables. transmitting 100 Mbps.
4B/5B block coding is used NRZ-I is selected as one pair switches between
to provide bit encoding scheme. sending
synchronization. 4B/5B block encoding is and receiving.
This creates a data rate of used for synchronization, use 8B/6T scheme for
125 Mbps, which is fed into which increases the bit encoding
MLT-3 for encoding. rate from 100 to 125
Mbps,

13.38
 Table 13.2: Summary of Fast Ethernet
implementations

13.39
 13-4 GIGABIT ETHERNET

The need for an even higher data rate

resulted in the design of the Gigabit Ethernet
Protocol (1000 Mbps).
The IEEE committee calls it the Standard
802.3z.
The goals of the Gigabit Ethernet were to
upgrade the data rate to 1 Gbps, but keep
the address length, the frame format, and
the maximum and minimum frame length the
same.

13.40
 13.4.1 MAC Sublayer

A main consideration in the evolution of Ethernet was to keep the

MAC sublayer untouched. However, to achieve a data rate of 1 Gbps,
this was no longer possible.
Gigabit Ethernet has two distinctive approaches for medium access:
full-duplex: a central switch connected to all computers or other
switches. each switch has buffers store data until they are transmitted.
there is no collision (CSMA/CD is not used).
half-duplex: switch can be replaced by a hub, which acts as the common
cable in which a collision might occur.
Almost all implementations of Gigabit Ethernet follow the full-duplex
approach, so we mostly ignore the half-duplex mode.

13.41
 13.4.2 Physical Layer

The physical layer in Gigabit Ethernet is more

complicated than that in Standard or Fast Ethernet.
We briefly discuss some features of this layer.

Implementation:
Ethernet can be categorized as either a
two-wire or a four-wire implementation.

13.42
 Figure 13.17: Encoding in Gigabit Ethernet
The four-wire implementation uses 4
UTP cables. It is not possible to have 2
The two-wire implementations wires for input and 2 for output,
uses one wire (fiber or STP) for because each wire would need to carry
sending and one for receiving. 500 Mbps, which exceeds the capacity
for category 5 UTP.
For Coding: use NRZ scheme.
As a solution, 4D-PAM5 encoding is
Also use 8B/10B block encoding
used to reduce the bandwidth. Thus, all
to synchronize bits, which result
four wires are involved in both input
to 1.25 Gbps stream.
and output; each wire carries 250 Mbps,
which is in the range for category 5 UTP
cable.

13.43
 Table 13.3: Summary of Gigabit Ethernet
implementations

13.44
 13-5 10-GIGABIT EHTERNET

In recent years, there has been

another look into the Ethernet for
use in metropolitan areas. The
idea is to extend the technology,
the data rate, and the coverage
distance so that the Ethernet can
be used as LAN and MAN
(metropolitan area network). The
IEEE committee created 10
Gigabit Ethernet and called it
13.45
 13.5.1 Implementation

10 Gigabit Ethernet operates only in full-duplex

mode, which means there is no need for contention;
CSMA/CD is not used in 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Four
implementations are the most common:
10GBase-SR
10GBase-LR
10GBase-EW
10GBase-X4.
Table 13.4 shows a summary of the 10 Gigabit
Ethernet implementations.

13.46
 Table 13.4: Summary of 10-Gigabit Ethernet
implementations

13.47