Dictionary.net

A local area network first described byMetcalfe & Boggs of Xerox PARC in 1976. Specified by DEC,Intel and XEROX (DIX) as IEEE 802.3 and now recognisedas the industry standard.Data is broken into packets and each one is transmittedusing the CSMA/CD algorithm until it arrives at thedestination without colliding with any other packet. Thefirst contention slot after a transmission is reserved foran acknowledge packet. A node is either transmitting orreceiving at any instant. The bandwidth is about 10 Mbit/s.Disk-Ethernet-Disk transfer rate with TCP/IP is typically 30kilobyte per second.Version 2 specifies that collision detect of the transceivermust be activated during the inter-packet gap and that whentransmission finishes, the differential transmit lines aredriven to 0V (half step). It also specifies some networkmanagement functions such as reporting collisions, retriesand deferrals.Ethernet cables are classified as "XbaseY", e.g. 10base5,where X is the data rate in Mbps, "base" means "baseband" (as opposed to radio frequency) and Y is the category ofcabling. The original cable was 10base5 ("full spec"),others are 10base2 ("thinnet") and 10baseT ("twistedpair") which is now (1998) very common. 100baseT ("FastEthernet") is also increasingly common.Usenet newsgroup: news:comp.dcom.lans.ethernet. (http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/ethernet/ethernet-home.html).