Ethernet

Hi Guys,

Myself and a friend on my course were discussing Ethernet and we are a little unsure of what ethernet actually is.

It it a technology or is it a protocol? Or can it be named both interchangably depending on the situation?

As it defines the rules of the data link layer 802.3 but it also is referred to as a technology which can be used in LANs MANs and WANs

Thanks

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Comments

JavonR

I would say ethernet is more so a protocol then anything else.

Daniel333

Wikipedia has a great description...

Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs). It defines a number of wiring and signaling standards for the Physical Layer of the OSI networking model, through means of network access at the Media Access Control (MAC)/Data Link Layer, and a common addressing format.

Talic

Ethernet is a standard, just like Daniel's wiki article describes, it sets the standard for wiring and signaling. If you compare it to something like Token ring that moves data around differently, which requires different hardware and sends data in a different way. So it's more then just a protocol, since protocols are just software.

Slowhand

Cisco also offers a great overview of Ethernet on their documentation site.