EtherType values are also used in Subnetwork Access Protocol (SNAP) headers.Įthernet is widely used in homes and industry, and interworks well with wireless Wi-Fi technologies. The 48-bit MAC address was adopted by other IEEE 802 networking standards, including IEEE 802.11 ( Wi-Fi), as well as by FDDI. Per the OSI model, Ethernet provides services up to and including the data link layer. Each frame contains source and destination addresses, and error-checking data so that damaged frames can be detected and discarded most often, higher-layer protocols trigger retransmission of lost frames. Systems communicating over Ethernet divide a stream of data into shorter pieces called frames. The Ethernet standards include several wiring and signaling variants of the OSI physical layer. Over the course of its history, Ethernet data transfer rates have been increased from the original 2.94 Mbit/s to the latest 400 Gbit/s, with rates up to 1.6 Tbit/s under development. More modern Ethernet variants use use twisted pair and fiber optic links in conjunction with switches. This was largely superseded by 10BASE2, which used a thinner and more flexible cable that was easier to use.

The original 10BASE5 Ethernet uses a thick coaxial cable as a shared medium. Over time, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies such as Token Ring, FDDI and ARCNET.

Ethernet has since been refined to support higher bit rates, a greater number of nodes, and longer link distances, but retains much backward compatibility. It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1983 as IEEE 802.3.

Symbol used by Apple on some devices to denote an Ethernet connectionĮthernet ( / ˈ iː θ ər n ɛ t/) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN).

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