The Ethernet Standards

Overview of Ethernet Standards

IEEE, short for Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is an institute that develops standards in many industries, and the Ethernet standards are developed by IEEE-SA, IEEE Standards Association. Today, IEEE 802.3 serves as the standard that defines Ethernet protocols, providing the foundation for modern wired network communications.

The goal of this standardization is to ensure equipments are compatible (inter-operation), so as to expand marketplace and benefit both manufacturers and consumers. Therefore, devices not specified within the IEEE 802.3 standard are typically vendor-specific.

IEEE Supplements

A letter designation is used to address different types of media and technologies used in Ethernet networks. For example:

Note that standards developing and publishing lags behind the innovation, especially in the field of computer networking. Therefore, it’s possible, and not necessarily a drawback, for a product to be built to draft standards.

IEEE Media System Identifiers

There are three key components of identifiers:

• Speed: indicates the data transmission rate, such as 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, or 1 Gbps
• Type of signaling: indicates the transmission method, such as baseband signaling or encoding schemes
• Physical medium: indicates the type of cable, such as twisted-pair, fiber optic, or coaxial cable

The following table provides a detailed breakdown of these identifiers and their meanings: