Introducing Ethernet

Introducing Ethernet

Ethernet's origins begin with the Aloha Radio System, a packet satellite system developed at the University of Hawaii. Beginning in the late 1960s, the Aloha Radio System was designed to facilitate communication between the university's IBM mainframe, located on the island of Oahu, with card readers located among different islands and ships at sea. Work on the Aloha Radio System proved to be the foundation for most modern packet broadcast systems including Ethernet.

Ethernet as it is known today took shape in the 1970s as a research project at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Ethernet was eventually standardized by Digital, Intel, and Xerox in 1979, and harmonized with the international standard, IEEE 802.3, in 1982.

Modern LAN switched networks are based on the theory and operation of Ethernet. This section discusses the basic theory and operation of Ethernet. The initial version of Ethernet operated with a speed of 3 Mbps and used an algorithm called carrier sense multiple access collision detect (CSMA/CD) protocol to determine when a device could use the network. Ethernet is currently available in 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps (1 Gbps), and 10000 Mbps (10 Gbps).